The Sign of Zorro - Adobe Wall

"I can run you through at any moment, señor," Zorro wanted the sergeant. "But I have no wish to harm you. I cannot tarry here to play with you, however, for others may be coming. Beware our next meeting, señor."

Gonzales felt a blade crash against his own again, and was hurled off balance. He felt the breeze of the blade as it went past his head, heard its point strike on the adobe wall.

"I leave my name for you to read, señor," he heard a mocking voice say.

Then he heard the sound of rushing feet, a laugh came ringing back out of the night, and a horse's hoofs clattered furiously.

"He was a fiend!" Gonzales growled. "May I meet him again, whoever he is, when there is light enough for me to see the rogue! The feel of his blade, that laugh, that mocking voice – there is something reminiscent – "

He ceased speaking and lurched over to the patio gate. He tore the torch there from its socket and carried it back, and looked at the wall in front of which he had been standing.

There he saw freshly scratched in the adobe with the point of a blade the letter Z.

"Zorro!" Gonzales cried. "Dios! So he is alive and rides again! And the governor's reward still stands. Ha! The capitán must be told of this at once."


- The Sign of Zorro, Chapter 8