nt Jago,
who followed Sandoval, was a little devil. He was light and quick, and
had intelligence. You could see by the gleam in his eyes that he took in
the whole scene, and considered not only the people in the ring, but the
people in the amphitheatre also, to be his tormentors. Perhaps in that
reflection he was not mistaken. He meant mischief from the beginning;
and he pressed Jarocho so close that he leaped the barrier for safety.
As he leaped, Saint Jago leaped also. Imagine now the terror of the
spectators! The screams! The rush! The lowered horns within an inch of
Jarocho, and Fray Joseph Maria running with the consecrated wafer to
the doomed man! At that precise moment there was a rifle-shot, and the
bellowing brute rolled backward into the arena--dead."

"Oh, Maria Purissima! How grand! In such moments one really lives,
Senor. And but for this absurd rebellion I and my daughters could have
had the emotion. It is indeed cruel."

"You said the shot was fired by an American?"

"Senorita Antonia, it was, indeed. I saw him. He was in the last row.
He had stood up when Saint Jago came in, and he was watching the man and
the animal with his soul in his eyes. He had a face, fine and thin as
a woman's--a very gentle face, also. But at one instant it became stern
and fierce, the lips hard set, the eyes half shut, then the rifle at
the shoulder like a flash of light, and the bull was dead between the
beginning and the end of the leap! The sight was wonderful, and the
ladies turned to him with smiles and cries of thankfulness, and the
better part of the men bowed to him; for the Mexican gentleman is always
just to a great deed. But he went away as if he had done something that
displeased himself, and when I overtook him at the gates of the Alamo,
he did not look as if he wished to talk about it.

"However, I could not refrain myself, and I said: 'Permit me, Colonel
Crockett, to honor you. The great feat of to-day's fight was yours. San
Antonio owes you for her favorite Jarocho.'"

"'I saved a life, young man,' he answered and I took a life; and I'll be
blamed if I know whether I did right or wrong.' 'Jarocho would have been
killed but for your shot.' 'That's so; and I killed the bull; but you
can take my hat if I don't think I killed the tallest brute of the two.
Adjourn the subject, sir'; and with that he walked off into the fort,
and I did myself the pleasure of coming to see you, Senora."

He rose and bowed to the