Further Adventures - Half a Dozen

Barbados blustered forward, his cutlass held ready, striving to regain the mastery of the situation. "Give us loot, or we attack!" he thundered.

"Attack, fool?" Don Diego cried. "Do you imagine that you hold the upper hand here? Up with your blade!"

The last thing Barbados wished to do was to fight a caballero under such circumstances. He had the fear of the mongrel for the thoroughbred. But here was a thing that could not be avoided unless his leadership of the pirates suffer.

The caballeros sprang from their chairs, drawing their swords, shouting in keen anticipation of a break in the deadly monotony of their lives. They rushed to the right and the left, and engaged the pirates as they rushed forward. Don Diego Vega found himself at liberty to engage Barbados only, a thing he relished and which he did with right good will.

Barbados fought like a fiend, mouthing curses, puffing out his cheeks, but he did not understand this style of fighting. Don Diego Vega seemed to be wielding half a dozen blades that sang about his head and threatened to bury themselves in his throat. His cutlass seemed heavy, useless, his strokes went wild.

Back toward the wall went Barbados, while Don Diego grinned at him and taunted him, played with him as a cat does with a mouse.

"Pirate, eh?" Don Diego said. "Terrible on either land or sea? "Tis a jest, Señor Pirate! A thin jest!"

Barbados sensed that the termination of this combat was not to be to his liking. He got a chance to glance once around the big room. What he saw staggered him. Two of the caballeros were stretched on the floor, blood flowing from their wounds. But, aside from those two, the caballeros were getting much the better of the combat. The pirates were retreating toward the front door. Their heavy cutlasses were of no avail against flaming, darting light swords, especially when the men who handled those swords refused to stand and be cut down, but danced here and there like phantoms.


- The Further Adventures of Zorro, Chapter 5