A flourish of the bugles discharged the horsemen till the beginning of the next combat, and the amusement of the people devolved on the _Banderilleros_--the same whom we have hitherto seen attentive to the safety of the horsemen. The _Banderilla_, literally, little flag, from which they take their name, is a shaft of two feet in length, pointed with a barbed steel, and gaily ornamented with many sheets of painted paper, cut into reticulated coverings. Without a cloak, and holding one of these darts in each hand, the fighter runs up to the bull, and stopping short when he sees himself attacked, fixes the two shafts, without flinging them, behind the horns of the beast at the very moment when it stoops to toss him. The painful sensation makes the bull throw up his head without inflicting the intended blow, and while he rages in impotent endeavours to shake off the hanging darts that gall him, the man has full leisure to escape. It is on these occasions, when the _Banderilleros_ fail to fix the darts, that they require their surprising swiftness of foot. Being without the protection of a cloak, they are obliged to take instantly to flight. The bull follows them at full gallop; and I have seen the man leap the barrier, so closely pursued by the enraged brute, that it seemed as if he had sprung up by placing the feet on its head. Townsend thought it was literally so. Some of the darts are set with squibs and crackers. The match, a piece of tinder, made of a dried fungus, is so fitted to the barbed point, that, rising by the pressure which makes it penetrate the skin, it touches the train of the fireworks. The only object of this refinement of cruelty is, to confuse the bull’s instinctive powers, and, by making him completely frantic, to diminish the danger of the _Matador_, who is never so exposed as when the beast is collected enough to meditate the attack.