The powerful beast—though rage still burned in his lurid eyes, and foam fell from his dilated nostrils and quivering flank—now showed signs of languor, and a more uncertain though still threatening front. One of the banderilleros advanced boldly in front of the bull, in dangerous proximity to his sharp, bloody horns. He waved his arms, and brandished his ribboned darts as if he were derisively taunting the rabid beast. It seemed dangerous to presume thus much, for the bull, excited to madness, suddenly rushed on him; but cool and watchful, the man lightly stepped aside as if disdaining to move one superfluous inch. As the animal passed him in his furious career, the darts with their ribbons were buried with the speed of lightning in his gory neck. With a wild bellow of rage and pain the furious brute makes at another foe in his path, but distracted by the number of his persecutors dancing like demons around him, and exhausted by the loss of blood, he sinks fainting to the earth, though still to the last defiant, amongst the yells of the excited crowd.
In a few minutes a man with a bright, naked sword, called the espada, entered the arena, and demanded permission from the autoridad to kill the bull. This was accorded amid the increasing buzz and restlessness of the crowd. Carrying in his left hand a dark red flag, to act as a bait for the still sensitive eye of the toro, and in his right a good Toledan blade, the espada cautiously advanced towards the crouching beast, more dangerous now, perhaps, than in the full vigour of his strength. The man appeared to be the incarnation of address as opposed to brute-force; firm of nerve, sharp of sight, undaunted in courage. Approaching to within eight inches of his glaring foe, he stood face to face with him, prepared for mortal struggle. Waving the red flag to the left, to lure away the horns from the front of his chest, he slowly raised his long sword up to the level of his eye, and then drew back his arm with as little motion as possible, to make the fatal plunge at that narrow point in the neck where the spinal cord may best be severed, that immediate death may ensue. As the blow was delivered, the beast, swerving aside, dashed at the red flag waving in his face, his long horns almost grazing the man's left breast, while the steel was plunged to the hilt into his body. The blow had not been fairly struck, and the mad brute darted away, carrying with him the espada's sword, the blood spouting in jets at every stride. A shout of execration proceeded from all the balconies at this unlucky blow, which should have laid the bull motionless. The bull-fighter, meanwhile, determined to retrieve his reputation, remained calm as at first. Crying with a loud voice to some functionary for el cachete, he received a small, sharp dagger, which he screwed slowly and carefully round within the hollow of his right hand. Arranging once more the dark red flag in his left, he calmly awaited the onslaught of the bull. The great brute, still formidable, made straight to the middle of the ring, where his opponent stood, and when his eye caught again the hated red flag which the espada was waving in his face, he pulled up short, with concentrated rage and fury.
As the two thus stood face to face,—the desperate beast and the single man with his bodkin,—we were reminded of Glaucus of Pompeii fronting the lion with his stylus, while the crowd of the amphitheatre thirsted for his blood. The bull-fighter kept his eye fixed on that of the bull, which had it not been for a slow oscillation of the head—as his eyes seemed to follow, fascinated, the gentle waving of the flag—would have appeared motionless. The man crept to within an inch of the long horn-points, cautiously and slowly extending his right arm with the dagger over the animal's neck, and stretching his body forward till the left horn almost touched his chest. The eye of the bull was still distracted by the red flag which was incessantly waved before him, amidst the most profound silence. Suddenly, like a flash of light, the knife was brought down, the exact point was hit, and the ponderous brute rolled over, weltering in a dark torrent of gore. Showers of flowers were thrown on the victor's head by fair hands above, who thus testified that in their eyes the brave man had retrieved his fault. The gaudy mules once more dashed in, and in a moment galloped back again, dragging the great carcass behind them.
How impressive are the contrasts of nature! At the moment when this scene of blood was brought to an end, a lark soared calmly across the blue circle of the quiet heavens above, while near to me a fair young mother hushed her new-born infant to sleep.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] Picadores.
[17] Police of the ring, who preserve from custom their mediæval costume, and are a mere form.
