“I know that he walked the plank. And the fools thought that he was a ghost when he appeared here. But somebody must have saved him from the sea. He’s out there now, fighting. They will make a captive of him!”
The señorita’s heart beat wildly. Then it had been Zorro she had heard singing in the distance!
But in the next instant she told herself that it could not be. Zorro had walked the plank with a weight fastened to his wrists. The pirates were mistaken. It was some other caballero who looked like Señor Zorro, who fought as he fought, and acted as he acted.
She threw aside the momentary hope, and crept toward the woman Inez again. If the fight was going against the caballeros, if the pirates were to be victors, she had scant time.
The señorita began acting as she never acted before, and though she was new to the game, her woman’s intuition, her terror and her desperate need served her well.
“So the pirates are to win!” she said, laughing lightly. “And there will be a lot of ransom money and loot.”
“How is this?” Inez shrieked. “You, a prisoner, seem joyful that the rescue is not accomplished.”
“I am a prisoner—sí!” the señorita said. “But perhaps I shall be more soon.”
“What mean you?” the woman gasped.
“Perhaps it might have been in my mind that it would be better to have a real man than wed a gentleman of noble blood. Is it not peculiar that Barbados took me the night before my wedding?”