The powerful beast--though rage still burned in his lurid eyes, and foam fell from his dilated nostrils and quivering flank--now showed signs of languor, and a more uncertain though still threatening front. One of the _banderilleros_ advanced boldly in front of the bull, in dangerous proximity to his sharp, bloody horns. He waved his arms, and brandished his ribboned darts as if he were derisively taunting the rabid beast. It seemed dangerous to presume thus much, for the bull, excited to madness, suddenly rushed on him; but cool and watchful, the man lightly stepped aside as if disdaining to move one superfluous inch. As the animal passed him in his furious career, the darts with their ribbons were buried with the speed of lightning in his gory neck. With a wild bellow of rage and pain the furious brute makes at another foe in his path, but distracted by the number of his persecutors dancing like demons around him, and exhausted by the loss of blood, he sinks fainting to the earth, though still to the last defiant, amongst the yells of the excited crowd. In a few minutes a man with a bright, naked sword, called the _espada_, entered the arena, and demanded permission from the _autoridad_ to kill the bull. This was accorded amid the increasing buzz and restlessness of the crowd. Carrying in his left hand a dark red flag, to act as a bait for the still sensitive eye of the _toro_, and in his right a good Toledan blade, the _espada_ cautiously advanced towards the crouching beast, more dangerous now, perhaps, than in the full vigour of his strength. The man appeared to be the incarnation of address as opposed to brute-force; firm of nerve, sharp of sight, undaunted in courage. Approaching to within eight inches of his glaring foe, he stood face to face with him, prepared for mortal struggle. Waving the red flag to the left, to lure away the horns from the front of his chest, he slowly raised his long sword up to the level of his eye, and then drew back his arm with as little motion as possible, to make the fatal plunge at that narrow point in the neck where the spinal cord may best be severed, that immediate death may ensue. As the blow was delivered, the beast, swerving aside, dashed at the red flag waving in his face, his long horns almost grazing the man's left breast, while the steel was plunged to the hilt into his body. The blow had not been fairly struck, and the mad brute darted away, carrying with him the _espada's_ sword, the blood spouting in jets at every stride. A shout of execration proceeded from all the balconies at this unlucky blow, which should have laid the bull motionless. The bull-fighter, meanwhile, determined to retrieve his reputation, remained calm as at first. Crying with a loud voice to some functionary for _el cachete_, he received a small, sharp dagger, which he screwed slowly and carefully round within the hollow of his right hand. Arranging once more the dark