Blood and Sand

by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

By this time the whole audience were on their feet, shouting and gesticulating wildly. They were delighted at the bull's fierceness and protested loudly at there being not a single picador left in the arena, yelling with one voice: "Horses! More horses!"

They all knew well enough that more would come out immediately, but they seemed furious that another instant should go by without fresh butcheries. The bull remained alone in the centre of the arena, superb and bellowing, his bloody horns held high, and the ribbon with the badge of his herd floating on his neck, which was covered with red and blue gashes.

Fresh riders came out, and again the horrible spectacle was repeated. As soon as a picador with his lance in rest approached the bull, bringing up his horse sideways with one eye bandaged, so that it should not see the bull, the shock and the fall were instantaneous. The lances broke with the splintering of dry wood, the horse was tossed in the air by the powerful horns, sprinkling the arena with its blood and bowels, and the picador rolled on the arena like a yellow legged doll, covered immediately by his companions' capes.

The public hailed the noisy falls of the riders with laughter and exclamations of delight. The arena rang with the shock of the fall of the heavy bodies with their iron-clad legs. One fell like a full sack, his head striking the wall of the barrier with a dull echo.

"That one won't get up," yelled the crowd. "His melon must be cracked."

But nevertheless he got up, stretching his arms, rubbing his head, and picking up the stout beaver which had rolled on the sand, again mounted the same horse, which the "monos sabios," by dint of kicks and blows, had got on to its feet, and bestriding this dying mount, with its entrails dragging on the sand, he went once more to encounter the furious beast.

"This is for you!" he shouted, throwing the beaver into a group of friends.

But no sooner had he again placed himself opposite the bull, driving his pike into its neck, than man and horse were once more tossed in the air, parting company from the violence of the shock, each one rolling to a different side of the arena. Several times before the bull attacked, the "monos sabios" and also some of the public had advised the rider to dismount. "Get down, get down." But before his stiffly encased legs could do so, the horse would fall dead, and the picador would be sent flying over his ears, his head arriving with a heavy blow on the sand.

The bull had not succeeded in goring any of the riders, but some of the picadors lay insensible on the ground, and the circus servants were obliged to carry them out to the infirmary, to be treated for broken bones, or to be revived from the shock which seemed like death.

Gallardo, most anxious to gain the sympathies of his public, was here, there and everywhere, earning immense applause by seizing the bull's tail and pulling, till it turned away from the picador lying on the ground in danger of being gored.