“That same friend of yours makes merry a little later in the evening,” the landlord said, as he went to fill the wine cups. “To-morrow he is to take a bride.”
“Pig, do you suppose I do not know it?” Gonzales screeched. “Think you that I have been asleep these past few months? Was I not in the thick of it when Don Diego Vega played at being Señor Zorro?”
“You were in the thick of it,” the corporal admitted, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice.
“Ha!” cried the sergeant. “There was a turbulent time for you! Here in this very room I fought him, blade to blade, thinking that he was some stinking highwayman. And just as I was getting the better of it—”
“How is this?” the corporal shrieked.
“Just as I was getting the better of the blade match,” Gonzales reaffirmed, glaring at the corporal, “back he went and dashed through the door! And thereafter he set the town about its own ears for some time to come.”
“It occurs to me that I saw that fight,” the corporal declared. “If you were getting the best of it at any stage, then were mine eyes at fault.”
“I know a man,” said the sergeant, darkly, “who will do extra guard duty for a score of days.”
“Ha!” the corporal grunted. “You do not like plain speech!”
“I do not like a soldier to make mock of his superiors,” the sergeant replied. “It were unseemly for me to make remarks, for instance, concerning our commandante, Captain Ramón, but let it be said that he fought this Señor Zorro, too. And Captain Ramón wears on his forehead Zorro’s mark. You will notice that there is no carved Z on my face!”