“Remember, Ramón belongs to me!” Zorro said. “Let us take him alive!”
Afoot, they dashed across the open space toward the edge of the fight. But they looked in vain for the commandante. He was not in his saddle, nor was he dead or wounded and on the ground.
“Find him!” Zorro cried. “He will be trying to get the señorita away!”
They ran toward the adobe buildings to commence their frantic search. They watched the slope, and the beach in either direction, half expecting to see the commandante carrying Señorita Lolita away on his horse.
“Find him! We must find him!” Zorro screeched. “With me, Audre, my friend! She may be in one of the burning huts—”
And so they rushed through the smoke, calling, searching, fear in their hearts.
Sergeant Gonzales was looking for his captain also. The sergeant told himself that he was in a quandary. His commander and his friend, it appeared, were fighting each other, and the sergeant could not be loyal to both.
He bellowed a challenge and engaged a pirate in combat, took his man, and rushed on. He dodged a charging trooper who almost ran him down, darted around one of the blazing huts, and came upon a scene.
Fray Felipe, attending the wounded, had risen from the ground beside one to find a pirate rushing toward him in flight. The man stumbled and fell headlong, and from the sash he wore about his middle there fell something that flashed and glittered in the sun. Fray Felipe gave a cry and rushed forward. He had seen his beloved sacred goblet!
There was no escape for the pirate. When he regained his feet he found the old fray standing before him.