“I have given my orders,” the lieutenant replied loftily.
“One last word for your ear!” Zorro said. “You are making a sad mistake. I tell you here and now, before some of your men, that this Captain Ramón is a renegade and a traitor. Heed not his advice! And ride swiftly, else you’ll not accomplish the rescue. I charge you to take the señorita to a place of safety.”
“Certainly, señor!”
“You’ll not let me ride with you?”
“I have given my orders.”
“Lieutenant, I swear by my honor as a caballero that all I have told you is the truth. Does that carry weight with you?”
It seemed to carry weight, for the officer hesitated. A caballero does not pledge his honor lightly. But how could it be possible that an officer like Captain Ramón could be anything but loyal and true. And Captain Ramón himself decided the lieutenant.
“For a caballero to swear by his honor is a great thing,” the captain said. “Yet now and then we find a man of caballero blood who forgets the honor that should be his. And we remember that you are Señor Zorro, also!”
“Señor—” Zorro began angrily.
But the lieutenant cut him short. “I have decided,” he said. “You will be held a prisoner in the maniac’s shirt until we return. Take him away!”