For Jacinta

by Harold Bindloss

Jacinta touched Austin with her fan. "I presume you know what he is referring to?"

"Well," said Austin, "what I do know is this. Mack and I went to see the Italian company the other night, and because he, of course, knew everybody about the place, we went behind the scenes. He, unfortunately, became interested in the stage machinery, and when he had made spirited attempts to pull some of it to pieces, I and the improvisatore beguiled him to a chair in the wings. We gave him a cigar to keep him quiet, as well as the libretto, which he could not read, and, as he seemed somewhat sleepy, I was thankful to leave him there. I didn't care about that opera. He never told me what happened after."

The young officer laughed again. "I daresay I can enlighten you. In the middle of the last act one of the wings collapsed, and everybody saw a big Englishman, who had apparently just kicked it over, sitting, half asleep, in a folding chair. He didn't appear to have any legitimate connection with the drama, but he brought the house down when he got up in a hurry and fell over his chair."

Then the shrill call of the bugles rang through the great building, and a tall man, with a scarred face, gorgeously dressed, walked into the arena, holding a three-cornered hat and a long, straight sword. He stood still a moment, an imposing and curiously graceful figure, with bright blade lowered, while a tumultuous shout of "Mæstro!" filled the building; and then, taking a cloak from an attendant, approached the bull. It was freely smeared with blood, and as it stood, bellowing, and pawing the sand in murderous rage, it was evident that the Mæstro's task was not a particularly pleasant one. There was only one way in which he could kill the bull, and that was to pass his sword over the horns and down into the brawny chest, near the base of the neck. Should he strike elsewhere it was probable that the vast assembly would descend and trample on him, for this was a duel to the death between man and beast, in which the latter was secured what seemed an even chance by punctilious etiquette. The Spaniard displays a good deal of sympathy with a gallant bull.

The beast seemed to understand that this man was different from the banderilleros who had previously tormented it, and backed away from him until he smote it lightly on the nostrils. Then it swept forward in a savage rush but though the man's movements were so quick that one scarcely noticed them, he was not quite where he had been a moment earlier, when the bull thundered past him. Still, one horn had ripped a strip of silk from him. He followed the beast, and struck it with his hand, and for five or six frenzied minutes the vast audience roared. This man never ran. He stepped backwards, or twisted, always with grave gracefulness, in the nick of time, until at last the bull stood still, as though stupefied with rage or uncertain how to attack its elusive persecutor.

Then, as the man walked up to it very quietly and unconcernedly, it seemed to hump itself together for a furious bound and rush with lowered head, and there was no sound in the great building until the bright steel flashed. Man's breast and gleaming horns seemed to meet, but apparently in the same second the gorgeously clad figure had stepped aside, and in the next the bull plunged forward and came down upon its knees.

There was another roar, and once more from all the close-packed benches came the rain of hats, cigars, and bundles of cigarettes.

"Ah," said Jacinta, with a little gasp, "I think I have seen enough. There will be another bull and more picadores now. I never could stand that part of it. Besides, I have done my duty, and patronised the show."

They made their way out while the audience waited for another bull, and certain leather-swathed picadores rode in on decrepit, blindfolded horses, brought there to be killed; and it was an hour later when, as they stood beneath the oleanders in a fonda garden looking down upon the white-walled town, Jacinta mentioned the affair again.

"Of course, it is a little cruel; but, after all, it appeals to rather more than the lower passions and lust of slaughter, don't you think?" she said.