“Too good to speak to me, are you, proud one?” he sneered. “You may have another tune to chant before many days, after you have met the man for whom you were stolen. Is there anything you want or need?”
The señorita’s face flushed, but she faced him bravely. “I want your absence—and deeply feel the need of it!” she replied.
“By my naked blade! Were it not that you are to be handed over to another, I’d take it upon myself to tame you!” Barbados declared. “Ha! Deliver me from proud wenches with their noses in the air!”
He fastened the smoking torch to a wall, went out and slammed the door behind him, and Señorita Lolita heard a heavy bar being dropped into place. For a moment she stood in the middle of the cabin, her hands clutching spasmodically at her breast, and then she went over to the bunk, inspected it, and finally crawled upon it and sat cross-legged, staring at the opposite wall.
The ship was old, the floor worn and full of holes, and the walls had cracks in them. From one side came a stench, as though supplies had been stored in the space adjoining, and had spoiled. Through the porthole she could see the black night.
The horror of her situation was heavily upon her now. She seemed to fully realize her predicament for the first time. She remembered again how she had seen her father cut down, and her home in flames. She wondered how it fared with her parents, and she wondered, too, what was to be in the future.
The only ray of hope was that Don Diego was near, that Señor Zorro had promised to give her aid, and that his sword would protect her. And yet how could he—one man against scores of scoundrels? Don Diego, even as Señor Zorro, was only human, after all. Yet she hoped that, at the climax, he would reveal himself. He was a caballero, and he would know what to do in an emergency. Better that Señor Zorro drive his blade through her heart than for her to live stained!
She heard a tumult on the deck, a great noise, the sounds of clanking chains, and knew from the feel of the ship that she was under sail. Above her head feet pattered on the deck. The great voice of Barbados and the echoing one of Sanchez came to her as from a long distance. The rushing wind pulled the smoke of the torch through the open porthole.
The señorita sighed and leaned her head against the wall of the cabin. Tears trickled from her eyes and started coursing down her cheeks, but she wiped them away swiftly. None of these pirates should see her cry! Never would they be able to say that one of the blood of the Pulidos had shown fear!
She closed her eyes for an instant, as though that would shut out the horror of her thoughts, but found that it did not. It seemed to her that she heard a faint hiss, but she supposed that it was the wind or the water.