aid I; "but this--ah, this is an art. It is
delicate. It is fine. It is rare."

"Not always," said Luis Cervallos. "I have seen clumsy matadors, and I
tell you it is not nice."

He shuddered, and his face betrayed such what-you-call disgust, that I
knew, then, that the devil was whispering and that he was beginning to
play a part.

"Senor Harned may be right," said Luis Cervallos. "It may not be fair
to the bull. For is it not known to all of us that for twenty-four hours
the bull is given no water, and that immediately before the fight he is
permitted to drink his fill?"

"And he comes into the ring heavy with water?" said John Harned quickly;
and I saw that his eyes were very gray and very sharp and very cold.

"It is necessary for the sport," said Luis Cervallos. "Would you have
the bull so strong that he would kill the toreadors?"

"I would that he had a fighting chance," said John Harned, facing the
ring to see the second bull come in.

It was not a good bull. It was frightened. It ran around the ring in
search of a way to get out. The capadors stepped forth and flared their
capes, but he refused to charge upon them.

"It is a stupid bull," said Maria Valenzuela.

"I beg pardon," said John Harned; "but it would seem to me a wise bull.
He knows he must not fight man. See! He smells death there in the ring."

True. The bull, pausing where the last one had died, was smelling the
wet sand and snorting. Again he ran around the ring, with raised head,
looking at the faces of the thousands that hissed him, that threw
orange-peel at him and called him names. But the smell of blood decided
him, and he charged a capador, so without warning that the man just
escaped. He dropped his cape and dodged into the shelter. The bull
struck the wall of the ring with a crash. And John Harned said, in a
quiet voice, as though he talked to himself:

"I will give one thousand sucres to the lazar-house of Quito if a bull
kills a man this day."

"You like bulls?" said Maria Valenzuela with a smile.

"I like such men less," said John Harned. "A toreador is not a brave
man. He surely cannot be a brave man. See, the bull's tongue is already
out. He is tired and he has not yet begun."

"It is the water," said Luis Cervallos.

"Yes, it is the water," said John Harned. "Would it not be safer to
hamstring the bull before he comes on?"

Maria Valenzuela was made angry by this sneer in John Harned's words.
But Luis Cervallos smile