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Certainly the enthusiasm of the ring, the presence of Mexican belles and their cavalleros, the picturesqueness and novelty of the whole show are worth experiencing. It should be remembered that the red cloth waved in front of him is the main cause of Toro's irritation. Why it should so irritate him we don't know.
A general cheer greeted this speech. "Tomaso! Tomaso!" they cried; "Tomaso for leader!" Toro's face flushed blood red.
When they had secured these, they could content themselves for the present at least. Firstly, therefore, he tied up the silver spoons and knives and forks from the dinner table in a napkin, and dropped the bundle into Toro's hat below. Then he crept back through the room into the passage. This done, he waited for a while to listen, and assuring himself that the coast was clear, he crept up.
"You can do a great deal towards it. Unfasten one of his arms his right arm." Pike's right arm was then released, and, in obedience to Toro's command, a small table was placed close to him. On this table were pens, ink and paper. "Now write to your friend Harkaway, and tell him that unless Tomaso is released by noon, as I have told you, death is your doom." So Pike wrote
This was no mere braggadocio; it was not the misplaced confidence of a stall-fed bull in his mere weight; he really could fight, and though he was only on the warpath about once a month, there was not a bull in the valley which had not retained in his thick skull and muddy brains some recollection of El Toro's prowess.
Finding himself free from Toro's attentions, for the huge Italian had received such a desperate shaking with his fall that he was not fit for much now, he rushed into the melee, and dealt out such slogging blows that there were at least a dozen bleeding noses and black eyes distributed amongst the bandits in rather less time than it takes to note the fact. The Greeks were thoroughly discouraged.
But when he and a dozen others had made the desperate descent of the zigzag, they found that the dead man was Domecq. Even the miners had no love for this arch-troubler, and, in trying to avoid Don Ferdinando, the sight of whom, coming down the track, had warned him of danger, Domecq had done the mine the best turn possible. Toro's own warning was of course much too late.
On the contrary, he felt languid and scarcely able to do the duties that devolved upon him as Toro's lieutenant. Nor was his brain so clear as in former days. Ideas he had in plenty, but they seemed to jostle and confuse each other in their endeavours to settle down into a connected train of thought. Emmerson's vengeance was working.
As they were not agreed about the choice of weapons, a coin was thrown up, and Toro won. Tomaso would have chosen pistols, for he was an excellent shot, and it gave him the superiority; whereas, although not altogether unskilled in fence, Toro's superior weight and size gave him a great advantage with the sword. However, there was nothing for it now but to fight.
Therefore, making a virtue of the necessity, he lowered his sword, and spurning his beaten adversary with his foot, bade him rise. "Then take your life unasked," he said coarsely, "and in future learn to know and to respect your superiors." Toro's speech was received with cheers by the brigands. "What do you say, men, now?" demanded the huge Italian, as he wiped his sword. "Huzza for Toro!"
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