y a few paces distant from Caesar, and the risk he was
running appeared so imminent that a woman's scream was heard from one of
the windows. But at the sight of a man on foot the bull stopped short,
and judging that he would do better business with the new enemy than the
old one, he turned upon him instead. For a moment he stood motionless,
roaring, kicking up the dust with his hind feet, and lashing his sides
with his tail. Then he rushed upon Alfonso, his eyes all bloodshot, his
horns tearing up the ground. Alfonso awaited him with a tranquil air;
then, when he was only three paces away, he made a bound to one sides and
presented instead of his body his sword, which disappeared at once to the
hilt; the bull, checked in the middle of his onslaught, stopped one
instant motionless and trembling, then fell upon his knees, uttered one
dull roar, and lying down on the very spot where his course had been
checked, breathed his last without moving a single step forward.

Applause resounded an all sides, so rapid and clever had been the blow.
Caesar had remained on horseback, seeking to discover the fair spectator
who had given so lively a proof of her interest in him, without troubling
himself about what was going on: his search had not been unrewarded, far
he had recognized one of the maids of honour to Elizabeth, Duchess of
Urbino, who was betrothed to Gian Battista Carraciualo, captain-general
of the republic of Venice.

It was now Alfonso's turn to run from the bull, Caesar's to fight him:
the young men changed parts, and when four mules had reluctantly dragged
the dead bull from the arena, and the valets and other servants of His
Holiness had scattered sand over the places that were stained with blood,
Alfonso mounted a magnificent Andalusian steed of Arab origin, light as
the wind of Sahara that had wedded with his mother, while Caesar,
dismounting, retired in his turn, to reappear at the moment when Alfonso
should be meeting the same danger from which he had just now rescued him.

Then a second bull was introduced upon the scene, excited in the same
manner with steeled darts and flaming arrows. Like his predecessor, when
he perceived a man on horseback he rushed upon him, and then began a
marvellous race, in which it was impossible to see, so quickly did they
fly over the ground, whether the horse was pursuing the bull or the bull
the horse. But after five or six rounds, the bull began to gain upon the
son of Arab