“Have I said so?” she asked.
“You have not—but now you are going to tell me the truth. Wench, I’m done with trifling. You presume too much on the knowledge that you are to be the prize of an important man. Do you not know you are in my power? Could I not do with you as I pleased, and then heave you overboard, and tell this important gentleman later that you got the chance and threw yourself into the sea?”
Evil glistened suddenly in his eyes, and the little señorita recoiled again. Sanchez, who had remained standing near, laughed like a fiend.
“We could gamble for her,” Sanchez suggested.
“This is my affair, and you will do well to remain silent,” Barbados declared, whirling upon him.
Once more he faced Señorita Lolita, and the fiendish look upon his face made her flinch.
“Tell me all you know about this Señor Zorro!” Barbados commanded. “Did you slay the man in your cabin, or did this Señor Zorro do it? Answer me, wench! Reply here and now, else I teach you a lesson you will remember to your last hour.”
He sprang forward suddenly and grasped her arm cruelly, and she cried out because of the indignity and the pain.
Señor Zorro, from his place of watching, flinched as though he had experienced the indignity and pain himself. He wanted to hurl himself forward and to the attack, but he realized that it would not last for long. He could not hope to engage the entire ship’s company, though he made a long and running fight of it, and emerge from the combat the victor.
But there came an interruption. From forward was a hail: