The misfortunes of his fellows served to bring out by contrast the skill of Posadas. Not only did he pass the day unscathed, but killed both his bulls at the first thrust so instantly that the thud of their fall might be heard outside the plaza, how rare a feat only he knows who has watched the hacking and butchering of many a "novillero." Indeed, so pleasing was his work that he was at once engaged, contrary to all precedent, to appear again on the ensuing Sunday.
By that time I had learned enough of the "fine points of the game" to recognize that the Sevillian was approaching already true matador "form," and as I took leave of him next day it was with the conviction that success in his chosen career was as sure as the certainty of soon winning his most cherished reward.
"Vaya, Don Henrico," he laughed as we shook hands. "We shall see each other again. Some day when I go to Mexico or the Americas of the south I shall come by New York and you shall show me all you have told us of."
There are few countries in which it is more difficult to lay out an itinerary that will take in the principal points of interest without often doubling on one's track than Spain. By dint of long calculation and nice adjustment of details I sketched a labyrinthian route that my kilometer-book, together with what walking I should have time for, would cover. As for my check-book there was left exactly three pesetas a day for the remainder of my time in the peninsula.
So one cloudy morning in early August I took train at the Estación del Norte and wound away upward through the gorges of the Guardarrama to Segovia. Only there did I realize that the rumble of Madrid had been absolutely incessant in my ears; the stillness of the ancient city was almost oppressive, even more than in Toledo one felt peculiarly out of the world and a sensation that he must not remain too long lest he be wholly forgotten and lose his place in life's procession.
In the morning I set off by the highway that follows for some miles the great unmortared aqueduct, that chief feature of Segovia, a thing indeed far greater than the town, as if a man's gullet, or his thirst should be larger than himself, so difficult is it for a city to obtain water in this thirsty land. Where the road abandoned the monument it continued across a country brown and sear, with almost the aspect of an American meadow in autumn, steadily rising all but imperceptibly. Well on in the morning I entered a forest, at a side road of which I was joined by two guardias civiles, who marched for an hour with me exchanging information and marveling that I had wandered so far afield. It has been my lot to become well, nay, intimately acquainted with the police of many lands, and I know of none that, as a body, are more nearly what police should be than these civil guards of Spain, to whom is due the suppression of all the old picturesque insecurities of the road. They have neither the bully-ism of our own club-wielders nor the childishness of Asiatic officers. Except in blistering Bailen the bearing of every pair I met--they never travel singly--was such as to win at once the confidence of the stranger and to draw out of him such facts as it is their duty to learn so naturally that it seemed but a mutual exchange of politenesses. There are, no doubt, petty corruptions in so large a body, but in the presence of almost any of them one has a conviction that their first thought is their duty.
