CHAPTER IX.

THE BULL FIGHT.

“Better come with us, Temple.”

Face beaded with perspiration because of the steaming heat, Mr. Hampton stood by the bed on which his companion, partially disrobed, had thrown himself. The draught created by the electric fan blew across him. Mr. Temple shook his head.

“Not for a million dollars,” he said. “I’m fairly comfortable here, and I know I wouldn’t be so at the bull fight. Besides, you know what I think of bull fights.”

Mr. Hampton nodded. He was well aware that his friend frowned upon the proposed jaunt into Mexico that afternoon.

“I know,” he said. “But we can’t forbid the boys to go. They’re too old for that. Besides that’s not the way to inculcate principles, anyhow. Furthermore, you have the wrong idea of bull fights, in a way. To these Mexicans a bull fight is just the same as a baseball game to Americans. Remember, I know the Latin temperament.” He paused, looking down a moment, thoughtfully, at his companion. “The boys are young, Temple. When we were their age, the prospects of a bull fight would have appealed to us, too. Well”—turning with a resigned sigh toward the door—“it certainly doesn’t appeal to me, but I reckon I shall have to go along.”

And once more wiping his perspiring face, Mr. Hampton went out, closing the door behind him.

He found the three youths and Captain Cornell awaiting him in the steaming lobby, and all four went out and climbed into a waiting taxi, whence they proceeded toward the International Bridge.

Other automobiles were streaming across the Bridge. The bull fight was to be of more than customary interest, for two famous matadors were to display their prowess in opposition to each other. One was Juan Salento, idol of Mexico, and the other, Estramadura, famous Spanish matador, who, fresh from triumphs in Madrid, was touring Mexico.

Through the crowded, dusty, ill-paved streets of Nueva Laredo went the taxi. The crowd grew denser. On the sidewalks, a pushing, jostling, eager mass of Mexicans with a thick sprinkling of Americans. Boys running in the streets, barefoot, ragged, dark, darting in and out between automobiles. Several times the hearts of the party were in their mouths as little shavers seemed to escape being run over merely by a hair’s breadth. Motor cars shot by them or darted from side streets with reckless disregard, but fortunately no accidents occurred, although time and again the members of the party expected to hear sounds of a crash.

As they neared the huge amphitheatre, Captain Cornell ordered the taxi driver to drive to the shady entrance.

“On the shady side it costs four dollars a seat,” he said. “On the sunny side it costs two. A big difference—but it’s worth it.”

They disembarked, passed through the gate in the middle of a swarming crowd, and then mounted to the topmost tier of seats.

Under the midafternoon sun the huge amphitheatre was literally baking. Heat waves shimmered above the sandy arena in the middle. Yet more than ten thousand people were already seated in the banked-up tiers of seats, while others were crowding up by every stairway.

“Look at the colors,” commented Jack. “I didn’t know there were that many in existence.”

The peons on every hand were, in truth, arrayed as the lilies of the field—in the most gorgeous raiment they possessed. They were out to make holiday, and they were dressed for the part. The tiers, under the glaring sun, looked like a vast flower display.

While the others were busied gazing here and there upon the strange and unfamiliar scene, and laughing at the many laughable incidents which kept constantly coming to their attention, Frank quietly went about a certain task. He had brought with him his receiving set on a belt. He opened up the box in which it was arranged, took it out, buckled it on, adjusted the headphones, and then hooked up to the little loop aerial. Sitting as he did on the top row of seats, with none behind him, and flanked on either side by other members of his party, he was unobserved by outsiders.

Jack and Bob on one side, Captain Cornell and Mr. Hampton on the other, were all craning forward, gazing at the scene below, and paying him no attention.

For a little while, until his adjustments were made, Frank fiddled with the dials. Then, assured that everything was in good working order, he leaned back, preparing to listen to whatever was in the air.

Presently Jack looked around as if to address some remark to him and for the first time noticed what Frank was doing. He began to laugh.

“You’re a fine one,” he said. “Coming to a bull fight, and paying it no attention, but preparing, instead, to listen in on some broadcasting program. Hear anything?”

Frank took off the headphone.

“No,” he said, in a disappointed tone, “there isn’t a thing in the air except some Morse. And I’m so rusty, I can’t make it out. Want to listen?”

Jack stretched out a hand to take the headphones, but at that moment Bob plucked his sleeve.

“Here they come, fellows. Look.”

Both youths lost any further interest in radio as they gazed into the arena below.

“That’s Estramadura, the tall one in red,” explained Captain Cornell, pointing. “And the little fellow in yellow is Juan Salento. Listen to the yells.”

Wild cheering broke from the stands as the procession made its preliminary circle of the arena. First came the two famous matadors. They were followed at a little distance by the eight toreadors, marching four abreast. Four picadors on horseback followed, blunt spears erect. Last of all came a boy driving a team of mules. And in all the world there was nobody so swollen with importance as that boy.

Laughingly, Mr. Hampton called attention to the lad.

“His job is to haul out the dead bulls,” explained Captain Cornell. “Every Mexican boy in the audience would give his right eye to be in that boy’s place. Many a famous matador has risen from just such an apprenticeship, and some day that boy may be the idol of the populace. Who knows? Certainly, you can count on it that he thinks he’ll become a great man some day. Probably, he has a wooden sword, and practices the matador’s strokes continually.”

Before the box occupied by the Mexican general commanding the garrison, the matadors made their bow. Then the boy with the two mules retreated, the picadors on horseback drew behind a barricade between the front tier of seats and the arena, the toreadors with their capes scattered about the arena, and Estramadura who was to kill the first bull lounged by himself with a bored air.

On the topmost tier of seats on the shady side, five Americans leaned forward almost as interested—yet not quite—as the thousands of Mexicans about them. All that had gone before was merely a flourish. The drama was now about to begin. Even the band, seated on a box near that of the commandant, ceased blowing its horns and thumping its drums.

A door in the fence opened.

A huge black bull charged into the arena.

A moment the black bull stood with head down, nostrils quivering, eyes flashing. Then he charged—straight toward the nearest toreador. The man waited until the bull was perilously close, then flaunting his long cape in front of the charging animal, leaped nimbly aside.

The bull became more enraged. This way and that he charged. Toreadors whipped their capes across his eyes.

He became more accustomed to their tricks. The last three toreadors were so hard-pressed that they were compelled to seek shelter by leaping over the stout plank wall into the runway separating the lowest tiers of seats from the arena.

Hysterical yelps of laughter bespoke the tenseness to which the crowd was working itself up.

“Estramadura’s turn now,” shouted Captain Cornell to his companions, raising his voice in order to make himself heard above the sudden roar of applause.

The tall graceful Spaniard, clad all in red—red shoes, red stockings, red silk knee breeches, red jacket, with a broad yellow sash and jaunty, tri-cornered yellow cap, strolled lazily forth.

But he was not so lazy as his actions bespoke. Or, if lazy, was nimble. Not for him the shelter of working near the wall. He moved to the middle of the arena. The bull charged for him.

The three youths sucked in their breath. Would he let himself be gored? How would he meet that charge? He was weaponless. The only thing he held in his hands was a voluminous red cape.

The matador flicked out the cape with the merest movement of his hands, as a boy flicks forth a marble. But that little movement sent the cape fluttering wide before the eyes of the bull.

Yet Estramadura did not budge. He seemed rooted in the sand. The bull bellowed, lowered his head, charged on.

By a sideways twist of his body, indescribably graceful, Estramadura avoided the nearest horn of the maddened animal by an inch, and the brute thundered on. The matador had not moved his feet.

A thunderous cheer shook the stands. Men leaped to their feet in a frenzy. Hats were flung into the ring. Money fell gleaming upon the arena sand.

Turning his back on the bull, Estramadura bowed. And as if their former efforts were but a mere warming-up process, the spectators released another volley of cheers far greater in volume.

The boys sat enthralled, uttering occasional ejaculations, not particularly intended to be heard and going unanswered.

“Look at that, will you?”

“Graceful as a snake.”

“Some cheering, Bob. Beats the old football field.”

The bull had turned, was coming back. Again Estramadura awaited him. Out whipped the cape, falling over the animal’s head, turning him around for another charge. Estramadura did not shift his feet an inch.

Indescribably graceful he seemed, out there, under that blazing sun, every action etched on the retina of the onlookers. The bull charged again. Then Estramadura lifting his tri-cornered silk cap reached over and hung it on one of the animal’s horns—without moving from his position.

It was the wildest kind of daring, the utmost display of skill. And in the yell of frenzied acclaim which went up was mingled many an American as well as Mexican voice.

Then, as if at a signal from the matador, a picador dashed forward on horseback, blunt spear leveled, and took and turned aside the bull’s next charge. That gave the nearest toreador time to get into the game once more, and he diverted the animal with his cape.

“Hey, Captain,” called Jack, leaning across Frank who intervened, “where’s the matador going now—that daring fellow in red?”

Estramadura was moving toward the fence.

“He’s going to get his sword,” replied the army flyer. “Now he’ll give the bull the coup-de-grace.”

An attendant respectfully tendered the weapon on a cushion. Estramadura took it, bent it into an arch between his hands, then released the point and the weapon sprang back. Flinging his cape over the sword, the matador strolled gracefully back into the center of the arena.

Toreadors and picadors had left. Only the two opponents—the huge black bull and the slender figure in red—were left in the arena.

Once more the bull charged his tormentor, and now Estramadura essayed a manoeuvre which sent the stands into positive hysteria. Waiting until the animal was almost upon him, he turned his back nonchalantly, at the same time swaying to one side. And the bull went thundering by so close that it seemed he brushed the man.

Back he came. And Estramadura, tossing the cloak at length aside, stood with right leg advanced, right arm extended with the sword, measuring his stroke. He was like a great drop of blood against the yellow background of the sand. The sunlight on his blade turned it into a ribbon of fire.

The bull charged. One short sharp “Ah” of irrepressible excitement ran through the whole vast audience. Then silence.

This time Estramadura moved. He leaped aside and thrust downward through the shoulder. The bull fell as if stricken by a thunderbolt in mid career, and did not move. The matador’s sword had pierced his heart.

Then while the stands literally went wild, and the peons, aristocrats and Americans thumped each other hysterically on the back, yelled themselves hoarse and vied with each other in tossing money into the arena, the three youths on the topmost tier looked at each other. Their faces were flushed, eyes shining.

“I thought a bull fight was a terrible sight,” said Bob. “But could anything be more graceful or daring than that?”

Above the uproar Captain Cornell, leaning close, made himself heard. “You’ve seen the best in all Spain,” he said. “That means, probably, the best in the world. The Mexican just can’t be up to that.”

But they did not get the opportunity to find out.