Outside the bull-ring the throng was denser than ever; from the street cars came pouring streams of people who ran for the entrance; the ticket-speculators rushed upon them with a shout; amidst the black multitude shone the white helmets of the mounted guards. From the inside of the ring came a muffled roar like the tide.
Vidal, El Bizco and Manuel, chagrined that they could not go in, continued on their way, passed Las Ventas and took the road to Vicálvaro. The south wind, warm and sultry, laid a white sheet of dust over the fields; along the road from different directions drove black and white hearses, for adults and children respectively, followed by gigs containing mourners.
Vidal indicated the house: it stood back from the road and seemed abandoned. It was fronted by a garden with its gate; behind extended an orchard planted with leafless saplings, with a water-mill. The orchard-wall was low and could be scaled with relative facility; no danger threatened; there were neither prying neighbours nor dogs; the nearest house, a marbler's workshop, was more than three hundred metres distant.
From the neighbourhood of the house could be made out the East cemetery, girded by arid yellow fields and barren hillocks; in the opposite direction rose the Bull Ring with its bright banner and the outlying houses of Madrid. The dusty road to the burial-ground ran between ravines and green slopes, among abandoned tile-kilns and excavations that showed the reddish ochre bowels of the earth.
After a minute examination of the house and its surroundings, the three returned to Las Ventas. At night they felt like going back to Madrid, but Vidal suggested that they had better remain where they were, so that they could commit the robbery at dawn of the next day. This was decided upon and they lay down in a tile-kiln, in the passageway formed by two walls of heaped-up bricks.
A cold wind blew violently throughout the night. Manuel was the first to awake and he roused the other two. They left the passageway formed by the walls of bricks. It was still night; from time to time a segment of the moon peered through the dark clouds; now it hid, now it seemed to rest upon the bosom of one of those dense clouds which it silvered so delicately.
In the distance, above Madrid a bright glow began to appear, irradiated by the lights of the city; a few tombstones in the cemetery cast a pallid shimmer.
Dawn was already tinting the heavens with its melancholy flush when the three robbers approached the house.
Manuel's heart was pounding with agitation.
"Ah, by the way," said Vidal. "If by any accident we should be surprised, we mustn't run; we've got to stick right in the house."