Chapter 28
As for me, I must sit until the leave-taking of the royalties and royal guests should empty also the Carmona box. I wondered, as the first bull rushed into the ring, whether the King and Queen would still be in their places when the door should open for Vivillo, or whether their departure would rob Carmona of the spectacle of his mean revenge. I hoped it would, for I could not bear that he should see the suffering he had inflicted on Pilar for my sake, and revel in it. Still, when he went I must go too; and I felt vaguely that I ought to be near Pilar—my loyal sister Pilar—during the act which would be tragical for her.
As Dick said, there were brilliant moments in the bull-fight; and the amateurs acquitted themselves in a way to deserve the enthusiasm of the crowd. The beautiful young Queen threw a jewel to each _torero_ who finished a bull after the javelins of the cavaliers had done their work; and when the last of the brave trio had bowed himself out of the ring, began that phase of the sport which Spaniards know and love. The blindfolded horses trotted in, ridden by professional picadors with indifferent, sullen faces; and then a stir of excitement ran from tier to tier of the audience, as a breeze blows over a wheat-field. The first part had been but a pretty play; now was coming the real thing, with the best bulls, and the best _espadas_ of Spain.
The bride in her white mantilla looked down at her fan, and counted the gilded ivory sticks, when the first bull charged the first horse. She, the Queen of Spain, must not seem to flinch, though her English eyes had never seen such crimson sights as these. This was the national sport; she must learn to understand that when men yelled, and even women cried “_Buena vara!_” it was not with joy because a horse’s side was torn, but because a picador had made the perfect thrust. She must seem to love what the people loved, if she wished them to love her; but not far off sat another young girl in white, who had no such compelling obligations.
Monica, warned beforehand perhaps, when she was forced to come, put up her fan whenever a bull rushed towards a horse, and would no doubt have kept it there had not her mother spoken to her more than once, peremptorily. As for Pilar, though she did not lift her fan, she seemed to see nothing, for she sat with her head bowed, only starting and looking up when the horn sounded for a new bull.
At last there was no more question as to whether the King and Queen would stay to see Vivillo play his part. The fourth bull had been dragged away dead by the team of tasselled mules, and the piercing blast, which had grown to sound tragic in my ears, summoned Vivillo, all unknowing, to his fate. And the royalties kept their seats, though the afternoon waned, and shadow—like the creeping shadow of death—darkened two-thirds of the arena.
So keen was my sympathy with Pilar that I felt my throat contract and my mouth go dry. So must it be with her at this moment which called her brave favourite to his death; so, like mine, only faster and more thickly, must her heart be beating.
Could she, after all, bear the ordeal? Would she not turn and hurry out before the first picador drew the blood she had tried so hard to save? But no; she sat still, her eyes large, her face blanched, and one hand twisted in the folds of her lace mantilla as it rose and fell on her breast.
Before the dead was well out of the ring, and his red track sanded, the door of the _toril_ was thrown open for the fifth bull, said never to be a coward. It was a compliment to Carmona and to Vivillo to be chosen for this position on the programme, since it has become a proverb that the pick of the _corrida_ should be fifth on the list. It was also a compliment to Carmona that the King should wait to see how his Vivillo would die.
The _buñolero_ sprang back as he opened the door, retiring more hastily than was his wont into the space between the barriers out of the bull’s way. It was as if he, too, expected the new-comer to be something beyond the ordinary in ferocity or cunning; for Carmona’s bulls, like those of the Muira breed, are famed for their terrible habit of ignoring the cloak and charging at the body of the man who holds it.
Some bulls had rushed into the arena and blindly attacked the first object which came within their dazed vision; but my heart had time to beat twice before that noble form, which I had last seen in peaceful pasture, deigned to show itself at the dark exit of the _toril_.
It was as if Vivillo wished to prove how he scorned the puny prick of that fish-hook dart hidden by a rosette of green and purple ribbon, supreme indifference to the strange scene which burst upon eyes accustomed for long to darkness, and haughty superiority to thirst and hunger which irritated weaker animals to frenzy. No one, seeing the great bull stand with his head up, questioning, surprised, could have mistaken his attitude for cowardice. There was something ominous, even terrible, in his pause; and it gave the waiting audience time to appreciate the magnificence of his proportions, the length and dagger-keenness of his horns, the rippling of the muscles under the brown satin of his skin, in the great chest and lean flanks.
“This is not a bull,—it is a mountain,” shouted a voice; and other voices praised Vivillo’s perfections, so soon to vanish off the earth. “Grandly armed!” “He would face a battalion!” “Let Fuentes look out for himself!”
For Fuentes, best _espada_ left in Spain, bravest fighter of bulls according to the classic methods, was to give Vivillo the death stroke, when picadores and _banderilleros_ had done with him.
The yells of the vast multitude in an instant changed the bull’s proud astonishment to fury. He seemed to realize that this new world, so different from the old sweet, green one, was a world of enemies, every soul against him, and he was ready to fight them all to the death. He neither pawed the sand nor bellowed, for these are puerile betrayals of temper to which the noblest bulls do not descend. Like a tornado he swept across the ring, killed a horse with a single thrust, sent the picador crashing against the _barrera_; and quick as a wild cat, strong as an African lion, wheeled to lift another animal and its rider on his horns. Half the length of the arena he trotted, upholding both, whilst the audience rose to him and yelled admiration of his savage strength.
“This is like the good old days. You don’t see such a bull in ten thousand,” men said to each other, as Vivillo flung the dead horse on the sand, tumbling the picador over the _barrera_ into the _callijon_, and raced off gamely to a third duel.
When he had killed three horses (knowing no distinction between their innocence and man’s cruelty, after his shoulders had felt the lance) he was apparently as fresh as when he left the _toril_. At this stage of the death drama most bulls would be breathing hard; but though the brown velvet of Vivillo’s neck was stained dark crimson, neither fatigue nor pain made his strong heart labour.
More horses were given him, to die as others had died, all save one, which the bull refused to touch because it was of the colour he knew and was friendly with at home. It was led at last unscathed; but Vivillo had now six horses to his credit, and his popularity with the audience had already risen far beyond that of his predecessors. Still, his activity, instead of diminishing, seemed to grow with the rising fever of his fury.
In ordinary cases the trumpet would now have sounded for the second act, dismissing the picadors and summoning the _banderilleros_; but Vivillo in his present condition was too formidable a foe to be teased by the bravest with barbed, beribboned darts; and “_Caballos—caballos!_” was the cry.
Four more sacrificial beasts were brought, and he dealt with all, so nearly goring one picador that an _espada_, dashing to the rescue, was raced to the barrier, and had his stocking crimsoned as he vaulted over it.
Vivillo’s list of victims had now swelled to ten, and though he had accepted thirty-three _varas_, or thrusts of the lance, his great shoulders scarcely shuddered under the red rain of his blood. Still, the first act could not be further prolonged. The sharp, cruel blast of the cornet gave the signal for the second to begin.
Dick and I had not spoken, and I dared not look towards Pilar. As the crowd shouted an imperious demand for the great Fuentes to come into the ring as _banderillero_, it seemed to me that centuries were swept away by their wild voices; that this was not the bull-ring of Madrid, but the Coliseum of Rome.
Vivillo waited, his head up, undaunted; and though his face and attitude were menacing, the brown eyes, set wide apart, were radiantly innocent. He seemed a creature made up of nature’s best, a product of blue sky, sweet meadow, and pure air; of his kind, perfection. Did he think now of his old home in the rich pasture-land, and the tinkle of the friendly _cabestros’_ bells? If he did, the home-sick thought did not make him fear to face what was to come. Never once had he followed the example of two or three among his predecessors, and turned towards the shut door of the _toril_ as if for refuge. Always he had faced the enemy; and now he rushed to play with his horns for the glittering _banderillas_ which waited for his shoulders.
Fuentes was consenting to the wish of the public, but two ordinary _banderilleros_ were to precede him. The famous _matador_, who was afterwards to kill this most popular bull of the day, would plant the last pair of the six.
The first man, sparkling in satin and silver, lifted on high his two barb-tipped sticks, gaily ornamented with tinsel paper, and called Vivillo from a distance. His mocking voice infuriated the bull, who rushed upon him; then, as he swayed lightly aside, it was all he could do to save himself from the great animal’s sudden, swift turn, without placing either of his _banderillas_. Again and again the play was repeated, but the audience were saying that Vivillo was becoming crafty as Shylock. At last one gay-coloured stick—“half a pair”—hung from Vivillo’s shoulders; twice and three times the attempt was made before the “pair” was complete; and the second _banderillero_ succeeded no better. But as Fuentes entered the ring, condescending to play at the game of which he was once master, there went up a roar of applause. Fuentes never failed; and that trick of his—planting both feet on a handkerchief, nor deigning to move save for a swaying of the body while planting the two barbs—was famous, a sight worth seeing when the bull was even half as good as this. But for once even Fuentes’ brilliant tactics were at a loss. Vivillo had brains, and used them. He used his eyes, too, before charging, which not one out of five hundred bulls can do; and if Fuentes played with him, he played also, a game whose zest came from a hint of pressing danger. Once it seemed that Vivillo would be over the _barrera_, in the _callijon_, and there was a stampede of all the onlookers there. Again he threatened to demolish the wooden barrier with his horns, and there was a wilder scramble than before. But the _banderillas_ were planted at last, and the blood on Vivillo’s brown shoulders lay like a crimson cloak. The great round of applause was as much for the bull as for the _banderillero_; and every face in the audience was tense with excitement as the horn sounded for the death scene. With such a king of the arena anything might happen. It was well that a master like Fuentes was the _espada_ who would deal with him, or he might deal with the _espada_.
And so it was to end in the usual tragedy, and after a few more brilliant moments of play the brave heart of the beast must feel the sword. I had known, of course, that it must be so, and yet until now it had not seemed a cold certainty. Perhaps I had vaguely hoped that Vivillo would vault the _barrera_, and refuse to be coaxed back again; but, even if he had, he could not have saved himself, and might have had to die some death less glorious than by the _espada’s_ blade.
Fuentes was bowing under the royal box, asking the King-President’s gracious permission to kill Vivillo as so noble a bull should be killed. Then, sword and red _muleta_ in hand, he went to meet Vivillo, an alert look on his face; for this was no common _res_, but a brave and wary foeman, most worthy of his steel.
The deep silence of the thirteen thousand spectators was as great a compliment as could be paid to man or bull, and Fuentes knew it. He knew that the audience expected such play, before the death stroke, as had not been seen in Spain for years, and he did not mean to disappoint them. Still marvellously fresh, considering his doughty feats and loss of blood, Vivillo showed no distress. But he had become visibly thoughtful, as if realizing at last that this was no wild sport, but the end of all things.
Fuentes waved off his men—“_fuera gente_,” knowing that this sign of serene courage would thrill thirteen thousand hearts, already warm for him, and adjusted his red _muleta_ to the small, spiked stick which secured it. Then, graceful as a wave which rears its crest to breaking-point, he moved towards the bull, wary yet defiant.
Vivillo, as if to prove the power and fulness of his lungs, bellowed for the first time since he had entered the arena, as he hurled his dark body upon the _torero_, his huge head down. The _muleta_ met his horns and smothered them, to be swept up and away, while Fuentes stood motionless, smiling. But to the agitation of the audience, instead of following the _muleta’s_ scarlet wave, Vivillo halted with horns lowered to gore, and charged the man.
Lightly Fuentes stepped aside, tempting the bull again with the _muleta_; but Vivillo would have none of it. Then came such give and take between man’s skill and brute’s ferocious cunning that the audience lost all self-consciousness in watching.
Nearer and nearer Fuentes and Vivillo drew to the barrier. Now they were close to _Tendido_ Number 9, and mechanically I lifted my eyes from the arena to find Pilar. She was no longer to be seen there, and I thought that she had fled before the death. But as Vivillo made a lunge which all but caught Fuentes, a door in the barrier flashed open, flashed shut, and a girl stood in the ring.
It was Pilar in her white dress and lace mantilla. She had left her seat, gone down alone to the entrance of the _tendido_, had waited her chance, and slipped into the arena. But she could hide no longer. At sight of the girl’s figure, white against the dark red barrier, a wild, warning shout went up. Two or three of Fuentes’ _cuadrillo_ ran towards her, but with a passionate gesture she motioned them off, holding out her arms to the royal box.
“Pardon, pardon for Vivillo, the brave bull!” she cried. And I knew now that this was what she had meant from the first. If Vivillo were brave, if he won the respect of the King and the crowd by supreme strength and courage, she had hoped to save him as other bulls had been saved from time to time, since, in earliest days, Spain had followed Roman customs. I had read of those pardoned bulls and heard of them from my father—one hero, may be, in ten years. For this she had come; for this she had sat watching Vivillo’s blood flow, waiting until he had proved himself so brave that thirteen thousand voices might join hers in asking the bull’s life of the King-President.
At sound of his name, cried in those dear, familiar tones as if calling him from across the valley of death, Vivillo raised his head, turned his back for the first time upon the enemy, and bounded towards the girl. Horrified, the audience shrieked at her, at him, waving their hands, throwing hats into the ring in front of the bull as if to distract him from a helpless victim. But they need not have feared. His sides heaving under their mantle of blood, Vivillo’s rush subsided to a trot, as in the home-pasture far away. Half-blinded with fury as he had been a moment ago, the kind young face and voice loved by him since he was a calf at his mother’s side brought Vivillo back to himself. Hope must have quickened in his heart as he heard that call, which in old days had meant choice food and sweet caresses. It was the call of life, and he answered it with gratitude.
[It was the call of life, and he answered it with gratitude.]
IT WAS THE CALL OF LIFE, AND HE ANSWERED IT WITH GRATITUDE
How the men yelled, and the women laughed and cried as the great bull laid his armed head against the pale girl’s arm! How they clapped when he ate something which she held to him in her hand, and how they shouted to the King—“Pardon—pardon for this brave bull. Pardon for El Vivillo!”
Dick was at her side now. He must have leaped the barrier; but I did not see him until he was there, and the Cherub close behind him. Fuentes was under the royal box, asking if the prayer for the bull’s life were to be heard; and, amid tumultuous cheering, pardon was granted, with the jewel he should have won by giving Vivillo death instead of life. The bull was saved. Panting, he stood by Pilar’s side, his blood staining the creamy whiteness of her mantilla. Even when the tame _cabestro_ came, with tinkling bell, to entice Vivillo away, she could hardly bear to leave him, though she well knew that he was safe; that his wounds would be skilfully tended; that he would be restored to health, and that, in very shame (when the story was made known), Carmona must surrender the bull to her.
But the King and Queen were on their feet bowing to the crowd, their relatives and guests standing behind them. The Queen turned and murmured to the King, who spoke to someone I could not see, and an equerry hurried out of the box. A moment later the Duke of Carmona, his mother, Lady Vale-Avon, and Monica were entering the royal box. Evidently the Queen’s wish had been to make some introduction. All chatted together for a minute, looking down at the ring, which Vivillo was just leaving with the big, brindled _cabestro_. Probably the King was congratulating Carmona on the bull given by him to the _Corrida __Real_. Then, having bowed once more to their enthusiastic subjects, the royalties prepared to leave the box before the next bull should come into the ring.
I knew that Monica, with Carmona and the others, would follow in the train of the King and Queen, that they would go out at the royal entrance, and that I must be near if I would have my last chance with the girl. But it was a misfortune that she should be with the royalties, because, since the catastrophe of two days ago, the police of Madrid were taking extra precautions for the safety of their sovereign and his bride. The ground outside the royal entrance had been kept clear of the populace when they went in, and would be again when they went out. A haggard, hollow-eyed wretch such as I was now would be instantly suspected and ordered back.
Yet Monica was to be married to-morrow, and then it would be for ever too late. Somehow I must get close enough to speak with her, even if the words I had to say were cut short by a bullet.
Many people were leaving, though more than half the audience remained, and I had to fight my way through a crowd that had not my reasons for haste. Perhaps a look at my face made them give me room, for sooner than I dared hope I was out of the bull-ring, and pushing through the dense pack of people who had assembled to see the royalties and their guests drive away. I had reached the outside rank, when I saw Carmona’s automobile coming into place behind the royal carriages and motor-cars. Someone had been sent to fetch it here from the other entrance; and the Duke of Carmona would be a figure of importance in the eyes of all Madrid.
Civil guards and police were busy keeping the crowd in order, with warning gestures pressing rank upon rank back upon one another.
I made no effort to separate myself from the mass, for neither the King nor Queen nor Carmona had yet come in sight; and I was waiting. But suddenly shouts of “_Viva el Rey—Viva la Reina!_” broke out and swelled.
They were coming. Now they were at the door. I caught sight of Carmona, exceedingly handsome in the joy of his great triumph. The King paused at the door, and, seeing Carmona near by, flung him a kindly last word, with a smile. Carmona stepped forward, hat in hand. Monica, with her mother and the Duchess, came to a stop close behind.
My moment had come. I sprang out from the crowd, and had taken three steps towards her, when two civil guards had me by the shoulders. At the same instant I heard Dick’s voice, and knew that he had found his way after me, true as always, guessing what I would try to do.
The sudden movement and buzz in the group round me caught Monica’s attention. She looked, and gave a little cry as our eyes met across the sunlit, open space. Out came her hands, and for an instant I thought she would have run to me; but her mother’s quick eyes had identified the man between the civil guards, and she seized Monica by the arm.
“Get back,” said one of the civil guards angrily. “No one is allowed to go nearer to the King.”
“I must speak to those ladies,” I said, shaking one shoulder free.
“Another step, and you’ll spend your night between prison walls,” muttered the guard, furious that there should be a scene under the eyes of royalty.
But now the eyes of royalty were upon me, and there was recognition in them. The King held up his hand imperatively.
“Let that gentleman go,” he said. “He is a friend of mine. _Señores_, I am glad to see you again. Have you come to congratulate me on my marriage?”
The guards stepped back; and the King’s question was a command. He said “_Señores_”; therefore he was speaking to Dick as well as to me. I walked towards him as he stood ready to greet us; and now Dick, who had kept behind in the crowd, was at my side.
Carmona’s face grew scarlet, then yellow-pale.
“I beg your Majesty’s forgiveness,” he said, “but you cannot know what I know of this man, or you would not receive him. This may be another horrible plot; for he is the Marqués de Casa Triana, suspected of throwing a bomb in Barcelona some years ago, who not only has broken his parole and come secretly to Spain, but has been following you about from place to place in his motor-car, and—”
The King burst out laughing, in his boyish way.
“All the better for me if he has, since he has continually found the way to do me some good turn. If it hadn’t been for him and his motor-car I’m not sure that I would be here—and happy—to-day.” He held out his hand to me. “So you are the Marqués de Casa Triana,” he said. “And that was why you wouldn’t tell me your name, when your friend let me know I had one more thing to thank you for besides those I knew—on the day of the brigands?”
He smiled at Dick, who presumed on his notice.
“Your Majesty,” he ventured, “may I mention the name of the man who employed those brigands, not to injure you, but one he had already injured—Casa Triana himself? Well, it’s the Duke of Carmona; and when the brigands failed, he tried having Casa Triana knocked on the head and shut up in a house of his at Granada, so that he could marry the girl who was engaged to my friend. You can ask Lady Monica Vale, sir, if I’m not telling you the truth—as far as she knows it.”
The King, without answering, turned his eyes on Monica.