Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/94

 After annoying him thus with cloaks and lances for about ten minutes, a trumpet was sounded; and immediately a dozen banderillos or small lances, covered with gilt and flowered paper, were stuck in his neck, making him bound with rage at the assailant as he felt every new sting of the cruel weapons.

This done, the crowd circled around, and he stood in the midst, snorting, pawing the earth, veering his head from one portion of the ring to the other, beholding everywhere an armed foe pointing at him with a lance, and howling as if to dare them to attack. But he was effectually tamed.

Another blast from the trumpet, and two of the matadors approached stealthily from the rear, and plunged lances surrounded with fireworks, into the skin of his neck. Snorting, roaring, blazing, cracking, he bounded over the arena lashing himself with his tail, and dashing, without purpose, at everything.

At the third blast of the trumpet, the chief matador, who now made his first appearance, stepped forth, and proceeded to the judge's gallery for the sword, to dispatch the animal. By this time the fireworks had burned out, and the bull had been teased toward the southern barricade of the theatre. Panting with fatigue, rage and exhaustion, he stood at bay. The matador (an Andalusian, in pumps, silk stockings, and a tight-fitting purple dress, embroidered with bugles,) was a person of herculean frame, and his manly form, in the perfection of human beauty and strength, contrasted finely with the huge mass of bone and muscle in the beast.

He wound his red cloak around the short staff which he held in his left hand, and approached the bull, grasping in his right his well-poised sword. The bull, worried by the red cloak, bounded at him. As the animal stooped to gore, the matador leapt to the led with the bound of a deer, and receiving the beast with the whole shock of his weight and spring on the point of his weapon, passed it through his heart, and laid him dead without a struggle at his feet. The circus rang with applause at the successful stroke. Drawing out his blade, black with blood, the matador wiped it on the cloak, and bowing to the multitude, restored it to the judge.

The trumpet sounded again; a rope was noosed around the beast's horns, three gayly-caparisoned horses were led in, the carcass was hitched to them, and, at another blast of the trumpet they dragged the body, at full gallop, out of the circus. A shovel-full of fresh earth was thrown over the pool of blood; the trumpet was again sounded; the eastern barricade thrown open, and in bounded the second bull.

Almost blinded by his sudden plunge into daylight from the utter darkness of his den, and astounded by the shouts and jeers of the spectators, he rushed to the centre of the arena, and paused. His head wandered from side to side, as if seeking for something at which to tilt. He pawed the earth, lashed his back with his tail, and was evidently "game."
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