Gallardo rose slowly, the whole Plaza burst out into uproarious, deafening applause, anxious to repair their injustice. Olé for the man! Well done the lad from Seville! He had been splendid!
But the torero did not acknowledge these outbursts of enthusiasm. He raised his hand to his stomach, crouching in a painful curve, and with his head bent began to walk forward with uncertain step. Twice he raised his head as if he were looking for the door of exit and fearing not to be able to find it, finally staggering like a drunken man, and falling flat on the sand.
Four of the Plaza servants raised him slowly on their shoulders, El Nacional joining the group, to support the espada's pale livid head, with its glassy eyes just showing through the long lashes.
The audience started with surprise, and their plaudits ceased suddenly. They looked around at each other unable to make up their minds as to the gravity of the accident.... Soon optimistic news circulated, but no one knew from whence it came.... It was nothing, only a tremendous blow in the stomach which had deprived him of consciousness, but no one had seen any blood.
The populace, suddenly tranquilized, sat down, turning their attention from the wounded torero to the bull, who, though in the agonies of death, still remained firm on his feet.
El Nacional helped to place his master on a bed in the infirmary. He fell on it like a sack, inanimate, his arms hanging over either side of the bed.
Sebastian, who had so often seen the espada bleeding and wounded, without ever losing his calm, now felt the agony of fear, seeing him lifeless, with his face of a greenish whiteness as if he were already dead.
"By the life of the blue dove!" he groaned. "Are there no doctors? Is there no help anywhere?"
The infirmary doctors, after attending to the injured picador, had run back to their box in the Plaza.
The banderillero was in despair, seconds seemed hours, as he shouted to Garabato and Potaje to come and help him, not knowing quite what he said to them.