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A darker and more tragic aspect of it was hinted at by the fresco which was found in the following season among débris fallen from a chamber overlooking the so-called Court of the Olive Spout. This was a picture of those sports of the arena in which the Minoan and Mycenæan monarchs evidently took such delight, and in which the main figures were great bulls and toreadors.
"It is his nature to be deceived," said John Harned. "Wherefore he is doomed to fight wind. The toreadors know it, you know it, I know it we all know from the first that he will fight wind. He only does not know it. It is his stupid beast-nature. He has no chance." "It is very simple," said Luis Cervallos. "The bull shuts his eyes when he charges. Therefore "
And all, except the priest, who will play in his black gown, are in battle array, their chests at liberty in pink cotton shirts or light thread fleshings. The assistants know them well, these players; in a moment, they shall be excited for or against them and will shout at them, frantically, as it happens with the toreadors.
The goading and the enraging that goes on in the dens behind the arena had been overdone apparently, for the bull, wild with rage and pain, galloped madly round, taking no notice of the pallid group of toreadors.
The Birthday of the Infranta. A procession of noble boys, fantastically dressed as toreadors, came out to meet her, and the young Count of Tierra-Nueva, a wonderfully handsome lad of about fourteen years of age, uncovering his head with all the grace of a born hidalgo and grandee of Spain, led her solemnly in to a little gilt and ivory chair that was placed on a raised dais above the arena.
"We will put in the summer that way, father," said Dick, and waving his hand was driven off to the station. Mr. Hazlewood walked back to the library. But "walked" is a poor word. He seemed to float on air. A great opportunity had come to him. He had enlisted the services of his son. He saw Dick and himself as Toreadors waving red flags in the face of a bull labelled Conventionality.
Finding himself incapable of controlling the boiling transports of his anxiety, many a husband makes the mistake of coming home and rushing into the presence of his wife, with the object of triumphing over her weakness, like those bulls of Spain, which, stung by the red banderillo, disembowel with furious horns horses, matadors, picadors, toreadors and their attendants.
"Would you have the bull so strong that he would kill the toreadors?" "I would that he had a fighting chance," said John Harned, facing the ring to see the second bull come in. It was not a good bull. It was frightened. It ran around the ring in search of a way to get out. The capadors stepped forth and flared their capes, but he refused to charge upon them.
To a man of his vivid imagination, a mere suggestion afforded a plot for a story; even the Laird's Toreadors, it will be recalled, were commercially successful when purely imaginary; he only failed when he subsequently studied the real thing in Spain. Bret Harte was a man who in a primitive community might well escape notice.
Then it was that warriors and nobles of mediaeval days were seen strolling with mythological goddesses and out-of-date peasants of Italy and Spain; then audacious "toreadors" were perceived whispering in the ears of crowned queens, and clowns were caught lingering amorously by the side of impossible flower-girls of all nations.
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