treason. Moncada offers protection to Juliana, hoping that she will either marry him or become his mistress. She demands that he compensate her for the loss of her father. He attacks Juliana but Diego and Isabel intervene and subdue him. The girls and Diego decide to leave the city and head for the Americas. After months of traveling on foot, dressed as religious pilgrims, they reach the port and board a ship captained by Diego's old friend, Santiago de León. When the ship reaches Cuba, it is attacked by a pirate crew led by Jean Lafitte. Diego and the girls are taken hostage. Lafitte takes them to his base in southern Louisiana, where they await a ransom from Alejandro de la Vega. Juliana becomes smitten with Lafitte, until she learns that he is married, to a free woman of color named Catherine. Diego begins gambling in New Orleans in an attempt to win enough money to buy their freedom. The girls use jewels they obtained before leaving Spain to buy their freedom. Lafitte returns the jewels to Juliana, an indication of his love for her. Catherine's mother tells Juliana that before Catherine died in childbirth with Pierre, she had chosen Juliana to marry Lafitte and raise their son. Juliana agrees to marry Lafitte, and Diego and Isabel are freed. Diego returns to California with Isabel and her chaperone, to find his father in prison and his lands confiscated by his arch-enemy, Moncada. Diego frees his father from prison, and puts him in the care of the natives and his wife Regina to convalesce. Diego is captured and arrested, but freed by two Zorro figures. Zorro confronts Moncada, forces him to sign a confession of treason, and sends him back to Spain. Diego clears his father's name and succeeds in having the governor drop charges against him. Characters Allende creates a world in which her mix of fictional characters, some "borrowed" from earlier Zorro works and others created for this one, interact with known historical figures. Fictional Juliana de Romeu, Diego de la Vega's (Zorro's) first love interest. In the story she is a very beautiful woman who attracts many men, especially Moncada Isabel de Romeu, Juliana de Romeu's younger sister. At the novel's end, she is revealed to have been "the author" of this account. Traditional Diego de la Vega (aka Zorro), the protagonist of the novel. His origins, as