Part 86

Each of the three coaches had in its turn stopped under the royal box, while a ducal patron presented his cavalier to the young King and his bride; now, the ring was being cleared as the magnificent amateur picadors mounted their horses, which had been led round by squires in the quaint dress of 1630. One of four dignified alguaziles in black velvet and lace doffed his plumed hat to the King as President of the fight, asking the key of the bull’s cell. Down it flashed, while the music stopped as if awed into silence, and the alguazil spurred his stallion across the arena to fling into the montera of el Buñolero, janitor of the bull cells, the key he had received.

“Vivillo is fifth bull,” I said to myself, repeating Dick’s words; and there, too, was his name on the programme of the fight. Pilar’s favourite had still a little time to draw the breath of life, stamping in the gloom of his narrow toril. Not yet had that untamed neck of his been stung by the rosetted dart flaunting his owner’s colours; and much was to happen in the arena before Vivillo’s brave beauty would call for the clapping of twice thirteen thousand hands.

First, the three noble amateurs, with their long sharp javelins, must each in turn play picador with grace to please a queen-bride, and save his horse’s sides from goring horns. Then, when three bulls had died according to ancient, chivalrous custom (if the cavalier’s skill served), without slaughter of horses, the corrida would go on in ordinary Spanish fashion of to-day, with all its sensational moments and its tragedies, until—Vivillo’s time came.

As for me, I must sit until the leave-taking of the royalties and royal guests should empty also the Carmona box. I wondered, as the first bull rushed into the ring, whether the King and Queen would still be in their places when the door should open for Vivillo, or whether their departure would rob Carmona of the spectacle of his mean revenge. I hoped it would, for I could not bear that he should see the suffering he had inflicted on Pilar for my sake, and revel in it. Still, when he went I must go too; and I felt vaguely that I ought to be near Pilar—my loyal sister Pilar—during the act which would be tragical for her.

As Dick said, there were brilliant moments in the bull-fight; and the amateurs acquitted themselves in a way to deserve the enthusiasm of the crowd. The beautiful young Queen threw a jewel to each torero who finished a bull after the javelins of the cavaliers had done their work; and when the last of the brave trio had bowed himself out of the ring, began that phase of the sport which Spaniards know and love. The blindfolded horses trotted in, ridden by professional picadors with indifferent, sullen faces; and then a stir of excitement ran from tier to tier of the audience, as a breeze blows over a wheat-field. The first part had been but a pretty play; now was coming the real thing, with the best bulls, and the best espadas of Spain.

The bride in her white mantilla looked down at her fan, and counted the gilded ivory sticks, when the first bull charged the first horse. She, the Queen of Spain, must not seem to flinch, though her English eyes had never seen such crimson sights as these. This was the national sport; she must learn to understand that when men yelled, and even women cried “Buena vara!” it was not with joy because a horse’s side was torn, but because a picador had made the perfect thrust. She must seem to love what the people loved, if she wished them to love her; but not far off sat another young girl in white, who had no such compelling obligations.

Monica, warned beforehand perhaps, when she was forced to come, put up her fan whenever a bull rushed towards a horse, and would no doubt have kept it there had not her mother spoken to her more than once, peremptorily. As for Pilar, though she did not lift her fan, she seemed to see nothing, for she sat with her head bowed, only starting and looking up when the horn sounded for a new bull.

At last there was no more question as to whether the King and Queen would stay to see Vivillo play his part. The fourth bull had been dragged away dead by the team of tasselled mules, and the piercing blast, which had grown to sound tragic in my ears, summoned Vivillo, all unknowing, to his fate. And the royalties kept their seats, though the afternoon waned, and shadow—like the creeping shadow of death—darkened two-thirds of the arena.

So keen was my sympathy with Pilar that I felt my throat contract and my mouth go dry. So must it be with her at this moment which called her brave favourite to his death; so, like mine, only faster and more thickly, must her heart be beating.

Could she, after all, bear the ordeal? Would she not turn and hurry out before the first picador drew the blood she had tried so hard to save? But no; she sat still, her eyes large, her face blanched, and one hand twisted in the folds of her lace mantilla as it rose and fell on her breast.

Before the dead was well out of the ring, and his red track sanded, the door of the toril was thrown open for the fifth bull, said never to be a coward. It was a compliment to Carmona and to Vivillo to be chosen for this position on the programme, since it has become a proverb that the pick of the corrida should be fifth on the list. It was also a compliment to Carmona that the King should wait to see how his Vivillo would die.

The buñolero sprang back as he opened the door, retiring more hastily than was his wont into the space between the barriers out of the bull’s way. It was as if he, too, expected the new-comer to be something beyond the ordinary in ferocity or cunning; for Carmona’s bulls, like those of the Muira breed, are famed for their terrible habit of ignoring the cloak and charging at the body of the man who holds it.

Some bulls had rushed into the arena and blindly attacked the first object which came within their dazed vision; but my heart had time to beat twice before that noble form, which I had last seen in peaceful pasture, deigned to show itself at the dark exit of the toril.

It was as if Vivillo wished to prove how he scorned the puny prick of that fish-hook dart hidden by a rosette of green and purple ribbon, supreme indifference to the strange scene which burst upon eyes accustomed for long to darkness, and haughty superiority to thirst and hunger which irritated weaker animals to frenzy. No one, seeing the great bull stand with his head up, questioning, surprised, could have mistaken his attitude for cowardice. There was something ominous, even terrible, in his pause; and it gave the waiting audience time to appreciate the magnificence of his proportions, the length and dagger-keenness of his horns, the rippling of the muscles under the brown satin of his skin, in the great chest and lean flanks.

“This is not a bull,—it is a mountain,” shouted a voice; and other voices praised Vivillo’s perfections, so soon to vanish off the earth. “Grandly armed!” “He would face a battalion!” “Let Fuentes look out for himself!”

For Fuentes, best espada left in Spain, bravest fighter of bulls according to the classic methods, was to give Vivillo the death stroke, when picadores and banderilleros had done with him.

The yells of the vast multitude in an instant changed the bull’s proud astonishment to fury. He seemed to realize that this new world, so different from the old sweet, green one, was a world of enemies, every soul against him, and he was ready to fight them all to the death. He neither pawed the sand nor bellowed, for these are puerile betrayals of temper to which the noblest bulls do not descend. Like a tornado he swept across the ring, killed a horse with a single thrust, sent the picador crashing against the barrera; and quick as a wild cat, strong as an African lion, wheeled to lift another animal and its rider on his horns. Half the length of the arena he trotted, upholding both, whilst the audience rose to him and yelled admiration of his savage strength.

“This is like the good old days. You don’t see such a bull in ten thousand,” men said to each other, as Vivillo flung the dead horse on the sand, tumbling the picador over the barrera into the callijon, and raced off gamely to a third duel.

When he had killed three horses (knowing no distinction between their innocence and man’s cruelty, after his shoulders had felt the lance) he was apparently as fresh as when he left the toril. At this stage of the death drama most bulls would be breathing hard; but though the brown velvet of Vivillo’s neck was stained dark crimson, neither fatigue nor pain made his strong heart labour.

More horses were given him, to die as others had died, all save one, which the bull refused to touch because it was of the colour he knew and was friendly with at home. It was led at last unscathed; but Vivillo had now six horses to his credit, and his popularity with the audience had already risen far beyond that of his predecessors. Still, his activity, instead of diminishing, seemed to grow with the rising fever of his fury.

In ordinary cases the trumpet would now have sounded for the second act, dismissing the picadors and summoning the banderilleros; but Vivillo in his present condition was too formidable a foe to be teased by the bravest with barbed, beribboned darts; and “Caballos—caballos!” was the cry.

Four more sacrificial beasts were brought, and he dealt with all, so nearly goring one picador that an espada, dashing to the rescue, was raced to the barrier, and had his stocking crimsoned as he vaulted over it.

Vivillo’s list of victims had now swelled to ten, and though he had accepted thirty-three varas, or thrusts of the lance, his great shoulders scarcely shuddered under the red rain of his blood. Still, the first act could not be further prolonged. The sharp, cruel blast of the cornet gave the signal for the second to begin.

Dick and I had not spoken, and I dared not look towards Pilar. As the crowd shouted an imperious demand for the great Fuentes to come into the ring as banderillero, it seemed to me that centuries were swept away by their wild voices; that this was not the bull-ring of Madrid, but the Coliseum of Rome.

Vivillo waited, his head up, undaunted; and though his face and attitude were menacing, the brown eyes, set wide apart, were radiantly innocent. He seemed a creature made up of nature’s best, a product of blue sky, sweet meadow, and pure air; of his kind, perfection. Did he think now of his old home in the rich pasture-land, and the tinkle of the friendly cabestros’ bells? If he did, the home-sick thought did not make him fear to face what was to come. Never once had he followed the example of two or three among his predecessors, and turned towards the shut door of the toril as if for refuge. Always he had faced the enemy; and now he rushed to play with his horns for the glittering banderillas which waited for his shoulders.

Fuentes was consenting to the wish of the public, but two ordinary banderilleros were to precede him. The famous matador, who was afterwards to kill this most popular bull of the day, would plant the last pair of the six.

The first man, sparkling in satin and silver, lifted on high his two barb-tipped sticks, gaily ornamented with tinsel paper, and called Vivillo from a distance. His mocking voice infuriated the bull, who rushed upon him; then, as he swayed lightly aside, it was all he could do to save himself from the great animal’s sudden, swift turn, without placing either of his banderillas. Again and again the play was repeated, but the audience were saying that Vivillo was becoming crafty as Shylock. At last one gay-coloured stick—“half a pair”—hung from Vivillo’s shoulders; twice and three times the attempt was made before the “pair” was complete; and the second banderillero succeeded no better. But as Fuentes entered the ring, condescending to play at the game of which he was once master, there went up a roar of applause. Fuentes never failed; and that trick of his—planting both feet on a handkerchief, nor deigning to move save for a swaying of the body while planting the two barbs—was famous, a sight worth seeing when the bull was even half as good as this. But for once even Fuentes’ brilliant tactics were at a loss. Vivillo had brains, and used them. He used his eyes, too, before charging, which not one out of five hundred bulls can do; and if Fuentes played with him, he played also, a game whose zest came from a hint of pressing danger. Once it seemed that Vivillo would be over the barrera, in the callijon, and there was a stampede of all the onlookers there. Again he threatened to demolish the wooden barrier with his horns, and there was a wilder scramble than before. But the banderillas were planted at last, and the blood on Vivillo’s brown shoulders lay like a crimson cloak. The great round of applause was as much for the bull as for the banderillero; and every face in the audience was tense with excitement as the horn sounded for the death scene. With such a king of the arena anything might happen. It was well that a master like Fuentes was the espada who would deal with him, or he might deal with the espada.

And so it was to end in the usual tragedy, and after a few more brilliant moments of play the brave heart of the beast must feel the sword. I had known, of course, that it must be so, and yet until now it had not seemed a cold certainty. Perhaps I had vaguely hoped that Vivillo would vault the barrera, and refuse to be coaxed back again; but, even if he had, he could not have saved himself, and might have had to die some death less glorious than by the espada’s blade.