Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/563

 Rh from the first distinguished himself among his companions by his skill and valor.

In course of time he was drafted back to the office of the Minister of the Interior at Madrid. His passion was so fully confirmed that he begged and obtained permission to be absent from his desk on Mondays, alleging very important private business. What was the surprise of the office on learning that this private business was nothing else than to take part, as a leading performer, in the regular novilladas! The Minister promptly notified him that he must be either an employé of the bureau or a bull fighter, but couldn't be both. Mazzantini just as promptly handed in his resignation, saying that all his inclinations called him to the arena. We have seen that this renunciation or martyrdom was more nobly rewarded than if it had been in a higher cause. In a single benefit at Havana he has gained as much as twenty thousand dollars, besides magnificent presents. He receives gold medals and crowns, he is carried on men's shoulders, he is the object of grand ovations on arriving and on leaving port, and feeling sonnets are addressed to him by rising and even by risen poets. "O splendid gladiator!" cries the latest of those I have read on this theme—"O son of Spain! thou who, enclosed within the narrow arena, 'mid the bulls, executest heroic feat after heroic feat! Rustic bard of the mountains I, merely one of the hundred thousand throats that hoarsely acclaim thy arrival from a foreign shore. Disciple thou of Montes and Delgado, worthy peer of Cúchares and Frascuelo, thou givest to thy art an unwonted brilliancy. Pray Heaven thou meet not on our soil the tragic end of Pepe-Hillo!" Now, Pepe-Hillo—but as I know no more of him than the context supplies, let Pepe-Hillo go. I wish to pause