Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/553

 Rh ball scrimmage of the most approved sort. The bull cannot endure the increasing pain, he backs out and extricates himself. Another round is over. The hard-pressed horseman has kept his seat and his lance, to the great delight of the audience, and rides off to a flourish of trumpets. Even the Sombra, the shady side, approves of this.

But what do I see? What mysterious filament steals down the nigh fore-leg of the poor steed? It is not blood from the merciless spurring of his flanks, it is a life-stream from the wound under his chest; he cannot last much longer.

Accordingly he is brought again to the onset, and finally sacrificed. The bull thrusts both prongs of his formidable brow fairly into the horse's side, lifting him momentarily from the ground; his entrails hang out; he falls; his rider leaps lightly off and strips saddle and trappings from him. A lasso is thrown, and a team of gayly caparisoned mules, coming out from a gate, make fast to the body and hastily drag it away.

The bull has tasted blood, and is now savage without contradiction. In the next round perhaps he disembowels a horse, unseats the rider, and chases him to the barrier. The steed does not die at once, but careers wildly around the ring till caught by the lassoers. The arena is full of dust and turmoil; everything flies before the horned enemy, his eye almost emitting lurid sparks, and his long tail streaming in the air. All the picadors have probed him deeply and often, and where their lances have been the dark blood is welling out after them. But by this time our toro has learned a certain amount