Then an extraordinary and unheard-of thing occurred: Juancho, after playing the bull and manoeuvring his cloak with consummate dexterity, took his sword, and, instead of plunging it into the animal's neck, as was expected, hurled it from him with such force, that it turned over and over in the air, and stuck deep in the ground at the other end of the circus. "What is he about," was shouted on all sides. "This is madness--not courage! What new scheme is this? Will he kill the bull with his bare hands?" Juancho cast one look at Militona--one ineffable look of love and suffering. Then he remained motionless before the bull. The beast lowered its head. One of its horns entered the breast of the man, and came out red to the very root. A shriek of horror from a thousand voices rent the sky. Militona fell back upon her chair in a deathlike swoon. FOOTNOTES: [11] _Sombra por la tarde_,--"shade for the afternoon." The tickets for the bull-fight vary in value according as they are for the sunny or shady side of the arena. [12] Places of bad fame in the respective towns, frequented by thieves and suspicious characters. [13] "Half-past eleven, and a fine night." [14] The stable where the bulls are kept. THE EMERALD STUDS. A REMINISCENCE OF THE CIRCUIT. CHAPTER I. "Hallo, Tom! Are you not up yet? Why, man, the judges have gone down to the court half an hour ago, escorted by the most ragged regiment of ruffians that ever handled a Lochaber-axe." Such was my matutinal salutation to my friend Thomas Strachan, as I entered his room on a splendid spring morning. Tom and I were early college allies. We had attended, or rather, to speak more correctly, taken out tickets for the different law classes during the same sessions. We had fulminated together within the walls of the Juridical Society on legal topics which might have broken the heart of Erskine, and rewarded ourselves diligently thereafter with the usual relaxations of a crab and a comfortable tumbler. We had aggravated the same grinder with our deplorable exposition of the Pandects, and finally assumed, on the same day, the full-blown honours of the Advocate's wig and gown. Nor did our fraternal parallel end there: for although we had walked the boards of the Parliament House with praiseworthy diligence for a couple of sessions, neither of us had experienced the dulcet sensation which is communicated to the palm by the contact of the first professional guinea. In vain did we attempt to insinuate ourselves into the good graces of the agents, and coin our intellects into such jocular remarks, as are supposed to find most favour in the eyes of facetious practitioners. In vain did I carry about with me, for a whole week, an artificial process most skilfully made up; and in vain did Tom compound and circulate a delectable ditty, entitled, "The Song of the Multiplepoinding." Not a single solicitor would listen to our wooing, or even intrust us with the task of making the simplest motion.