Further Adventures - Like a Ghost

Zorro reached the deck and disconnected the line, wishing to leave no trace behind him. He glanced toward the land, and realized that soon the dawn would come. Along the rail he slipped, until he came to a spot from where he could watch the pirates.

The majority of the loot had been stored away. No man was aloft. Barbados was cursing at a group near the opposite rail. Zorro looked across at him and wished that he was near. He saw Sanchez, too, knew him for the lieutenant, and it came into his mind that Sanchez had commanded the squad that had abducted the señorita.

And, as he watched, Sanchez started across the deck, around the mast, bore down upon Zorro where he stood in the darkness. Soon he would be in the darkness near the rail. But before he could reach it he would be forced to pass beneath one of the flaring torches, and for an instant the strong light would be in his eyes. Zorro whipped out his blade and crept forward to the edge of the blackness, keeping behind a mass of cordage piled upon the deck.

His eyes were narrowed now, his lips in a straight line, an expression of determination in his face. So he stood and watched Sanchez approach, holding the sword of Zorro ready.

The moment came. The blade darted forward and struck, and its point worked like lightning. Sanchez gave a scream of mingled surprise and pain and fear, and reeled backward, clapping a hand to his forehead.

Barbados whirled to look. Zorro, as silently as a shadow, darted along the rail through the black night, on his way to the little hatch and the storeroom below.

"Fiends of hell!" Barbados was shrieking. "Sanchez, what is it? You screech like a shocked w-nch!"

Sanchez, still shrieking, staggered back and turned beneath the flaring torch to face them. On his forehead was a freshly cut letter Z.

"The mark of Zorro!" Barbados gasped. "So –"

"A demon struck me!" Sanchez cried. "I saw no man! Something came out of the night and struck me!"

"Fool!" Barbados shrieked. "A blade made those cuts."

"But there was no blade, no man! Out of the dark it came –"

"Think you Zorro is aboard?"

"No man, I say!" Sanchez shrieked. "It was a ghost. There is a ghost aboard. We are doomed – the ship is doomed!"

"By my naked blade!" Barbados swore. "A sword in the hand of a human made that cut! Do I not bear one myself?"

"But how could this Zorro get aboard?" Sanchez wailed. "It was a ghost!"


- The Further Adventures of Zorro, Chapter 9