"He is often over careful," they said on the benches—"often he is weak, but he has toreros' pride, and he is regaining his name."
Their delighted excitement at Gallardo's exploit and the death of the first bull turned to bad humour and expostulations as they saw the second bull enter the arena. He was of enormous size and fine appearance, but he began to trot all round the arena, looking with astonishment at the howling masses of people crowded on the seats, frightened by the cries and whistling with which they endeavoured to excite him, and running away from his own shadow, imagining all sorts of snares. The peons ran towards him spreading their capes. He attacked the red cloth for an instant, then suddenly giving a snort of surprise he turned tail and ran away in the opposite direction with leaps and bounds. His agility for flight made the people furious.
"He is not a bull! ... he is a monkey!"
The maestros' capes finally attracted him towards the barrier, where the picadors waited for him motionless on their horses, their garrochas under their arms. He came up to a rider with lowered head and fierce snorts, as though intending to attack, but before the iron could be driven into his neck he gave a bound and fled, passing between the peons' outstretched capes. In his flight he ran against another picador, repeating the bound, the snort, and the flight. Then he ran against a third picador, who caught him fairly on the neck with his garrocha, increasing in this way both his fear and his velocity.
The audience had risen to their feet en masse gesticulating and shouting. A craven bull! What an abomination!... They all turned towards the presidential box, shouting their protests: "Señor Presidente! This cannot be allowed."
From several of the rows came a chorus of voices repeating the same word with monotonous iteration.
"Fire ... fire!"
The President seemed doubtful. The bull was rushing all about the ring, followed by the toreros, with their capes on their arms. When some of them succeeded in getting in front of him and stopping him, he would sniff the cloths with his usual snort and run off in another direction, kicking and bounding.
These flights increased the noisy expostulations: "Señor Presidente," was his Worship blind? Then bottles, oranges, and seat cushions began to shower into the arena round the fugitive beast. The masses loathed him for a coward. Some of them stretched over into the arena, as if they intended tearing the animal to pieces with their own hands. What a scandal! To see in the Madrid Plaza oxen only fit for meat! Fire! fire!