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The Alamo, at San Antonio, was one of great importance; there were others of less consideration in the neighbourhood; as the missions of Conception, of San Juan, San Jose, and La Espada. All these edifices are most substantially built; the walls are of great thickness, and from their form and arrangement they could be converted into frontier fortresses.
In his right hand is the long Toledan blade la espada, while in his left he holds the muleta, or small red flag about a foot square, which is his weapon of defence, and on the skill of using which his safety depends.
The picador sustained some terrific falls, and in his quality of horse had to be taken out repeatedly and sewed up; the banderilleros tormented and eluded the toro with table-covers, one red and two drab, till the espada took him from them, and with due ceremony, after a speech to the president, drove his blade home to the bull's heart.
But with all other classes, except the poorest, who cannot and do not seclude the youth of either sex from each other, and with whom, consequently, romantic contrivance and subterfuge would be superfluous, love is made to-day in Venice as in the capa y espada comedies of the Spaniards, and the business is carried on with all the cumbrous machinery of confidants, billets-doux, and stolen interviews.
It is said, but I do not know whether it is true, that the young English queen who has gladly renounced her nation and religion for the people who seem so to love her, cannot endure the bloody sights of the bull-feast; and when it comes to the horses dragging their entrails across the ring, or the espada despatching the bull, or the bull tossing a landerillero in the air she puts up her fan.
I stayed to see three bulls killed; the last was uncommonly fierce, and when his hindquarters came off or out, his forequarters charged joyously among the aficionados on the prisoners' side, and made havoc in their thickly packed ranks. The espada who killed this bull was showered with cigars and cigarettes from our side.
The famous espada perished in his heroic calling, no worse if no better than those who saw him die, and now his bust is in plain view, with a fit inscription recognizing his worth and prowess, and with the heads of some of the bulls he slew.
He then took from an attendant and gripped in his right hand the espada, the short sword, with which he was to give the bull the finishing stroke. "Now, to Cogan's way of thinking, Ferrero and the other banderilleros took a chance when they placed their beribboned stakes, but they had the length of their stakes the start of the bull, and they did not have to linger over doing it.
They had never seen anything like it, they declared; it was most exciting, and made one shiver unpleasantly, like when the espada comes to close quarters with the infuriated brute at a bull fight. Countess Regina listened in silence, and nibbled the petals of a tea rose. "How I should like to see them!" giddy Madame de Rhouel exclaimed.
They do not wish them published in visitors' lists in the newspapers. Perhaps it is only natural," and he smiled. "Have you any one named Pedro Espada in the hotel?" I inquired. Again he consulted his register, but shook his head. "Nobody of that name," he replied. I hesitated. Then I asked: "Did the gentleman who spent the night in Room 175 depart alone?"
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