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Updated: June 19, 2025
To which the renegade, without waiting for Zoraida to reply, made answer, "Do not trouble thyself by asking thy daughter Zoraida so many questions, senor, for the one answer I will give thee will serve for all; I would have thee know that she is a Christian, and that it is she who has been the file for our chains and our deliverer from captivity.
"Gold!" he muttered. "Gold everywhere!" Zoraida looked about her, seeming unmoved. Her eyes followed Rios contemptuously, roved away about the room, tarried only briefly with the heaped-up treasure, sped to Kendric and to Betty. "You are fools, fools!" she taunted them. "All thanks, Señor Kendric, for having led me straight to that for which I have been looking all my life."
The time passed at length, and the appointed day we so longed for arrived; and, all following out the arrangement and plan which, after careful consideration and many a long discussion, we had decided upon, we succeeded as fully as we could have wished; for on the Friday following the day upon which I spoke to Zoraida in the garden, the renegade anchored his vessel at nightfall almost opposite the spot where she was.
Like men of his stamp it was unthinkable to him that he should lift his hand against a woman. But woman for the moment Zoraida was not. Fiend, rather; reincarnated savage; a thing to stamp into the earth. What he had said he meant. He was giving her time because on her rested Betty's fate. He pressed the knife a little deeper.
"It is my cruel father's curse, that urges me to an ignominious death," exclaimed he, weeping; "and thou, too, art lost, sweet sister, and thou, Zoraida!" "Thy dissimulation helps thee not," said one of the robbers, as he bound his hands behind his back. "Come, out of the tent with thee! for the Mighty is biting his lips, and feeling for his dagger.
Then turning to Zoraida, while I and another of the Christians held him fast by both arms, lest he should do some mad act, he said to her, "Infamous girl, misguided maiden, whither in thy blindness and madness art thou going in the hands of these dogs, our natural enemies? Cursed be the hour when I begot thee! Cursed the luxury and indulgence in which I reared thee!"
The lantern shed its rays upon the saddle and Kendric saw something else at the horn; a bunch of little blue field flowers, held in place by a bit of white ribbon. He snatched the flowers down angrily, trampled on them, ground them under foot. They seemed to him a bit of Zoraida herself; they taunted him, they bore the message she sent. They were her summons to come back to her.
Only when the door was again shut and locked did Zoraida push the curtain aside. Another match, another big lamp lighted and Kendric needed no telling that he was in an ancient treasure chamber. There were long gleaming-topped tables of hardwood; there were exquisitely wrought and embroidered fabrics covering them; strewn across the tables were countless objects of inestimable value.
It would be beyond my power now to describe to you the great beauty, the high-bred air, the brilliant attire of my beloved Zoraida as she presented herself before my eyes. I will content myself with saying that more pearls hung from her fair neck, her ears, and her hair than she had hairs on her head.
Zoraida, waiting for Jim's face to be lifted to her and not one accustomed to waiting on a man, frowned. But swiftly and before anyone but the always watchful Rios saw, she broke the silence with her little cooing laughter. She put out her two white arms toward the men at the table, saying softly: "Will you help me down, Señor Jim?" Before Kendric could answer Bruce was on his feet.
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