“So you raised a din and attracted our attention, and thus aided this Señor Zorro to escape!” Barbados accused. “It is in my mind that there must be some punishment for that.”
The caballeros turned from him again and began talking to one another once more as though Barbados had not addressed them. He growled a curse low down in his throat and took another step toward them, glaring ferociously.
“I have here a pack of cards properly shuffled,” Barbados said, his glare changing to a fiendish grin. “I’ll put them on this bench, and you prisoners will form into a line, walk past the bench, and each draw a card. The man who draws the first deuce will be the victim.”
“Victim of what?” one asked.
“Of torture!” Barbados roared. “The stake! Roasting! My men demand sport, and I am the one to give it to them. It is an even thing for you—the gods of chance will decide.”
“And suppose, señor,” said Don Audre Ruiz, stepping forward with a great deal of sarcasm and scorn in his manner, “that we do not care to play your game?”
“Ha! The solution of the difficulty is easy if you do not,” Barbados assured him. “In such case, since you seem to be the leader here, we’ll torture you and thereafter two others picked out at random.”
“Death is close behind you, pirate, if you do this thing!” Don Audre warned.
“But you will not be here to see it if you are roasted first,” the pirate chief reminded him. “Line up, prisoners! Do caballeros shake with fear at such a time?”