The Mark of Zorro Page 16

  “You speak treason?” the magistrado cried.

  “I speak truth!”

  The magistrado puckered his lips and frowned.

  “There has been entirely too much of this swindling,” he said finally. “Because a man wears a robe, he cannot rob with impunity. In this case, I deem it proper to make an example, that frailes will see they cannot take advantage of their calling.

  “The fray must repay the man the price of the hides. And for the swindle he shall receive across his bare back ten lashes. And for the words of treason he has spoken, he shall receive five lashes additional. It is a sentence!”

  CHAPTER 21

  THE WHIPPING

  The natives jeered and applauded. Don Diego’s face went white, and for an instant his eyes met those of Fray Felipe, and in the face of the latter he saw resignation.

  The office was cleared, and the soldiers led the fray to the place of execution in the middle of the plaza. Don Diego observed that the magistrado was grinning, and he realized what a farce the trial had been.

  “These turbulent times!” he said to a gentleman of his acquaintance who stood near.

  They tore Felipe’s robe from his back and started to lash him to the post. But the fray had been a man of great strength in his day, and some of it remained to him in his advanced years, and it came to him now what ignominy he was to suffer.

  Suddenly he whirled the soldiers aside and stooped to grasp the whip from the ground.

  “You have removed my robe!” he cried. “I am man now, not fray! One side, dogs!”

  He lashed out with the whip. He cut a soldier across the face. He struck at two natives who sprang toward him. And then the throng was upon him, beating him down, kicking and striking at him, disregarding even the soldiers’ orders.

  Don Diego Vega felt moved to action. He could not see his friend treated in this manner despite his docile disposition. He rushed into the midst of the throng, calling upon the natives to clear the way. But he felt a hand grasp his arm, and turned to look into the eyes of the magistrado.

  “These are no actions for caballero,” the judge said in a low tone. “The man has been sentenced properly. When you raise hand to give him aid, you raise hand against his excellency. Have you stopped to think of that, Don Diego Vega?”

  Apparently Don Diego had not. And he realized, too, that he could do no good to his friend by interfering now. He nodded his head to the magistrado and turned away.

  But he did not go far. The soldiers had subdued Fray Felipe by now, and had lashed him to the whipping-post. This was added insult, for the post was used for none except insubordinate natives. The lash was swung through the air, and Don Diego saw blood spurt from Fray Felipe’s bare back.

  He turned his face away then, for he could not bear to look. But he could count the lashes by the singing of the whip through the air, and he knew that proud, old Fray Felipe was making not the slightest sound of pain, and would die without doing so.

  He heard the natives laughing, and turned back again to find that the whipping was at an end.

  “The money must be repaid within two days, or you shall have fifteen lashes more,” the magistrado was saying.

  Fray Felipe was untied and dropped to the ground at the foot of the post. The crowd began to melt away. Two frailes who had followed from San Gabriel aided their brother to his feet, and led him aside while the natives hooted. Don Diego Vega returned to his house.

  “Send me Bernardo,” he ordered his despensero.

  The butler bit his lip to keep from grinning as he went to do as he was bidden. Bernardo was a deaf and dumb native servant for whom Don Diego had a peculiar use. Within the minute he entered the great living-room and bowed before his master.

  “Bernardo, you are a gem!” Don Diego said. “You cannot speak or hear, cannot write or read, and have not sense enough to make your wants known by the sign-language. You are the one man in the world to whom I can speak without having my ears talked off in reply. You do not ‘Ha!’ me at every turn.”

  Bernardo bobbed his head as if he understood. He always bobbed his head in that fashion when Don Diego’s lips ceased to move.

  “These are turbulent times, Bernardo,” Don Diego continued. “A man can find no place where he can meditate. Even at Fray Felipe’s night before last there came a big sergeant pounding at the door. A man with nerves is in a sorry state. And this whipping of old Fray Felipe—Bernardo, let us hope that this Señor Zorro, who punishes those who work injustice, hears of the affair and acts accordingly.”

  Bernardo bobbed his head again.

  “As for myself, I am in a pretty pickle,” Don Diego went on. “My father has ordered that I get me a wife, and the señorita I selected will have none of me. I shall have my father taking me by the ear in short order.

  “Bernardo, it is time for me to leave this pueblo for a few days. I shall go to the hacienda of my father, to tell him I have got no woman to wed me yet, and ask his indulgence. And there, on the wide hills behind his house, may I hope to find some spot where I may rest and consult the poets for one entire day without highwaymen and sergeants and unjust magistrados bothering me. And you, Bernardo, shall accompany me, of course. I can talk to you without your taking the words out of my mouth.”

  Bernardo bobbed his head again. He guessed what was to come. It was a habit of Don Diego’s to talk to him thus for a long time, and always there was a journey afterward. Bernardo liked that, because he worshiped Don Diego, and because he liked to visit the hacienda of Don Diego’s father, where he always was treated with kindness.

  The despensero had been listening in the other room and had heard what was said, and now he gave orders for Don Diego’s horse to be made ready, and prepared a bottle of wine and water for the master to take with him.

  Within a short time Don Diego set out, Bernardo riding a mule a small distance behind him. They hurried along the highroad, and presently caught up with a small carreta, beside which walked two robed Franciscans, and in which was Fray Felipe, trying to keep back moans of pain.

  Don Diego dismounted beside the carreta as it stopped. He went over to it and clasped Fray Felipe’s hands in his own.

  “My poor friend!” he said.

  “It is but another instance of injustice,” Fray Felipe said. “For twenty years, we of the missions have been subjected to it, and it grows. The sainted Junipero Serra invaded this land when other men feared, and at San Diego de Alcalá he built the first mission of what became a chain, thus giving an empire to the world. Our mistake was that we prospered. We did the work, and others reap the advantages.”

  Don Diego nodded, and the other went on: “They began taking our mission-lands from us, lands we had cultivated, which had formed a wilderness and which my brothers had turned into gardens and orchards. They robbed us of worldly goods. And not content with that they now are persecuting us.

  “The mission-empire is doomed, caballero. The time is not far distant when mission roofs will fall in and the walls crumble away. Someday people will look at the ruins and wonder how such a thing could come to pass.

  “But we can do naught except submit. It is one of our principles. I did forget myself for a moment in the plaza at Reina de Los Angeles, when I took the whip and struck a man. It is our lot to submit.”

  “Sometimes,” mused Don Diego, “I wish I were a man of action.”

  “You give sympathy, my friend, which is worth its weight in precious stones. And action expressed in a wrong channel is worse than no action at all. Where do you ride?”

  “To the hacienda of my father, good friend. I must crave his pardon and ask his indulgence. He has ordered that I get me a wife, and I find it a difficult task.”

  “That should be an easy task for a Vega. Any maiden would be proud to take that name.”

  “I had hoped to wed with the Señorita Lolita Pulido, she having taken my fancy.”

  “A worthy maiden! Her father, too, has been subjected to unjust oppression. Did you jo
in your family to his, none would dare raise hand against him.”

  “All that is very well, fray, and the absolute truth, of course. But the señorita will have none of me,” Don Diego complained. “It appears that I have not dash and spirit enough.”

  “She is hard to please, perhaps. Or possibly she is but playing at being a coquette with the hope of leading you on and increasing your ardor. A maid loves to tantalize a man, caballero. It is her privilege.”

  “I showed her my house in the pueblo, and mentioned my great wealth, and agreed to purchase a new carriage for her,” Don Diego told him.

  “Did you show her your heart, mention your love, and agree to be a perfect husband?”

  Don Diego looked at him blankly, then batted his eyes rapidly, and scratched at his chin, as he did sometimes when he was puzzled over a matter.

  “What a perfectly silly idea!” he exclaimed after a time.

  “Try it, caballero. It may have an excellent effect.”

  CHAPTER 22

  SWIFT PUNISHMENT

  The frailes drove the cart onward, Fray Felipe raised his hand in blessing, and Don Diego Vega turned aside into the other trail, the deaf and dumb Bernardo following at his heels on the mule.

  Back in the pueblo, the dealer in hides and tallow was the center of attraction at the tavern. The fat landlord was kept busy supplying his guests with wine, for the dealer in hides and tallow was spending a part of the money of which he had swindled Fray Felipe. The magistrado was spending the rest.

  There was boisterous laughter as one recounted how Fray Felipe lay about him with the whip, and how the blood spurted from his old back when the lash was applied.

  “Not a whimper from him!” cried the dealer in hides and tallow. “He is a courageous old coyote! Now, last month we whipped one at San Fernando, and he howled for mercy, but some men said he had been ill and was weak, and possibly that was so. A tough lot, these frailes! But it is great sport when we can make one howl! More wine, landlord! Fray Felipe is paying for it!”

  There was a deal of raucous laughter at that, and the dealer’s assistant, who had given perjured testimony, was tossed a coin and told to play a man and do his own buying. Whereupon the apprentice purchased wine for all in the inn, and howled merrily when the fat landlord gave him no change from his piece of money.

  “Are you a fray, that you pinch coins?” the landlord asked.

  Those in the tavern howled with merriment again, and the landlord, who had cheated the assistant to the limit, grinned as he went about his business. It was a great day for the fat landlord.

  “Who was the caballero who showed some mercy toward the fray?” the dealer asked.

  “That was Don Diego Vega,” the landlord replied.

  “He will be getting himself into trouble—”

  “Not Don Diego,” said the landlord. “You know the great Vega family, do you not, señor? His excellency himself curries their favor. Did the Vegas hold up as much as a little finger, there would be a political upheaval in these parts.”

  “Then he is a dangerous man?” the dealer asked.

  A torrent of laughter answered him.

  “Dangerous? Don Diego Vega?” the landlord cried, while tears ran down his fat cheeks. “You will be the death of me! Don Diego does naught but sit in the sun and dream. He scarcely ever wears a blade, except as a matter of show. He groans if he has to ride a few miles on a horse. Don Diego is about as dangerous as a lizard basking in the sun.

  “But he is an excellent gentleman, for all that!” the landlord added hastily, afraid that his words would reach Don Diego’s ears, and Don Diego would take his custom elsewhere.

  It was almost dusk when the dealer in hides and tallow left the tavern with his assistant, and both reeled as they walked, for they had partaken of too much wine.

  They made their way to the carreta in which they traveled, waved their farewells to the group about the door of the tavern, and started slowly up the trail toward San Gabriel.

  They made their journey in a leisurely manner, continuing to drink from a jug of wine they had purchased. They went over the crest of the first hill, and the pueblo of Reina de Los Angeles was lost to view, and all they could see was the highway twisting before them like a great dusty serpent, and the brown hills, and a few buildings in the distance, where some man had his hacienda.

  They made a turning, and found a horseman confronting them, sitting easily in the saddle, with his horse standing across the road in such manner that they could not pass.

  “Turn your horse—turn your beast!” the dealer in hides and tallow cried. “Would you have me drive over you?”

  The assistant gave an exclamation that was part of fear, and the dealer looked more closely at the horseman. His jaw dropped, his eyes bulged.

  “‘Tis Señor Zorro!” he exclaimed. “By the saints! ’Tis the Curse of Capistrano, away down here near San Gabriel. You would not bother me, Señor Zorro? I am a poor man, and have no money. Only yesterday a fray swindled me, and I have been to Reina de Los Angeles seeking justice.”

  “Did you get it?” Señor Zorro asked.

  “The magistrado was kind, señor. He ordered the fray to repay me, but I do not know when I shall get the money.”

  “Get out of the carreta, and your assistant also!” Señor Zorro commanded.

  “But I have no money—” the dealer protested.

  “Out of the carreta with you! Do I have to request it twice? Move, or lead finds a lodging place in your carcass!”

  Now the dealer saw that the highwayman held a pistol in his hand, and he squealed with sudden fright and got out of the cart as speedily as possible, his assistant tumbling out at his heels. They stood in the dusty highway before Señor Zorro, trembling with fear, the dealer begging for mercy.

  “I have no money with me, kind highwayman, but I shall get it for you!” the dealer cried. “I shall carry it to where you say, whenever you wish—”

  “Silence, beast!” Señor Zorro cried. “I do not want your money, perjurer! I know all about the farce of a trial at Reina de Los Angeles; I have ways of finding out about such things speedily.

  “So the aged fray swindled you, eh? Liar and thief! ’Tis you who are the swindler! And they gave that old and godly man fifteen lashes across his bare back, because of the lies you told! And you and the magistrado will divide the money of which you swindled him!”

  “I swear by the saints—”

  “Do not! You have done enough false swearing already. Step forward!”

  The dealer complied, trembling as if with a disease; and Señor Zorro dismounted swiftly and walked around in front of his horse. The dealer’s assistant was standing beside the carreta, and his face was white.

  “Forward!” Señor Zorro commanded again.

  Again the dealer complied; but suddenly he began to beg for mercy, for Señor Zorro had taken a mule whip from beneath his long cloak, and held it ready in his right hand, while he held the pistol in his left.

  “Turn your back!” he commanded now.

  “Mercy, good highwayman! Am I to be beaten as well as robbed? You would whip an honest merchant because of a thieving fray?”

  The first blow fell, and the dealer shrieked with pain. His last remark appeared to have given strength to the highwayman’s arm. The second blow fell, and the dealer in hides and tallow went to his knees in the dusty highroad.

  Then Señor Zorro returned his pistol to his belt, and stepped forward and grasped the dealer’s mop of hair with his left hand, so as to hold him up, and with the right he rained heavy blows with the mule whip upon the man’s back, until his tough coat and shirt were cut to ribbons, and the blood soaked through.

  “That for a man who perjures himself and has an honest fray punished!” Señor Zorro cried.

  And then he gave his attention to the assistant.

  “No doubt, young man, you but carried out your master’s orders when you lied before the magistrado,” he said, “but you must be taught to b
e honest and fair, no matter what the circumstances.”

  “Mercy, señor!” the assistant howled.

  “Did you not laugh when the fray was being whipped? Are you not filled with wine now because you have been celebrating the punishment that godly man received for something he did not do?”

  Señor Zorro grasped the youth by the nape of his neck, whirled him around, and sent a stiff blow at his shoulders. The boy shrieked, and then began whimpering. Five lashes in all he received, for Señor Zorro apparently did not wish to render him unconscious. And finally he hurled the boy from him, and looped his whip.

  “Let us hope both of you have learned your lesson,” he said. “Get into the carreta, and drive on. And when you speak of this occurrence, tell the truth, else I hear of it and punish you again! Let me not learn that you have said some fifteen or twenty men surrounded and held you while I worked with the whip!”

  The apprentice sprang into the cart, and his master followed, and they whipped up and disappeared in a cloud of dust toward San Gabriel. Señor Zorro looked after them for a time, then lifted his mask and wiped the perspiration from his face, and then mounted his horse again, fastening the mule whip to the pommel of his saddle.

  CHAPTER 23

  MORE PUNISHMENT

  Señor Zorro rode quickly to the crest of the hill beneath which was the pueblo, and there he stopped his horse and looked down at the village.

  It was almost dark, but he could see quite well enough for his purpose. Candles had been lighted in the tavern, and from the building came the sounds of raucous song and loud jest. Candles were burning at the presidio and from some of the houses came the odor of cooking food.

  Señor Zorro rode on down the hill. When he reached the edge of the plaza he put spurs to his horse and dashed up to the tavern door, before which half a dozen men were congregated, the most of them under the influence of wine.

  “Landlord!” he cried.

  None of the men about the door gave him particular attention at first, thinking he was but some caballero on a journey wishing refreshment. The landlord hurried out, rubbing his fat hands together, and stepped close to the horse. And then he saw that the rider was masked, and that the muzzle of a pistol was threatening him.