It came close to the wall of the ring and looked over; its glazed, anguished eyes gazed from side to side as if asking: "Is there no escape, no mercy anywhere?"
A spectator on the audience side of the hoarding raised his hand and struck it between the eyes. It tottered, staggered, and sank within the ring.
Eight horses had now been rendered useless, the arena was black and red with blood, in spite of the assiduous sprinkling of fresh sand, and there was a pause in the entertainment. The picadors had had their turn, the banderilleros were ready to appear, but the people were thoroughly enjoying themselves now and they stamped and roared "Caballos" till they were hoarse. That horrid cry for more and more horses to be produced that alarms the administrador, or manager, of the bull-fight.
In vain the attendants lashed and goaded the dying horses in the arena. They could not get them to their feet again. There is a limit to man's sway, the tortured life at last escapes him. The bodies were dragged away, more sand, and then the administrador himself, pale as ashes, stepped out before the audience howling for more blood.
"Señors," he commenced, "it is impossible to supply more than eight horses for one bull; there are five more bulls to be dispatched. They are more savage than this one. I must keep horses for them. Let the señors be reasonable and allow the show to continue."
At this promise of five more bulls there was general applause. The band rolled out fresh music. There was a thunder of drums and the banderilleros came on, gorgeous in velvet, glittering in spangle and tinsel.
The bull is weary now and has lost much of his blood; as from the first, he only longs to escape from this ring, and the mad monkeys who are gibing and gibbering at him in it. They came forward with their fresh weapons, shafts and arrows of iron decked up with coloured ribbons, which they throw at him and which stick on his shoulders and in his sides, drawing streams of blood wherever they strike him.
Maddened by those, he rushes at the flaming coats the men trail before his eyes; but the cruel little, dancing, monkey-like man with the cloak darts away before he can be touched, and at last, after repeated rushes and repeated failures, the grand creature stands still, wearied and disdainful, his head erect, the blood flowing from his wounds in which the darts move, swaying to and fro each time he stirs, causing him an agony he cannot understand. So he faces the great crowded ring contemptuously, and the people shout at him and call him a coward and scream for the espada to come and dispatch him.