call, like a new monster in a vision, and there
leaps forth a cream-coloured bull, with
brindled, thick, ropy neck, red eyes, and
terrific crescent horns.

This bull gored and floored everything;
drove one picador, with a smashing thump,
against the barrier, to which he clung, a
bruised ruin; ripped up a ghastly one-eyed
brown horse, whose sight had been bandaged
to prevent its shunning the charge; all but
pinned a chulo; broke down in a stubborn
squeltering leap, the top plank of the barrier.
Finally, to crown all his honours, tossed a
picador, and, after many strokes of his horns,
which clicked against the man's iron-guarded
leg, ended by simply tearing his costly
jacket in the left shoulder. As for this
picador's horse, I dared not look at it;
but I saw something on the sand that
looked like trays of butchers' meat that had
been upset. There was a jet of blood, a
gush, a flooding: so died three horses, with
a drunken, blind stagger, a flicker, a kick,
and then death. Three times the ferocious
giant leaps on the barriers with unreasoning
strength. It gores another horse under the
left leg; it pounds along, a grand type of
blind passion, fiery life, and brute power,
a chulo's red cloak trailing from his horn.
There are great spots of gore on him, and
one of his horns is broken by striking at
one of the stone supports of the barriers.
A fat tradesman next us, with four feet of
red scarf round his paunch, gets very hot,
crying "Bravo, Toro!" This bull is
decidedly a game bull: a hero, who will die
surrounded by his dead enemies, which to
the bovine, and even to the rough human
mind, has before this been a satisfaction.
The cigars are working in short excited
puffs; voiding much blue sacrificial incense,
and the barefooted attendants are busy stuffing
tow, trying to plug a horse's chest, like ship-
carpenters, intent on stopping a shot-hole.

Now the picador, who has been unhorsed,
and has his rich jacket torn, amuses everybody,
and sets the fans to work, by
suddenly rushing at a mounted friend, and
trying to pull him off by tugging at his leg.

"I really am afraid the men are coming to
blows," says Monoculus.

A man in a white jacket, near us, relieves
our mind by taking his cigar out of his mouth
to tell us that it is only the picador wanting
to be revenged on the bull, that has torn his
jacket. The chulos, one leg over the barrier,
furling up their cloaks, laugh as the picador
unhorses his friend, leaps up in his saddle,
seizes a heavy curved lance, and dashes off
to face the bull; first making the oath, and
dashing away his hat to show that he is deeply
in earnest. The way he spurned the air and
tossed up his lance, had a chivalric defiance
about it. The bull drove at him with a
sullen, blind, abstract stare. He turned the
minotaur with his lance, twice three times,
till the animal's courage and life began to
drain away. In vain groves of sticks
descended in blows on the bull as it passed
the arena-wall: it was of no use, it was spent
and cowed. The banderillas were thrown, and,
lastly, not El Tato, but his assistant, came
forward with the death-sword in his hand, in
strutting magnificent. He is the pet of the Calle
di Mari-blanca: he is a promising bull-slayer,
but still not a prima espada or premier. If a
bull is slow and shy, heavy and cunning, he
is difficult game; but a bold bull, that goes
straight at the horse, always forgetting the
man, is easy to slay. This is a bold bull.
To be long killing a bull, is always resented
by the people. This sobrisaliente, or assistant,
is a beginner: El Tato is looking on: the
governor is there, and half Malaga. He has
his laurels to win. He must give a buen
estoque—a sure thrust: his suerte, or plan of
killing, must be good: he must put the keen,
strong blade straight in between the left
shoulder and the left shoulder-blade bone.
Now he drives it in up to the hilt; but the
bull staggers on to the barriers.

The deed is done. The media espada, agile
and lithe, with his netted hair and long pigtail,
coolly draws out the sword, wipes it, and
returns it over the barrier. Fans may break
out in petulant foolishness, but the media
espada of El Tato's troop flatters himself
rather that he has not lived thirty years for
nothing, and at least knows how to kill a
bull. He strides off like a king, and waits
while the butcher gives the coup de grace—
quick, sure, careless, and indifferent to
applause. If he had missed, there would have
been a rain of mere burnt cigar-stumps,
and broken fan-sticks; now cigarettes
make the air white as snow-time, and the
round black caps heap up at his feet. The
caps he flings back, with bows, the cigars
are collected for him. The dead bull is
drawn out in a dusty circle, his legs stiff and
still threatening. High over all the rustle
and flap of fans comes the shrill,
melancholy cry of the bare-legged water-seller,
A-gua! A-gua! like the wail of some
sufferer in purgatory. Our tired eyes, wearied
of blood, look up to the sky above us, where
some doves are circling like wondering
angels; or beyond, to the broad undulating
horizon skirted by mountains, brown and
purple, that are strewn with white houses,
like giant's treasures laid out to sun. Here
was unheavenly work doing within sight of
paradise.

"Is it not horrible," says Monoculus, "to
hear Christian men, seated beside women and
children they love, tell you, when you pity a
dying horse, it is worth nothing; or, when you
shudder at the bull growing red, calling out
that he has a buen cuerpo de sangre? It is
exciting, but so is drinking. It makes the
sight of bloodshed habitual. It hardens the
moral sense. It debases, at least, women and
children. No English lady could stop out a
single course. Hand-Book Ford states that,