It is this wonderful display of skill and bravery that fascinates the attention of a Spanish audience, and not the shedding of blood or the sufferings of the animal, which are as much lost sight of in the excitement of the moment as the gasping of a fish or the quivering of a worm upon the hook is disregarded by the humane disciple of Izaak Walton. The bull and matador, as motionless as if carved in marble, present a fearfully artistic effect. At length, like an electric flash, the polished steel of the matador flies in the air, and descends with tremendous force into the neck of the doomed animal, burying itself in the flesh, even up to the hilt. The blow is well made, and from the mouth of the bull a torrent of blood gushes forth in a crimson stream; he staggers, drops on his knees, recovers himself for an instant, and then falls dead at the feet of his conqueror, amid the tumultuous plaudits of the excited throng of spectators.
Such is a slight sketch of a Spanish bull-fight. The impression made upon our minds by the first representation was so deeply tinctured with horror that we resolved never to attend another, though it is but fair to state that this good resolution, like many others we have made in our lives, was eventually overcome by temptations.
MAURICE TIERNAY, THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE.[10]
CHAPTER XXXV.
A NOVEL COUNCIL OF WAR.
I had scarcely finished my breakfast, when a group of officers rode up to our quarters to visit me. My arrival had already created an immense sensation in the city, and all kinds of rumors were afloat as to the tidings I had brought. The meagreness of the information would, indeed, have seemed in strong contrast
to the enterprise and hazard of the escape, had I not had the craft to eke it out by that process of suggestion and speculation in which I was rather an adept.
[10] Continued from the July Number.
Little in substance as my information was, all the younger officers were in favor of acting upon it. The English are no bad judges of our position and chances, was the constant argument. They see exactly how we stand; they know the relative forces of our army, and the enemy's; and if the "cautious islanders"—such was the phrase—advised a coup de main, it surely must have much in its favor. I lay stress upon the remark, trifling as it may seem; but it is curious to know, that with all the immense successes of England on sea, her reputation, at that time, among Frenchmen, was rather for prudent and well-matured undertakings, than for those daring enterprises which are as much the character of her courage.
My visitors continued to pour in during the morning, officers of every arm and rank, some from mere idle curiosity, some to question and interrogate, and not a few to solve doubts in their minds as to my being really French, and a soldier, and not an agent of that perfide Albion, whose treachery was become a proverb among us. Many were disappointed at my knowing so little. I neither could tell the date of Napoleon's passing St. Gothard, nor the amount of his force; neither knew I whether he meant to turn eastward toward the plains of Lombardy, or march direct to the relief of Genoa. Of Moreau's success in Germany, too, I had only heard vaguely; and, of course, could recount nothing. I could overhear, occasionally, around and about me, the murmurs of dissatisfaction my ignorance called forth, and was not a little grateful to an old artillery captain for saying "That's the very best thing about the lad; a spy would have had his whole lesson by heart."