Читать книгу In Quest of El Dorado онлайн

19 страница из 42

The bulls, which have led a happy country existence up till now, are waiting, each for his last gory twenty minutes. The picadors will prick him, the staff will plant the banderillas in him, the matador will endeavor to plunge a sword into his heart, the public will hiss or clap, the asses will drag the stiff carcass around the arena and away.

A great door opens. Into the arena plunges a big black bull—"into this universe and why not knowing." He is full of mad energy and bolts for any red flag at any distance that his short sight will show him. The elegant toreros save themselves by hiding behind screens or jumping low walls. And while the bull stands thwarted and puzzled, in comes a doleful procession from the wings. The picadors arrive—men with long lances mounted on starved, jaded, spectral-looking horses. The horses are blindfolded; they also have their vocal cords cut, and whatever happens to them, dumb animals will be dumb. The men mounted on them have strong wooden saddles with hooded stirrups and their legs are cased in iron. The toreros with their red and blue capes, and the attendants dressed in deep scarlet, try to lure the bull towards the horses. They stand in front of them and then nimbly step out of the way when the enraged bull charges at them. The picadors drive their lances deep between the shoulders of the bull; the bull murders the horse, lifts horse and rider in the air; the first picador saves himself. His work is done. The second then comes forward, pricks the bull, and has his horse disemboweled. The third does the same. The fourth horse refuses to come into position to be butchered, and escapes with a laceration. The time allotted to the picadors has run out, anyway. One horse lies dead. The remaining horses are beaten till they rise, and the picadors mount them again, though the entrails are hanging out of them, and they ride them out of the arena.