“But it's not all!” cried the girl. “What about the grey bull, poor Corcito.”
Colonel O'Donnel laughed his gentle, chuckling laugh.
“Our home is close to a ganadería—a bull-farm of the Duke's near Seville,” he explained indulgently. “The places adjoin; and as I've allowed this Pilarcita to grow up a wild girl, very different from the young ladies of Seville she should emulate, she has made friends of the Duke's cattle. There were, some years ago, a grey bull that was as tame with her as a pet dog; but it took a dislike to the Duke, who came to have a look at his bulls once, and attacked him. The saying is that the Moorish blood in the Carmonas gives them a cruel temper. At all events, Carmona could not forgive the bull its disrespect, and promptly had it sent off to the slaughter-house, though it was a toro bravo.”
“That's like him,” said I.
“There's nothing he wouldn't do against an enemy, or to gain a thing he wanted,” said Pilar, turning to me. “Take care, now he wants something you want.”
“It's been so between our families for generations,” I said. “My grandfather ran away with the girl his grandfather wanted to marry, and my father and his in their youth had a furious lawsuit.”
[pg 075] “Which won?” asked the girl.
“My father.”
“Be sure he will remember,” said she. “Oh, how I wish we could help you! It would be such a revenge upon him for poor Eulalia and for Corcito. Papa, can't we do something?”
“If we could,” echoed the Cherub, “for his father's son!”