After a little discussion it was decided that Mendoza should make his escape that very afternoon, because they were more watchful at night, and might get wind of him. His idea was to-go to Las Ventas del Espíritu Santo disguised as a water-carrier, and from there, if there were danger, he would leave Madrid by the Northern Railway: Miguel agreed to get him a pass.
In fact, the water-carrier for the house sold him his suit, which was certainly not remarkably new or cleanly.
After spending an hour in making up his disguise, touching his cheeks with vermilion, dishevelling his hair, soiling his hands, etc., our revolutionist went to the library, with his cask on his shoulder, and stood before the looking-glass.
"I recognize myself!" he exclaimed, with such a look of anxiety that Miguel and Maximina laughed till their sides ached.
IX.
Miguel's cousin Enrique had at last succeeded in embracing the divine phantasm of glory in pursuit of which so many men run in vain. It was in the plaza of Vallecas, on the day of Our Lady of Carmen. The entertainment[24] had been organized at Madrid for the purpose of aiding some unfortunates suffering from a flood in the province of Valencia, and as he was one of the amateurs who liked to take part in sports of this sort, he was gallantly invited to thrust the banderillas into the bull's shoulder—an honor which he declined.
The committee afterwards discovered the true inwardness of his not accepting, and after making certain calculations and combinations, they invited him once more to be the estoqueador,[25] and this time he did not hesitate to accept, seeing that his dignity was saved. It was less than a year since he had chosen the alternative.
And as we have already hinted, he had covered himself with glory, his rivals with envy, and the respectable family to which he belonged with honor, though its worthy head had a quite different idea of it.
After a battle he had the fortune to kill the bull with a superb lunge at a half-run, wetting his fingers, and entering and leaving the ring without a stain.
There was a perfect delirium of clapping, of waving cigars and hats; all the bull-fighting amateurs vied with each other in embracing him; he was carried triumphantly to his carriage, and sent back victorious to Madrid: on the next day the newspapers, in their reviews of the entertainment, raised him "to the very horns of the moon." El Tabano, a most dignified paper, dedicated exclusively to the interests of bull-fighting, declared that he showed blood and modesty; and this eulogium, in spite of its brutality, for some reason or other made him stagger with delight.