For a moment he stood transfixed, staggered, almost overcome with surprise and delight again to see her, thrilled with the joy of her message, blazing with revolt at the painful consciousness that she was and must remain another's. His emotions well-nigh stopped the beating of his heart. And so he stood gazing into Sofia's eyes until, self-possession recovered, he gravely bowed, turned, and waved his men to their posts.
Instantly all was action, swift action. Cloaks were tossed to attendants, each footman received a red cape, the two picadores took position one on either side of the bull pen gate, the band struck up a tune, the gate was opened and a great Utreran bull bounded into the arena, maddened with the pain of a short banderilla, with long streaming ribbons, stuck in his neck as he entered, by an attendant perched above the gate.
His equal had never been seen in a Mexican bull ring. While typical of his Utreran brothers, all princes of bovine fighting stock, this coal-black monster was by the spectators voted their King. Relatively light of quarters and shallow of flank and barrel, he was unusually high and humped of withers, broad and deep of chest and heavy of shoulders—indeed a well-nigh perfect four-legged type of a finely trained two-legged athlete, with a pair of peculiarly straight-upstanding horns that were long and almost as sharp as rapiers. Evidently by his build, he was of a strong strain of East Indian Brahminic blood. For his great weight, his activity was phenomenal—his leaps like a panther's, his turns as quick.
Dazed for an instant by the crash of the music and the brilliant banks of color about him, he stood angrily lashing his tail and pawing up the sand in clouds—"digging a grave," as Texas cowboys used to call it—his eyes blazing and head tossing, but only for a moment. Then he charged the nearest picador, literally leaped so high at him that head and cruel horns crossed above the horse's neck, his own great chest striking the horse just behind the shoulder with such force that man and mount hit the ground stunned and helpless.
Barely were they down when he was upon them and with a single twitch of his mighty neck, had ripped open the horse's barrel and half amputated one of the rider's legs. Then, diverted by the capadores, he whirled upon the second picador and in another ten seconds had left his horse dead and the rider badly trampled. Next the banderilleros tackled him, but such was his speed and ferocity that all three funked the work, and not one of them fastened his flag in the black shoulders.
When the bull had entered the ring, El Tigre left the arena—a most unusual proceeding. Now he returned, clad in snow-white from head to foot, a white cap covering head and hair, his face heavily powdered. He slipped in behind and unseen by the bull to the centre of the arena, and there stood erect, with arms folded, motionless as a graven image.
Presently the bull turned, saw El Tigre, and charged him straight. El Tigre was not even facing him, for the bull was approaching from his left. But there he stood without the twitch of a muscle or the flicker of an eye lid, still as a figure of stone.
A great sob arose from the audience, and all gave him up for lost, when, at the last instant before the bull must have struck, it turned and passed him. Once more the bull so charged and passed. Whether because it mistook him for the ghost of a man or recognized in him a spirit mightier than its own, only the bull knew.
Before the audience had well caught its breath, El Tigre, wearing again his usual costume, was striding again to the middle of the arena, carrying a light chair, in which presently he seated himself, facing the bull, a show banderilla, no more than six inches long, held in his teeth. And so he awaited the charge until the bull was within actual arm's-reach, when with a swift rise from the chair and a turn of his body quick as that of a fencer's supple wrist, he bent and stuck the teeth-held banderilla in the bull's shoulder as he swept past.
Now was the time for the kill.