A bull that takes the stab of the lance without flinching is usually esteemed and applauded; but a young animal may be turned by the first chilling pain of the raw steel. If the horse is overthrown, the picador falls with a crash, and wriggles aside as best he can that the poor beast may not roll on him. In the nick of time a chulo flaunts his crimson rag in the bull's face and draws him away from the helpless lancer, who is hoisted to his feet by the assistants and given a lift on to his steed's back again--if the latter is still capable of bearing a man. If not, the dagger-man--"cachetero" he is called--arrives with a short arrow-headed knife, and severs the doomed beast's backbone at the neck with one short stab. There is no quicker death. The horse wilts like a rent air-balloon, and is dead without a quiver. [Illustration: "A SERIES OF PASSES WITH THE SCARLET FLAG."] He is happier than the long line of his fellows that wait in the gloomy stables beyond. On an average about three horses fall to a bull, but a single bull has often killed twenty. Some cattle seem to have a leaning towards horse-slaughter, but the majority appear not to relish it. They stand before the picador, and gaze as if considering whether it would be sportsmanlike to rend such a tottering beast. Still, three corpses usually lie about the sand, with the dark, raw pools around them, before the second trumpet-blare sounds. This is the signal for the withdrawal of the horses. A bull must be allowed to kill as many as he likes, and then the banderilleros are rung on. One comes forward--dressed like the rest, but without any cloak as a protection--carrying a pair of gaily-papered wooden darts, pointed with a large iron barb at one end. He walks into the centre, places his feet together, and defies the bull by a rapid poise of the twin sticks, one in each hand. If the bull charges at once it is touch and go with the holder, and he must plant his barbs exactly parallel either in the nape of the bull's neck or behind the shoulders--always well on top and within an inch or two of each other. A slight clumsiness is loudly hooted and whistled at by the audience, who are as keen critics of everything that transpires as our own crowds are of cricket. It takes years to make a good banderillero. Three, or even four pairs of banderillas are planted in the shoulder of the bull, and they mislike him much. He tosses his head and roars angrily when the first pair are placed, but the pain of the inch-long barb, as it falls over and grips the flesh, generally bewilders the bull for a second, and allows the banderillero time to slip aside and run for the barriers. It is one of the most perilous feats, this placing of darts, for they are never thrown, except in the accounts of bull-fights that occur in novels or newspapers, but thrust into the enemy's neck by hand.