“She'd never forgive me if I didn't hand it over to you. But I'll get in somehow. It can cost me fifty dollars if it likes to slip [pg 350]past a policeman, but I guess the price won't stop me. I don't mind if I stand up in the callijon. I'm tall enough to see all I want, and more; and if a bull jumps over the barrera, as one did at Seville the other day, my legs are long enough to save me.”
Ropes was to stay with the car and wait until we came again. Before that time my fate would be decided. Nothing could keep me from meeting Monica now; and nothing should keep her from me, if she loved me. If not—if after all I had been dreaming, why, she would be the Duchess of Carmona to-morrow.
Under horses' noses, between backs and bonnets of motors, we edged our way through the dense crowd of vehicles and people massed together on the baking plain outside the bull-ring. The circle which had been cleared for royalty had filled again now, like a sandbank which has caved in upon itself; but the spectacle on the other side of those steep brown walls had begun, and the main entrance was comparatively clear.
Armed with the ticket engraved with the magic words “Corrida Real” over a black and white sketch of a mounted picador, I was allowed to enter. But when I had passed along a corridor and through a door which opened into a crowded tendido, I heard Dick's voice at my ear. “Only twenty-five dollars after all,” said he, “and I can sit on the steps. Grand! We're next to Tendido Number 9. I see Pilar; look—close to the end, front row.”
After the silent rooms of the old Moorish house and the little patio with its tinkling fountain, the brilliant light and colour, the confused sounds and movement, the vast size of the bull-ring struck me fiercely between the eyes, bewildering sight and sense.
Seats were valuable in the tendidos for this great day, when almost every place meant a royal favour; but we were late, and instead of moving on to search for my twelve inches of plank or stone, I was thankful to squeeze in close to the entrance. I did not see Colonel O'Donnel, and though I was close to the famous Tendido Number 9 (which must have held every eye till the [pg 351]royalties came), I forgot to look for Pilar in that white-and-rose garden of Spanish loveliness.
The first act of the great royal bull-fight had begun. Twenty glittering, spangled espadas marched with elastic steps into the ring, followed by the yellow-trousered picadors on their sorry horses. The three gala coaches carrying the distinguished amateur picadors and their ducal patrons who graced this marriage feast, still circled picturesquely in the arena, making a pageant of the Middle Ages. The sun blazed on nodding ostrich plumes, gold embroidered hammercloths, dazzling liveries, powdered heads, and splendid horses in quaint harness, rich with gold and jewels. The three Dukes, owners of the coaches, had introduced the cavaliers they patronized to the King-President; the bride-Queen in her white mantilla and flowers of Spanish colours stood bowing in the glass frame of the royal box. Gaily decorated palcos, tendidos, grados, tier upon tier, half in sun, half in shadow, rose above the huge ring like so many terraced flower-beds, dazzling with the gold lace of uniforms and the bright tints of women's dresses softened by white mantillas. Over all was a fluttering of fans, like thousands of hovering butterflies; and a hum floated up loud as the humming of a million bees, to the blue dome of sky, where English and Spanish flags waved together.
Mechanically my eyes took in the splendid scene, as they searched for Monica; and finding her, for a time saw nothing else.
She was in a box near the royalties, and sat between her mother and the Duchess, with Carmona and some man whom I did not know, behind them. She was in a white dress and white mantilla, with pink and white malmaisons in her hair; and her face was pathetically pale in its frame of falling lace. In her hand was a fan with which to shut out such horrors of the fight as none but Spanish women born and bred dare trust themselves to see. My place was distant and far below; yet my eyes were keen, and it seemed to me that she looked thin and frail, though [pg 352]very beautiful. If for an instant, since Dick broke the news to me, I had doubted the loyalty of her heart, the sight of her sad young face would have driven doubt away. I was more than ever certain that in promising to marry Carmona she thought to save me from punishment threatened by him.
Neither he nor she guessed that I was near. But where did she believe me to be? Perhaps Carmona had said that for her sake he had let me fly danger after stabbing him in the cathedral, by hurrying back to England.