He tore his way through his persecutors, flinging one of them clear over the parapet; he bowled a horse and his rider down, and plunged straight for the next, got home with his horns, wounding both horse and man; on again, here and there and this way and that; and one after another he tore the bowels out of two horses so that they gushed to the ground, and ripped a third one so badly that although they rushed him to cover and shoved his bowels back and stuffed the rents with tow and rode him against the bull again, he couldn't make the trip; he tried to gallop, under the spur, but soon reeled and tottered and fell, all in a heap. For a while, that bull-ring was the most thrilling and glorious and inspiring sight that ever was seen. The bull absolutely cleared it, and stood there alone! monarch of the place. The people went mad for pride in him, and joy and delight, and you couldn't hear yourself think, for the roar and boom and crash of applause."
"Antonio, it carries me clear out of myself just to hear you tell it; it must have been perfectly splendid. If I live, I'll see a bull-fight yet before I die. Did they kill him?"
"Oh yes; that is what the bull is for. They tired him out, and got him at last. He kept rushing the matador, who always slipped smartly and gracefully aside in time, waiting for a sure chance; and at last it came; the bull made a deadly plunge for him - was avoided neatly, and as he sped by, the long sword glided silently into him, between left shoulder and spine - in and in, to the hilt. He crumpled down, dying."
"Ah, Antonio, it IS the noblest sport that ever was. I would give a year of my life to see it. Is the bull always killed?"
"Yes. Sometimes a bull is timid, finding himself in so strange a place, and he stands trembling, or tries to retreat. Then everybody despises him for his cowardice and wants him punished and made ridiculous; so they hough him from behind, and it is the funniest thing in the world to see him hobbling around on his severed legs; the whole vast house goes into hurricanes of laughter over it; I have laughed till the tears ran down my cheeks to see it. When he has furnished all the sport he can, he is not any longer useful, and is killed."
"Well, it is perfectly grand, Antonio, perfectly beautiful. Burning a nigger don't begin."
CHAPTER XII - MONGREL AND THE OTHER HORSE
"Sage-Brush, you have been listening?"
"Yes."
"Isn't it strange?"
"Well, no, Mongrel, I don't know that it is."
"Why don't you?"
"I've seen a good many human beings in my time. They are created as they are; they cannot help it. They are only brutal because that is their make; brutes would be brutal if it was THEIR make."
"To me, Sage-Brush, man is most strange and unaccountable. Why should he treat dumb animals that way when they are not doing any harm?"
"Man is not always like that, Mongrel; he is kind enough when he is not excited by religion."
"Is the bull-fight a religious service?"
"I think so. I have heard so. It is held on Sunday."
(A REFLECTIVE PAUSE, LASTING SOME MOMENTS.) Then:
"When we die, Sage-Brush, do we go to heaven and dwell with man?"
"My father thought not. He believed we do not have to go there unless we deserve it."
PART II - IN SPAIN
CHAPTER XIII - GENERAL ALISON TO HIS MOTHER
It was a prodigious trip, but delightful, of course, through the Rockies and the Black Hills and the mighty sweep of the Great Plains to civilization and the Missouri border - where the railroading began and the delightfulness ended. But no one is the worse for the journey; certainly not Cathy, nor Dorcas, nor Soldier Boy; and as for me, I am not complaining.
Spain is all that Cathy had pictured it - and more, she says. She is in a fury of delight, the maddest little animal that ever was, and all for joy. She thinks she remembers Spain, but that is not very likely, I suppose. The two - Mercedes and Cathy - devour each other. It is a rapture of love, and beautiful to see.