e sandy space, and the
picadors who were stealing slowly up to him.

It is a difficult matter for the picador to approach the bull, for the
horses shrink from the awful fate awaiting them, and only by plunging
great spurs into their sides can their riders get them to advance.

Anything more unutterably cowardly and despicably mean than the
picador can hardly be imagined. Riding a poor, aged horse, generally
one that has been wounded in a previous combat, and that is
absolutely naked of all protection from the bull's horns, he is
himself cased from head to foot in metal and leather, so that by no
possibility can he be scratched.

He comes into the ring with the deliberate intention of riding his
tottering, naked horse on to the horns of the bull, and the greater
number of these helpless creatures he can get mangled and
disembowelled under him, the greater and finer picador he is and the
more the people love him. Such is humanity!

On this afternoon the bull eyed the horses' approach with no ill-will,
he seemed to be reflecting--"Perhaps these are friends of mine and
will show me the way out." But when at last the picador, having
spurred his flinching horse close up to the bull's side, jabbed at his
glossy neck with his lance and the pain convinced the great monarch
they were hostile, he threw up his head with a snort and in a lithe,
agile bound he passed by them and trotted quietly away.

This enraged the people, and screams of "Coward! Coward!" went up from
all parts of the ring.

How they can twist into any semblance of cowardice the benignity of an
animal that scorns to take any notice of what it sees is a feeble and
puny opponent is amazing, a fit illustration of the weakness of the
human intellect.

As the bull continued his gentle trot, unmoved, the audience grew
furious, and then began that tedious and utterly sickening chase of
the unwilling bull by the faltering and unwilling horses.

The bull, conscious of his great strength and absolutely fearless, had
all that chivalry which seems inherent in animals and which is quite
lacking in man in his attitude to them.

As the unfortunate horses were ridden up to and across the face of the
bull, he did his best to avoid them. Over and over again the picadors
stabbed him with their lances and thrust their naked horses at his
head, but his whole attitude and manner said plainly: "Why should I
toss these poor old, trembling horses? I have no quarrel with them. I