A short aim, a wave of the flag, and with the last blind, lunging charge the swordsman slips aside, and his blade runs up to the hilt behind the bull's shoulder. The hammered steel feels the great tired heart within, and the enemy falls—the pluckiest beast of his day.
"REMOVING THE BODY OF THE BULL."
This is what should happen, and with a first-rate swordsman it does. But often half-a-dozen lunges are made, till at last the red, tottering brute kneels down peacefully from sheer inability to stand, and the puntillero comes up behind and writes the end with one short stab of his iron dagger behind the skull. The matador walks round the barriers bowing to the cheers of the people, and behind him stalks a chulo, who picks up for him the showers of cigars, hats, and so forth that are showered into the ring.
A big folding gate swings back, and two teams of gaily-ribboned mules canter in with smart teamsters running beside them. One is hitched to the bull, and with a shout and a long sweep round the reddened sand the bull is hauled out at full gallop, one horn drawing a wavy line in the yellow floor, and one stiff fore-leg wagging grimly to the long lope of the jingling mules. The dead horses are drawn out in the same way, with the same ringing whoop, and as the gates close on the slain the Toril looms open afresh, and the second bull comes forward to his death.
There are variations. Instead of receiving the charge upon the sword the matador may achieve the "volapie" (half-volley), by running towards the bull and driving the sword home as the two meet. Or, a favourite method, but a difficult one, is to sever the spinal cord behind the skull with the point of the sword as the great head goes down to toss. Yet another variation that I have seen more than once is the tinkling of the sword upon sand, a rapid leap, as it seems, of three feet into the air, by the matador, and his writhing collapse upon the floor. Then a hurried flash of red cloaks in the bull's face, to draw him from the fallen man. The fighters are vastly plucky about their mishaps, and generally manage to run out rather than be carried. Few of them, if they have seen much bull-fighting, but are scarred freely with old wounds. The horn generally enters the stomach or groin, and a terrible wound it makes. The photograph illustrating the "death-stroke" on this page shows Espartero, who was the most famous and most utterly reckless of toreros during his life. His sword is up to the hilt in the bull's left shoulder, the flag just passing over its forehead, and its right horn shaving the matador's right knee by a few inches, The upward toss, if the bull were just a little nearer, would bury the horn in Espartero's waist, but those four inches were the rim between life and death, and a second later the bull was stretched upon the sand.
Espartero was killed in the Madrid arena in July 1894. As he administered the death-stroke, the bull, a fierce and very hardy Miura called Perdigon, drove its horn home, and the two died together. Espartero was accorded by far the finest funeral that was ever seen in Spain, easily eclipsing that of any statesman or royal personage that ever died there. His loss was made almost a cause for recognised national mourning. He was an esparto-grass weaver by trade ere he took to the arena, and before his death was wont to receive between £300 and £500 for a single afternoon's work in the ring.
ESPARTERO, THE FAMOUS BULL-FIGHTER, WHO WAS KILLED IN THE MADRID ARENA IN JULY 1894.
Bull-fighters begin as chulos, drawing about £3 a week, and when qualified as banderilleros they make from £5 to £30 a week. A first-class matador, such as Guerrita, draws about £300 or more for a single fight, and generally there are two first-class matadors in a good Seville or Madrid fight.