When a _picador_ falls, and with his horse upon him, it is no easy matter for him to rise; and no sooner had the wretched steed succumbed, than the bull, dashing at the struggling and powerless man, 'in one red ruin blent,' attacked horse and man once more with all the vigor of his horns. The _picador_ was utterly helpless; imbedded in his deep saddle and ponderous stirrups, his lower limbs cased in iron, he had not the shadow of a chance of extricating himself. His lance he had dropped, and all he could do, and all he did, was to urge his dying horse with violent and desperate blows to rise and release him. The cruelly-used beast, willing and intelligent to the last, mangled as he was, and almost swimming in the crimson pool beneath him, made a supreme effort to rise; it was in vain, and all he could now do was to serve as a shield by receiving the attack of the enraged bull, instead of his master. Still the position was eminently critical; the struggles of the dying horse under the horns of the infuriated full complicated the position, and the next moment might decide the helpless man's fate. He looked around, dismayed, when another _picador_ advanced, and, driving his lance into the bull's shoulder, aroused him to the consciousness of a new foe. The _toreros_ and _chulos_ took advantage of the diversion to bear the bruised and wounded _picador_ off the field, and the expiring horse--not deemed worth of thought, because, pecuniarily speaking, he was valueless--was left there, not only to struggle in the agonies of a cruel death, but to form a butt for the frantic bull every time he passed in the fight.