"Young bulls, do you mean? Renaud has kept six of them, expressly to give the strangers a chance to see a branding." "When will the branding come off?" "In a moment. Suppose we go to see it." The gipsy was present at the branding. The arena was against the church, at the end opposite the main entrance. The many-sided irregular enclosure was formed on one side by the high wall of the church; on another, by a house standing by itself, against which was a series of roughly made benches, one above another; on still another side by three or four small houses, each of whose windows formed a frame for a dozen or more heads of young men and women, crowded together and all laughing gaily. At the base of one of these houses was a café with a glass door opening on the arena and barricaded by tables and overturned chairs. On each side of the door was drawn, in deepest black, a silhouette of a bull of the Camargue type, that is to say, with straight horns of ample proportions. On all sides of the enclosure where there were no stone walls, their place was supplied by wagons bound firmly together by their shafts. At the corner of the wall of the church, there were three great iron rings one above another, and through them were thrust three wooden bars, which could be moved back and forth at will. These bars were to be let down for the young bulls which were to be turned out of the arena, one by one, after they had been branded, to find their way alone to the desert. Outside the bars, a system of barricades closed the streets of the town to them, and--by compelling them to go behind the few houses facing the arena--guided them, whether they would or not, to the margin of the open plain in less than a hundred steps. Zinzara was present, as we have said, standing in a wagon. She followed with impassive glance all the happenings within the arena, grotesque and heroic alike. These duels between man and beast are grand or disgusting according to the character of the adversaries. It sometimes happens that the man attacks in a cowardly fashion, or that the beast, from astonishment it may be, or fatigue, turns about and tries to return to the stable. Fine contests are rare. Sometimes a sharp stone is thrown from a safe distance by a disloyal foe. The surprised beast receives it full in the face; the blood flows in long streams from his nostrils to the ground. He looks straight before him, his great eyes filled with mirage, and does not budge, as if he were at once saddened and contemptuous.