The Blood of the Arena Part 25

Gallardo divined the danger, foresaw that he would have bad luck, and that half the ring would rise shouting against him, denouncing him as thankless and ungrateful to those who had elevated him.

He killed his first bull with middling luck. He threw himself as bravely as ever between the horns, but the sword struck bone. His admirers applauded him. The thrust was well aimed and he was not to be blamed for the futility of his effort. But the second time he went in to kill, the bull, on chasing after the _muleta_, shook the blade out of the wound, sending it flying away. Then, taking a new sword from Garabato's hands, he turned toward the wild beast, which awaited him, with fore-feet planted forward, his neck streaming blood and his dripping mouth almost touching the sand. The _maestro_ holding his _muleta_ before the bull's eyes was tranquilly laying back with the point of his sword the shafts of the _banderillas_ that hung over his head. He was going to kill him by a stab in the spinal cord. He placed the steel point on the top of the bull's head, searching between the horns for the sensitive spot.

With an effort he thrust in the sword and the animal shuddered painfully, but still kept his feet, resisting the steel with a violent tossing of his head.

"One!" clamored the audience on the bleachers in mocking tones.

"d.a.m.n it!" Why did those people attack him with such injustice?

He raised the sword again and thrust, managing this time to reach the vulnerable spot. The bull fell instantly, as if struck by a lightning flash in the very nerve-centre of his life, and he lay with his horns dug into the ground, his legs rigid in the air.

The people in the shade applauded with cla.s.s enthusiasm, while the audience in the sun broke into hisses and jibes.

"_Nino litri!_ Aristocrat!"

Gallardo turned his back to these protests and saluted the enthusiasts with his _muleta_ and sword. The insults of the populace which had always been friendly to him hurt him and caused him to clench his fists.

"But what do those people want? The bull gave no better account of himself. d.a.m.n it! This is the work of enemies."

He pa.s.sed a great part of the _corrida_ close to the _barrera_ gazing disdainfully at what his companions were doing, accusing them mentally of having prepared these marks of displeasure against him in advance.

He also broke into curses against the bull and the herder that raised him. He had come so well prepared to do great deeds and he had encountered a beast which would not permit him to shine! The breeders that turned out such animals ought to be shot.

When he again took up the instruments of death, he ordered Nacional and another of his _peones_ to draw the bull with the cape toward the part of the plaza where the populace was seated.

He knew the public. He must humor the citizens in the sun, those tumultuous and terrible demagogues who carried cla.s.s hatred into the plaza but easily changed hisses into applause when a slight show of consideration flattered their pride.

The _peones_, waving their capes at the bull, began a race to attract him to the sunny side of the ring. A movement of joyful surprise from the populace welcomed this manoeuvre. The supreme moment, the bull's death, was to take place before their eyes--and not, as almost always happened, at a great distance for the convenience of the rich who were seated in the shade.

The fierce beast, as he stood alone on that side of the plaza, began to attack the dead body of a horse. He thrust his head into the open belly and raised the miserable carca.s.s on his horns like a limp rag. It fell to the ground, lying almost doubled, and the bull backed away with indecisive step. He returned again to sniff it with deep bellowings, while the audience laughed at his stupid tenacity, at this search for life in the inanimate body.

"Jam him hard there! Thou hast lots of strength, boy! Keep it up, or he'll turn on thee!"

But every one's attention was withdrawn from this venting of the bull's fury to Gallardo who was crossing the plaza with a short swinging step, in one hand the rolled _muleta_, in the other flourishing his sword as though it were a cane.

The entire audience in the sun applauded, grateful to have the swordsman come over to them.

"Thou hast put them into thy pocket," said Nacional, who stood near the bull with the cape ready.

The mult.i.tude gesticulated, calling to the bull-fighter--"Here, here!"

Each one wished him to kill the bull before his seat that he might not lose the slightest detail, and the swordsman hesitated between the contradictory calls of thousands of mouths. With one foot on the vaulting wall of the barrier he calculated where best to end the bull.

He must be drawn farther away. The dead horse seemed to fill that whole side of the plaza and disturbed the bull-fighter.

He was about to order Nacional to attract the beast away, when he heard a familiar voice behind him, a voice he did not recognize but which caused him to turn quickly.

"Good-afternoon, Senor Juan. We are going to applaud reality!"

He saw in the first row, under the panel of the inner barrier, a folded jacket on the edge of the wall, a pair of arms in shirt sleeves crossed over it, and a broad face recently shaved resting in the hands, with a hat drawn down to the ears. He looked like a good-natured rustic, come from a country town to witness the bull-fight.

Gallardo recognized him. It was Plumitas.

He had fulfilled his promise and there he was among twelve thousand people who did not know him, greeting the _matador_, who felt a certain grat.i.tude for this display of confidence. Gallardo marvelled at his temerity. To come down to Seville, to enter the plaza, far from the hills and the deserts where defence was easy for him, without the aid of his two companions, his mare and his carbine, and all--to see him kill bulls! Of the two, that man was the brave one. He thought of his plantation which was at Plumitas' mercy, of the country life which was only possible by maintaining good relations with this extraordinary personage. The bull must be for him.

He smiled at the bandit, who continued contemplating him with placid countenance; he took off his cap and shouted, turning toward the boisterous mult.i.tude, but with his eyes on Plumitas.

"_Vaya!_ In honor of you!"

He threw his cap into the bleachers and many hands were stretched out in rivalry, struggling to grasp the sacred trust. Gallardo gave signs to Nacional to bring the bull near him with his skilful cape-work. He extended his _muleta_ and the beast attacked with sonorous bellowing, pa.s.sing beneath the red rag. "_Ole!_" roared the crowd, acknowledging its old idol again and disposed to admire all that he did.

He continued making _pases_ at the bull, accompanied by the exclamations of the people a few feet away. Seeing him near they gave him advice.

"Take care, Gallardo!" The bull was perfectly sound. He must not let himself get between him and the barrier. He must keep his retreat clear.

Others more enthusiastic excited him to deeds of daring with audacious counsel.

"Let him have one of thy best! _Zas!_ A sword-thrust and thou hast him in thy pocket!"

The animal was too big and too cautious to be put in the pocket. He was excited by the proximity of the dead horse, and kept returning to it as if the odor intoxicated him.

In one of his evolutions, the bull, tired by the _muleta_, stood motionless. Gallardo had the dead horse behind him. It was a bad situation, but out of worse he had come victorious. He wished to take advantage of the horse's position. The public excited him to it. Among the men on the bleachers who had risen to their feet, and were leaning forward to lose no detail of the decisive moment, he recognized many popular devotees who had begun to cool toward him but were now applauding him again, moved by consideration for the populace.

"Score a point, there! Good boy! Now we'll see the real thing! Strike true!"

Gallardo turned his head slightly to salute Plumitas, who sat smiling, his moon face peeping above his arms and the jacket.

"For you, comrade!"

He squared himself with the sword presented ready to kill--but at that instant the earth seemed to shake and he felt himself hurled to a great distance; then the plaza fell, everything turned black, and a fierce hurricane of voices seemed to blow in from off the sea. His body vibrated painfully, his head buzzed as if it would burst; a mortal anguish contracted his breast--and he fell into a dark and limitless void, as into the unconsciousness of death.

The bull, at the very instant in which Gallardo made ready to thrust, had suddenly thrown himself upon him, attracted by the horse behind him.

It was a brutal encounter, in which the body of the bull-fighter with its silk and gold trappings rolled away and disappeared beneath his feet. He did not gore him with his horns, but the blow was horrible, staggering. With head and horns the wild beast felled the man as though he had been struck by a sledge hammer.

The bull, which saw only the horse, felt an obstacle near his feet, and scorning the dead body, turned to attack again the brilliant puppet that lay motionless on the sand. He raised it with one horn, tossed it some feet away after giving it a brief shaking, and then started to return to a third attack.

The mult.i.tude, stupefied by the swiftness with which all this had occurred, remained silent, appalled. The bull was going to kill him!

Perhaps he had already done so! Suddenly a shriek from the entire audience broke this agonizing silence. A cape was held between the wild beast and his victim, a rag almost thrust over its head by vigorous arms which tried to blind the brute. It was Nacional, who, in desperation, threw himself upon the bull, willing to be caught by him to save his master. The beast, stupefied by this new obstacle, charged against it, turning tail to the man lying on the sand. The _banderillero_, in between the horns, ran backward, waving the cape, not knowing how to free himself from this perilous situation, but happy to see that he was drawing the bull away from the wounded man.

The audience almost forgot the swordsman, so impressed was it by this new incident. Nacional was going to fall also; he could not get out from between the horns; the wild beast already had him almost hooked. Men shouted as if their cries could aid him; women wailed with anguish, turning away their faces and clutching one another convulsively, until the _banderillero_, taking advantage of the moment in which the wild beast lowered his head to charge, rushed from between the horns, stepping to one side, while the animal ran on blindly, the torn cape hanging before his eyes.

Then there broke forth deafening applause. The fickle mult.i.tude, impressed only by the danger of the moment, applauded Nacional. It was one of the happiest moments of his life. The audience, taken up with him, scarcely noticed Gallardo's inanimate body as it was carried out of the ring, the head hanging limp, by bull-fighters and employees of the plaza.

At nightfall the only subject of conversation in the city was Gallardo's injury, the most terrible of his life. Extras were being published in many cities and newspapers all over Spain gave accounts of the events with lengthy comment. The telegraph worked as if a political personage had just been the victim of an a.s.sa.s.sin.

Terrifying news circulated along Sierpes Street exaggerated by Southern hyperbolic commentary. Poor Gallardo had just died. He who gave the sad news had seen him in a bed in the infirmary of the plaza, white as paper, a cross in his hands. Another presented himself with less lugubrious news. He was not dead yet, but he would die any moment.

"He has lost everything! Everything! Disembowelled! The brute has left the poor fellow punctured like a sieve."

Guards had been placed at the entrances to the plaza so that the people, anxious for news, should not invade the infirmary. The mult.i.tude surged outside the ring asking news of the master's condition from those who came and went.

Nacional, still dressed in his fighting costume, peered out several times, ill-humored and frowning, bl.u.s.tering and angry, because arrangements for moving the _maestro_ to his house had not been made.