Part of the public rebuked Gallardo. The charm that had united the swordsman to the mult.i.tude at the beginning of the feast was broken.

Lack of confidence reappeared; criticism of the bull-fighter spread. All seemed to have forgotten the enthusiasm of a short time before.

Gallardo recovered his sword and with bowed head, lacking spirit to protest at the ingrat.i.tude of a mult.i.tude tolerant to others, inflexible with him, strode up to the bull again.

In his confusion he thought he saw a bull-fighter place himself at his side. It must be Nacional.

"Be calm, Juan! Don't get rattled."

"d.a.m.n it!" Must the same thing always happen to him? Could he no longer thrust his arm between the horns, as in other times, burying the sword to the hilt? Was he to spend the rest of his life making audiences laugh? An ox which they had had to set on fire!

He placed himself before the animal, which seemed to await him, his legs motionless as if he wished to put an end immediately to his long torture. He would not make more pa.s.ses with the _muleta_. He squared himself, the red rag held near the ground, the sword horizontal at the height of his eyes. Now for the stroke!

The audience rose to its feet with a sudden impulse. For some seconds man and beast formed but a single ma.s.s and thus moved a few steps. The most intelligent raised their hands ready to applaud. He had thrown himself to kill as in his better days. A master stroke!

But suddenly the man emerged from between the horns hurled like a projectile by a powerful toss of the bull's head, and rolled along the sand. The bull lowered his head and his horns hooked up the body, raising it from the ground an instant and letting it fall, to continue on his race, bearing in his neck the blade of the sword, embedded to the cross!

Gallardo slowly raised himself and the plaza burst forth into a deafening applause, eager to repair its injustice. Hurrah! Good for the bull-fighter of Seville! He had done well!

But the bull-fighter did not respond to these exclamations of enthusiasm. He put his hands on his abdomen, bent over in an att.i.tude of pain, and took a few hesitating steps with lowered head. Twice he raised it and looked toward the door of exit--as if he feared he could not find it, staggering blindly as though intoxicated.

Suddenly he fell upon the sand--contracted like an enormous worm of silk and gold. Four _mozos_ of the plaza slowly lifted him up until they raised him on their shoulders. Nacional joined the group holding the swordsman's ghastly head with its gla.s.sy eyes showing through their half-closed lashes.

The public made a movement of surprise, ceasing their applause. Every one gazed about, undecided as to the gravity of the event. But suddenly optimistic news circulated, coming from no one knew where; that anonymous opinion, which all heed and which at certain moments fires a mult.i.tude or causes it to remain motionless. It was nothing. A wound in the abdomen that deprived him of his senses. No one had seen blood.

The crowd, suddenly tranquillized, began to be seated again, turning its attention from the wounded bull-fighter to the wild beast, which was still on its feet, resisting the agonies of death.

Nacional helped to place his _maestro_ on a bed in the infirmary. He fell on it like a sack, inanimate, his arms hanging outside the couch.

Sebastian, though he had often seen his _maestro_ wounded and bleeding, and had kept his serenity in spite of it, now felt an agony of fear, seeing him inert and of a greenish white color, as if he were dead.

"By the life of the blue dove!" he moaned. "Are there no doctors? Is there n.o.body here?"

The man in charge of the hospital, after sending away the mangled _picador_, had rushed back to his box in the plaza.

The _banderillero_ was in despair; the seconds seemed hours; he screamed to Garabato and to Potaje who had followed after him, not sure what he was trying to tell them.

Two doctors came and after closing the door so that no one could disturb them, they stood undecided before the swordsman's inanimate body. He must be undressed. Garabato began to unb.u.t.ton, rip, and tear the bull-fighter's clothing, by the light that entered through a window in the ceiling.

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 a.s.sist 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, Sebastian. 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.

He had to make way through the courtyard to give pa.s.sage to the _picadores_ who were entering the ring again.

The terrible news began to circulate through the plaza. Gallardo was dead! Some doubted the truth of the information; others accepted it; still no one moved from his seat. The third bull was soon to come in.

The _corrida_ had not yet reached its first half, and there was no reason for abandoning it.

Through the door of the ring came the murmur of the mult.i.tude and the sound of music.

The _banderillero_ felt a fierce hatred born within him for all that surrounded him; an aversion to his profession and to the public that supported it. In his memory danced the sonorous words with which he had made the people laugh, finding in them now a new expression of justice.

He thought of the bull which was at that moment being dragged out of the arena, its neck burned and blood-stained, its legs rigid, and its gla.s.sy eyes staring at blue s.p.a.ce as do those of the dead.

Then in imagination he saw the friend who lay but a few steps away from him on the other side of a brick wall, also motionless and stiff, his breast bare, his abdomen torn open, a glazed and mysterious brilliancy between his half-closed lashes.

Poor bull! Poor _matador_!

Suddenly the murmuring amphitheatre burst forth into a bellowing, hailing the continuation of the spectacle. Nacional closed his eyes and clenched his fists.

It was the bellowing of the wild beast, the real and only one!

THE END