Señor Zorro was more maniac than sane man as he dashed forward to follow. The fight swerved toward him. He sprang up and grasped a soldier, pulled him out of the saddle, sprang into the saddle himself, and gave chase.
Out of the clouds of smoke he rode, to see the commandante and his prisoner a short distance to the left. In the smoke Captain Ramón had lost his bearings for a moment.
Señor Zorro shrieked a challenge, whirled his horse, and took after his foe. Ramón found that he could not get up the slope without meeting Zorro and having a clash with him—the thing he most wanted to avoid. Desperate, he whirled his horse and charged back into the smoke again, thinking to outwit his pursuer.
Suddenly he found himself in the thick of the fighting. Again he whirled his horse. The frightened steed refused to answer rein or pressure of knees, refused to spring forward at the cruel touch of spurs. The smoke swirled away on a breath of breeze. And Captain Ramón found himself inside a ring of caballeros, two of whom were holding his horse, another reaching to help the señorita down, others reaching up to seize him.
Señor Zorro came to a stop within a few feet of him, and dismounted swiftly, a grim look in his face.
“Down, renegade!” Zorro commanded.
Captain Ramón, in the face of such an emergency, could appear calm, though he was not. He sneered, lifted his brows as though in wonder, and slowly got from the saddle. Once he looked straight at Zorro, and then around the circle.
The fighting was at an end. What pirates had not been slain were captives. Barbados, himself a captive, stood to one side under guard. The lieutenant and his troopers were coming forward.
Ramón called to the officer. “Here is your Señor Zorro!” he shouted. “In some strange manner he has escaped the presidio. Seize him and see that he does not escape again!”
The lieutenant gave a quick command, and some of the troopers dismounted and started forward. But they found before them a line of determined caballeros with ready swords.