Zorro Saves A Friend - Dagger

With trembling fingers, Lopez slowly counted off the cards, tossed one in front of Zorro, and retained the tenth for himself. Zorro's eyes were glittering at him through the holes in the mask. They seemed to be threatening torture and death. Lopez wondered at the identity of this man, as did Capitán Torello – and the latter was not forgetting the wart behind the ear. He had suspected Don Diego Vega of being Señor Zorro, and never had he noticed whether Don Diego had such a wart. He would make sure when next he saw him.

"Well, señor?" Lopez was saying.

"We have not yet seen our cards. You have dealt, señor, no doubt anticipating that I would say the high card is to win. Such would be the usual game, eh, señor? One moment."

Zorro suddenly whipped out his dagger, it flashed through the light, and the card Lopez had dealt himself was transfixed and so fastened to the table.

"What is this?" Lopez cried.

"We now announce the game, señor," Zorro said. "The high card loses, Señor Gambler." Watching them all, he picked up his own card, made swift glance at it, then flipped it over upon the table, face up.

"We have here an eight," he said. "And what did you deal yourself, señor, under the anticipation that the high card would have merit?"

"Why, I-I do not know, señor, not having looked at it."

"Did I have the time to spend, and the inclination to spend it, I would make another wager that, whatever it is, the card is in excess of an eight. Withdraw my dagger and toss it across the table to me, and then expose the card."

Zorro held his wrist on the edge of the table, so that the muzzle of the pistol covered Lopez's heart.

"You are being unfair–" Torello began.


- Zorro Saves A Friend, Chapter 4