The Car of Destiny Part 52

"It'll be two hours before the King and Queen leave their box and lesser folks can move," he said. "I'm not going to have you sitting here in the heat and dust."

"I must wait till they come out," I answered dully. "It's the only way."

"No, it isn't. I told you Pilar'd sent me a ticket. The card says '_sombra_,' so the seat's in the shade all right, and you're going to have it."

"But you?" I said. "Pilar would never forgive me-"

"She'd never forgive me if I didn't hand it over to you. But I'll get in somehow. It can cost me fifty dollars if it likes to slip past a policeman, but I guess the price won't stop me. I don't mind if I stand up in the _callijon_. I'm tall enough to see all I want, and more; and if a bull jumps over the _barrera_, as one did at Seville the other day, my legs are long enough to save me."

Ropes was to stay with the car and wait until we came again. Before that time my fate would be decided. Nothing could keep me from meeting Monica now; and nothing should keep her from me, if she loved me. If not-if after all I had been dreaming, why, she would be the d.u.c.h.ess of Carmona to-morrow.

Under horses' noses, between backs and bonnets of motors, we edged our way through the dense crowd of vehicles and people ma.s.sed together on the baking plain outside the bull-ring. The circle which had been cleared for royalty had filled again now, like a sandbank which has caved in upon itself; but the spectacle on the other side of those steep brown walls had begun, and the main entrance was comparatively clear.

Armed with the ticket engraved with the magic words "Corrida Real" over a black and white sketch of a mounted picador, I was allowed to enter. But when I had pa.s.sed along a corridor and through a door which opened into a crowded _tendido_, I heard d.i.c.k's voice at my ear. "Only twenty-five dollars after all," said he, "and I can sit on the steps. Grand! We're next to _Tendido_ Number 9. I see Pilar; look-close to the end, front row."

After the silent rooms of the old Moorish house and the little _patio_ with its tinkling fountain, the brilliant light and colour, the confused sounds and movement, the vast size of the bull-ring struck me fiercely between the eyes, bewildering sight and sense.

Seats were valuable in the _tendidos_ for this great day, when almost every place meant a royal favour; but we were late, and instead of moving on to search for my twelve inches of plank or stone, I was thankful to squeeze in close to the entrance. I did not see Colonel O'Donnel, and though I was close to the famous _Tendido_ Number 9 (which must have held every eye till the royalties came), I forgot to look for Pilar in that white-and-rose garden of Spanish loveliness.

The first act of the great royal bull-fight had begun. Twenty glittering, spangled _espadas_ marched with elastic steps into the ring, followed by the yellow-trousered picadors on their sorry horses. The three gala coaches carrying the distinguished amateur picadors and their ducal patrons who graced this marriage feast, still circled picturesquely in the arena, making a pageant of the Middle Ages. The sun blazed on nodding ostrich plumes, gold embroidered hammercloths, dazzling liveries, powdered heads, and splendid horses in quaint harness, rich with gold and jewels.

The three Dukes, owners of the coaches, had introduced the cavaliers they patronized to the King-President; the bride-Queen in her white mantilla and flowers of Spanish colours stood bowing in the gla.s.s frame of the royal box. Gaily decorated _palcos_, _tendidos_, _grados_, tier upon tier, half in sun, half in shadow, rose above the huge ring like so many terraced flower-beds, dazzling with the gold lace of uniforms and the bright tints of women's dresses softened by white mantillas. Over all was a fluttering of fans, like thousands of hovering b.u.t.terflies; and a hum floated up loud as the humming of a million bees, to the blue dome of sky, where English and Spanish flags waved together.

Mechanically my eyes took in the splendid scene, as they searched for Monica; and finding her, for a time saw nothing else.

She was in a box near the royalties, and sat between her mother and the d.u.c.h.ess, with Carmona and some man whom I did not know, behind them. She was in a white dress and white mantilla, with pink and white _malmaisons_ in her hair; and her face was pathetically pale in its frame of falling lace. In her hand was a fan with which to shut out such horrors of the fight as none but Spanish women born and bred dare trust themselves to see. My place was distant and far below; yet my eyes were keen, and it seemed to me that she looked thin and frail, though very beautiful. If for an instant, since d.i.c.k broke the news to me, I had doubted the loyalty of her heart, the sight of her sad young face would have driven doubt away. I was more than ever certain that in promising to marry Carmona she thought to save me from punishment threatened by him.

Neither he nor she guessed that I was near. But where did she believe me to be? Perhaps Carmona had said that for her sake he had let me fly danger after stabbing him in the cathedral, by hurrying back to England.

The Duke was leaning forward to speak to her. She did not look up at him, but let her eyes listlessly travel over the vast audience. I thought they lingered on _Tendido_ Number 9, draped with flowered shawls of Andalucia, and crowded with pretty women. Suddenly she blushed, and turned away. I looked where she had looked, and knew what had brought the blood to her cheeks. Pilar, in rose colour, with a white mantilla and the orthodox _malmaisons_, of pink and crimson, was gazing up at the Carmona box, an imploring expression on her face. Pilar, too, was pale and thin. I realized more and more that nearly six weeks had been struck out of my life.

Each of the three coaches had in its turn stopped under the royal box, while a ducal patron presented his cavalier to the young King and his bride; now, the ring was being cleared as the magnificent amateur picadors mounted their horses, which had been led round by squires in the quaint dress of 1630. One of four dignified _alguaziles_ in black velvet and lace doffed his plumed hat to the King as President of the fight, asking the key of the bull's cell. Down it flashed, while the music stopped as if awed into silence, and the _alguazil_ spurred his stallion across the arena to fling into the _montera_ of _el Bunolero_, janitor of the bull cells, the key he had received.

"Vivillo is fifth bull," I said to myself, repeating d.i.c.k's words; and there, too, was his name on the programme of the fight. Pilar's favourite had still a little time to draw the breath of life, stamping in the gloom of his narrow _toril_. Not yet had that untamed neck of his been stung by the rosetted dart flaunting his owner's colours; and much was to happen in the arena before Vivillo's brave beauty would call for the clapping of twice thirteen thousand hands.

First, the three n.o.ble amateurs, with their long sharp javelins, must each in turn play picador with grace to please a queen-bride, and save his horse's sides from goring horns. Then, when three bulls had died according to ancient, chivalrous custom (if the cavalier's skill served), without slaughter of horses, the _corrida_ would go on in ordinary Spanish fas.h.i.+on of to-day, with all its sensational moments and its tragedies, until-Vivillo's time came.

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 d.i.c.k 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 ta.s.selled 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 _bunolero_ sprang back as he opened the door, retiring more hastily than was his wont into the s.p.a.ce 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 n.o.ble 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 p.r.i.c.k 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 att.i.tude 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 cla.s.sic methods, was to give Vivillo the death stroke, when picadores and _banderilleros_ had done with him.

The yells of the vast mult.i.tude 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 n.o.blest bulls do not descend. Like a tornado he swept across the ring, killed a horse with a single thrust, sent the picador cras.h.i.+ng 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 diminis.h.i.+ng, 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_, das.h.i.+ng 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.

d.i.c.k 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 att.i.tude 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 n.o.ble 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.