Fiercely he flung his gnarled head to one side to see the cause of the commotion. The gesture swung the heavy leading-bar, digging the nose ring cruelly into his sensitive nostrils. The pain maddened Tenebris. A final plunging twist of the head—and the bar's weight tore the nose ring free from the nostrils.
Tenebris bellowed thunderously at the climax of pain. Then he realized he had shaken off the only thing that gave humans a control over him. A second bellow—a furious pawing of the earth—and the bull lowered his head. His evil eyes glared about him in search of something to kill.
It was the sight of this motion which sent the Master and Glure recoiling against the show-ring ropes.
In almost the same move the Master caught up his wife and swung her over the top rope, into the ring. He followed her into that refuge's fragile safety with a speed that held no dignity whatever. Glure, seeing the action, wasted no time in wriggling through the ropes after him.
Tenebris did not follow them.
One thing and only one his red eyes saw: On the ground, not six feet away, rolled and moaned a man. The man was down. He was helpless. Tenebris charged.
A bull plunging at a near-by object shuts both eyes. A cow does not. Which may—or may not—explain the Spanish theory that bullfights are safer than cow-fights. To this eye-closing trait many a hard-pressed matador has owed his life.
Tenebris, both eyes screwed shut, hurled his 2000-pound bulk at the prostrate groom. Head down, nose in, short horns on a level with the earth and barely clearing it, he made his rush.
But at the very first step he became aware that something was amiss with his pleasantly anticipated charge. It did not follow specifications or precedent.