Zorro

The “pilgrimage” of Diego and de Romeu’s daughters brings the characters into contact with many of the darker elements of society. Diego meets further subjugated groups and classes, including peasants and thieves. The narrative also highlights the different ways in which people respond to their subjugation and desperation: The fugitives receive hospitality from some of the peasants they encounter on their travels, while others try to rob them. When the Romani meet Diego again, they allow his group to travel with them despite their usual suspicion of outsiders, making an exception to their customs for the sake of helping somebody who helped them.

Even during his flight, Diego does not lose sight of his driving values. When one of the Romani forge him a new sword, he says he will call it Justine “because it will always serve just causes” (263). The sword becomes a concrete symbol of Zorro. At the same time, Diego’s conception of justice becomes less naïve as he realizes that certain things are beyond his control. When Diego sees a slave ship on his voyage to California, his first instinct is to help the captured people, but he eventually realizes that any attempt to do so would be futile. The ship’s captain—who, like Diego, is a member of La Justicia—explains to him:

If we approach, they will throw the chained slaves overboard so they sink to the bottom. And even if we could free them, they have no place to go. They were captured in their own country by African traffickers (273).

Such experiences teach Diego that he must choose his battles. He also learns that some battles cannot be won when he and the de Romeu sisters are captured by pirates, who illustrate another aspect of a world split between the privileged and the subjugated. The pirates are the ultimate outsiders, belonging to a world excluded from society. But partly because they exist on the margins of society, the liminality of their world carries an aura of romance and magic, and the alien, ghostly realm of voodoo appears in the murky bayou. It is a strange interim during which Diego’s group is comparatively removed from the rigid class hierarchy of Spain and the Americas.

Romantic desire remains an important element in this part of the novel. Diego must contend with another rival in his dogged pursuit of Juliana: the pirate Jean Lafitte. This time, however, the rival is successful, with Juliana becoming wildly infatuated with the dashing Lafitte. In the end, Juliana marries Lafitte and remains with him in the otherworldly realm of the pirates as Diego, Isabel, and Nuria return to California and, in a way, to reality.