But both forces found themselves disconcerted at the outset. Don Audre Ruiz, glancing toward the bow of the schooner, was sure that he saw Señor Zorro standing there against a background of sky and water, his figure dripping. He rubbed his eyes and looked again—and Señor Zorro was gone!
“’Tis the spirit of Zorro come to aid us!” Don Audre cried. “I saw him for a moment, waving his hand at me and reaching for his blade! The spirit of Zorro fights with us!”
The caballeros were not certain what he meant, but they cheered his words and rushed toward the rail, their gleaming blades ready to be dyed a crimson. Fray Felipe knelt beside the mast in prayer. But Sergeant Gonzales, standing with his feet wide apart and his sword in his hand, stared foolishly toward the bow and gasped his astonishment and fear.
“I saw him!” the sergeant shrieked. “I saw Don Diego, my friend! By the saints—”
The ships crashed together. But the pirates did not rush as was their custom. For fear had clutched at their superstitious natures, even as it had clutched at Barbados and Sanchez, his evil lieutenant. Sanchez had shrieked the news, but Barbados did not heed his intelligence. Barbados himself had seen Señor Zorro standing against the sky. And how may a man do that when he has been sent to the bottom of the sea with a heavy weight fastened to him?
“Fiends of hell!” Barbados screeched. “This Zorro must be a demon!”
“We cannot fight against ghosts!” Sanchez cried. “We are lost before we commence.”
Barbados seemed to come to himself and shake off his terror in part. He instantly was eager to win free from the trading schooner. He did not fear the caballeros, who were greatly outnumbered now, but he did fear the supernatural. He forgot the chance for murder and loot, and wanted only to get away.
Barbados shrieked his commands, and the half-stupefied pirates ran to execute them. The pirate craft swung away from the schooner, so that men could not spring from one ship to the other. There were less than half a dozen clashes of blades; less than half a dozen minor wounds.
Slowly the pirate craft fell away. The helmsman of the schooner worked frantically to bring his ship back into the wind. The caballeros and the members of the schooner’s crew waited, eager for the two ships to come together again, that they might engage the pirates and fight to victory.