Nacional could hardly see the body. The doctors stood around the wounded man, consulting each other with significant glances. It must be a collapse that had apparently deprived him of life. No blood was seen. The rents in his clothing were the effect, no doubt, of the tumbling the bull had given him.
Doctor Ruiz entered hastily and his colleagues made way for him, respecting his skill. He swore in his nervous precipitation while he began to assist Garabato to open the bull-fighter's clothing.
There was a movement of astonishment, of painful surprise, around the bed. The banderillero dared not inquire. He looked between the heads of the doctors and saw Gallardo's body with the shirt raised above his breast. The naked abdomen was gashed by a tortuous aperture like bleeding lips, through which appeared patches of bright blue.
Doctor Ruiz sadly shook his head. Besides the atrocious and incurable wound, the bull-fighter had received a tremendous shock from the bull's tossing. He did not breathe.
"Doctor—doctor!" cried the banderillero, begging to know the truth.
Doctor Ruiz, after a long silence, shook his head again.
"It is all over, Sebastián. Thou must seek another matador."
Nacional raised his eyes aloft. Thus to end a man like that, unable to press the hand of his friends, without a word, suddenly, like a miserable rabbit struck in the neck!
In despair he left the infirmary. Ah, he could not see that! He was not like Potaje who stood quiet and frowning at the foot of the bed, contemplating the body as though he did not see it, while he twirled his beaver hat in his fingers.
He was about to cry like a child. His breast heaved with anguish, and his eyes filled with tears.