Blood and Sand. Vicente Blasco Ibanez

hands over his body, and then shrugged his shoulders to show he was not hurt. Nothing but the force of the blow and a sash in rags. The horn had only torn the strong silk belt.

      He turned to pick up his "killing weapons."[46] None of the spectators sat down, as they guessed that the next encounter would be brief and terrible. Gallardo advanced towards the bull with a reckless excitement, as if he discredited the powers of its horns now he had emerged unhurt. He was determined to kill or to die. There must be neither delay nor precautions. It must be either the bull or himself! He saw everything red just as if his eyes were bloodshot, and he only heard, like a distant sound from the other world, the shouts of the people who implored him to keep calm.

      He only made two passes with the help of a cloak which lay near him, and then suddenly quick as thought like a spring released from its catch he threw himself on the bull, planting a thrust, as his admirers said, "like lightning." He thrust his arm in so far, that as he drew back from between the horns, one of them grazed him, sending him staggering several steps. But he kept his feet, and the bull, after a mad rush, fell at the opposite side of the Plaza, with its legs doubled beneath it and its poll touching the sand, until the "puntillero"[47] came to give the final dagger thrust.

      The crowd seemed to go off its head with delight, A splendid corrida! All were surfeited with excitement. "That man Gallardo didn't steal their cash, he paid back their entrance money with interest." The aficionados would have enough to keep them talking for three days at their evening meetings in the Café. What a brave fellow! What a savage! And the most enthusiastic looked all around them in a fever of pugnacity to find anyone that disagreed with them.

      "He's the finest matador in the world! … If anyone dares to deny it, I'm here, ready for him."

      The rest of the corrida scarcely attracted any attention. It all seemed insipid and colourless after Gallardo's great feats.

      When the last bull fell in the arena, a swarm of boys, low class hangers-on, and bull-ring apprentices invaded the circus. They surrounded Gallardo, and escorted him in his progress from the president's chair to the door of exit. They pressed round him, anxious to shake his hands, or even to touch his clothes, till finally the wildest spirits, regardless of the blows of El Nacional and the other banderilleros, seized the "Maestro" by the legs, and hoisting him on their shoulders, carried him in triumph round the circus and galleries as far as the outbuildings of the Plaza.

      Gallardo raising his montero saluted the groups who cheered his progress. With his gorgeous cape around him he let himself be carried like a god, erect and motionless, above the sea of Cordovan hats and Madrid caps, whence issued enthusiastic rounds of cheers.

      When he was seated in his carriage, passing down the Calle de Alcala, hailed by the crowds who had not seen the corrida but who had already heard of his triumphs, a smile of pride, of delight in his own strength, illuminated his face perspiring and pale with excitement.

      El Nacional, still anxious about his Master's accident and terrible fall, asked if he was in pain, and whether Doctor Ruiz should be summoned.

      "No, it was only a caress, nothing more. … The bull that can kill me is not born yet."

      But as though in the midst of his pride some remembrance of his former weakness had surged up, and he thought he saw a sarcastic gleam in El Nacional's eye, he added:

      "Those feelings come over me before I go to the Plaza. … Something like women's fancies. You are not far wrong Sebastian. What's your saying? … "God or Nature"; that's it. Neither God or Nature meddle with bull-fighting affairs. Every one comes out of it as best he can, by his own skill or his own courage, there is no protection to be had from either earth or heaven. … You have talents, Sebastian; you ought to have studied for a profession."

      In the optimism of his triumph he regarded the banderillero as a sage, quite forgetting the laughter with which at other times he had always greeted his very involved reasonings.

      On arriving at his lodging he found a crowd of admirers in the lobby waiting to embrace him. His exploits, to judge from their hyperbolic language, had become quite different, so much did their conversation exaggerate and distort them, even during the short drive from the Plaza to the hotel.

      Upstairs he found his room full of friends. Gentlemen who called him "tu" and who imitated the rustic speech of the peasantry, shepherds, herdsmen, and such like, slapping him on the back and saying, "You were splendid … absolutely first class."

      Gallardo freed himself from this warm reception, and went out into the passage with Garabato.

      "Go and send off the telegram home. You know—'nothing new.'"

      Garabato excused himself, he wished to help his master to undress. The hotel people would undertake to send off the wire.

      "No: I want you to do it. I will wait. … There's another telegram too that you must send. You know for whom it is—for that lady, for Doña Sol. … Also 'nothing new.'"