d stunned and helpless.

Barely were they down when he was upon them and with a single twitch of
his mighty neck, had ripped open the horse's barrel and half amputated
one of the rider's legs. Then, diverted by the _capadores_, he whirled
upon the second _picador_ and in another ten seconds had left his horse
dead and the rider badly trampled. Next the _banderilleros_ tackled him,
but such was his speed and ferocity that all three funked the work, and
not one of them fastened his flag in the black shoulders.

When the bull had entered the ring, _El Tigre_ left the arena--a most
unusual proceeding. Now he returned, clad in snow-white from head to
foot, a white cap covering head and hair, his face heavily powdered. He
slipped in behind and unseen by the bull to the centre of the arena, and
there stood erect, with arms folded, motionless as a graven image.

Presently the bull turned, saw _El Tigre_, and charged him straight. _El
Tigre_ was not even facing him, for the bull was approaching from his
left. But there he stood without the twitch of a muscle or the flicker
of an eye lid, still as a figure of stone.

A great sob arose from the audience, and all gave him up for lost, when,
at the last instant before the bull must have struck, it turned and
passed him. Once more the bull so charged and passed. Whether because
it mistook him for the ghost of a man or recognized in him a spirit
mightier than its own, only the bull knew.

Before the audience had well caught its breath, _El Tigre_, wearing again
his usual costume, was striding again to the middle of the arena,
carrying a light chair, in which presently he seated himself, facing the
bull, a show _banderilla_, no more than six inches long, held in his
teeth. And so he awaited the charge until the bull was within actual
arm's-reach, when with a swift rise from the chair and a turn of his body
quick as that of a fencer's supple wrist, he bent and stuck the
teeth-held banderilla in the bull's shoulder as he swept past.

Now was the time for the kill.

El Tigre received his sword, _muleta_, and cape. The _muleta_ is a
straight two-foot stick over which the cape is draped, and, held in the
_matador's_ left hand, usually is extended well to the right of his body.
Thus in an ordinary fight the bull is actually charging the blood-red
cape, and not the _matador_. But, with Sofia an onlooker, determined to
make this the fight of his life, _El Tigre_ tossed aside t