La Tarantula remembered little after that. She was in the region between heaven and earth, one moment ecstatically happy, and after that depressingly sad. And when a singer got up and sang a malaguena, and she recalled the sad, boyish look on the face of El Gallo, who had disappeared from the crowd, she caught a sob in her throat and wept. The malaguena continued. The singer was weeping, it seemed, and not singing, for such is the way to sing the malaguena. It is a prolonged lament, a melancholy, poignant ululation that comes welling up as though from the very vitals of the singer. And it ends with a series of runs which rise in the singer's throat like sobs, and dies away in a long slow note which changes from a wail to a sigh.
That was the song La Tarantula heard.
That was why she was inexpressibly sad.
Even when they walked back to the river again, she could not shake the mood away from her.
Always, she saw the pitiful face of El Gallo. Even when the drunken hilarious company passed through the beautiful Parque Maria Luisa she was melancholy. A forest of trees and shrubs surrounded them, giving off odorous scents. Orange trees, camellias and rosebushes. The ground was moist with early morning dew that gave out a woodsy odour. And in the trees, nightingales sang melodiously.
But the heart of La Tarantula was heavy with grief.
They crossed the slow moving, moon glittering Guadalquivir river from Triana to the regular part of the city. None seemed to be aware of the fact that their master, El Gallo, was not in their midst. Not even Zurito, El Gallo's favourite picador. They were all too drunk and too tired for that. Most of them were sleeping on each other's shoulders.
Only La Tarantula knew of his absence. And she was keenly aware of it. For, as she stared into the silvery waters of the river gliding by, she imagined that she could see the dear drowned face of El Gallo in their turgid depths.
Such was her mood all night and all morning.
Even in the afternoon, when she had been awakened by the sound of the pedestrians' and the hawkers' clamour on the Street of the Serpents which wound out below her bedroom window, she recalled her intense sorrow of the night before, because her dreams had been shot through with the face of the one whom she had loved, and whom she had hurt.
From among the myriad of conversations coming up from the street, she was able to pick out one that was clearer to her because the one who was speaking had a louder voice than the rest. He was talking about the bullfights that were going to take place that afternoon. And, of course, he had mentioned the name of El Gallo as being the chief attraction.
Immediately, a smile came to La Tarantula's face. She would go to the bullfight. She would see her beloved once again in the splendour of his accomplishments, in all the strength and vigour of his beautiful body.
And so, calling her maid, she discovered that she had an hour in which to dress in order to be able to get to the Plaza de los Toros in time for the first fight. Soon, she was all prepared and she descended to the cafe. It was deserted. Everyone, it seemed, had gone or was going to the bullfights. She went into the street. A stream of people went by her, all intent on getting to the Plaza de los Toros where the bullfights were going to be held. She got into the stream. Past the various clubs she went where majos, the "lady-killers," still loitering over their last drinks, eyed her and commented on the shapeliness of her buttocks.
She preferred to walk instead of taking her carriage because she felt that, in that way, she was doing penance for the sin she had committed against El Gallo.
When she finally arrived at the Plaza, she was tired. But there was a warm glow within her. For she was soon to see her beloved El Gallo once more.
Already she could feel little goose pimples of expectation crawling up her arm. And the short hairs on the nape of her neck stood up like little penises. For she was riggish. She was as riggish for a man as she had ever been in her life. She wanted to be seized, to be held tightly, to be kissed, to be fucked as no man had ever fucked her, by only one certain man-El Gallo. And as she walked into her box-seat, she seemed to know that soon her expectations would be fulfilled.
An immense crowd had already gathered. She looked around. Across from her, on the sunny side of the ring in the cheaper seats, there appeared to be only a solid mass of yellow and red and green handkerchiefs and parasols and mantillas. On the shady side, where she was sitting, white mantillas prevailed, for there were the better class of aficionados, bullfight fans. Vendors coursed through the aisles selling beer and gaseosas (pop). Others, unable to reach patrons with their wares, threw them accurately across a dozen rows and, in turn, received their money in the same way. A general feeling of good humour prevailed, for it was an ideal day for a bullfight.
La Tarantula looked around for some sight of El Gallo. In the callejon, the runway that circled the ring, she saw the sword handlers with their jugs of water, sponges, piles of folded muletas and heavy leather sword cases together with the bull ring servants, the police in their patentleather hats, several plainclothesmen who were there so as to be ready for any amateur matadors who thought they could jump over the barrera to handle the bull as they saw fit, photographers, doctors and the delegates of the government. Everyone was there but he for whom La Tarantula sought. But she knew that soon her lover would appear.
She was conscious of a hundred pairs of opera glasses being trained on her from men scattered around the ring. But she gave them no heed.
Her thoughts were only of one man, El Gallo. She knew that he would be in the patio de los caballos where the horses were. Soon, he would line up with the other matadors, three abreast, their picadors and banderilleros strung out behind them. Then the trumpet would blow for the fighting to begin.
She looked up at the president's box. Sure enough, at that same moment, she saw the president enter. A buzz of excitement swept through the crowd. Matters took a busy turn. The ring servants in their red vests became more active. Everyone took on a look of motion.
Suddenly, the trumpet blew. The president had waved his handkerchief for it. A burst of clapping ensued. And, from the patio de los caballos, two mounted men dressed in ancient costume issued forth and rode across the sand of the ring. They galloped across the ring, doffed their hats and bowed low to the president's box. Then the music of the band started and from the opening in the courtyard of the horses came the procession of the bullfighters in paseo parade. The three matadors walked abreast. Their dress capes were furled and wrapped around their left arms while their right arms were balanced. All walked with a loose-hipped stride, their arms swinging, their chins up, their eyes on the president's box. Behind them filed the picadors and banderilleros.
La Tarantula shuddered. For as they came closer to her to bow to the president in his box, she saw that the familiar figure which she had come for was not there. El Gallo was not among the matadors!
Immediately, a concerted growl came up from the audience. They had come to see El Gallo, the great El Gallo. But El Gallo was not in the parade.
Tears came to La Tarantula's eyes. Her face fell to her lap. Suddenly, a roar arose from the crowd. From all sides she heard the name of El Gallo! El Gallo! bravo El Gallo! A loud period of hand-clapping and whistling resulted. La Tarantula looked up. Far in the distance, coming out of the horse yard, she saw the strangely lonesome figure of a matador dragging his cape on the ground, slumping tiredly across the sand. It was El Gallo. But this was a whipped El Gallo. His eyes were dead. His body was listless. His arms hung down from his shoulders like wooden weights.
Something in his pitiful bedraggled figure caught at La Tarantula's throat. She could not control herself any longer. With a sigh, she leaped down the tiers of steps, down, down, avoiding the grasps of those who tried to stop her, crying aloud, "El Gallo! El Gallo!"
At the barrera that separated the seats from the ring proper, she was seized by one of the plain-clothesmen stationed there. But she tore herself from his grasp and threw herself over the fence. She fell but she got up and started to run after the figure of the man she loved, still calling his name.
He stopped dead in his tracks. But when he saw that it was La Tarantula who had called him, the deadness in his eyes became alive.
His deadweight arms took on life. The fingers in his hand twitched for the feel of her. And when she threw herself stumbling, weeping hysterically into his arms, he knew that once more life was going to be worth living. And he, too, wept. And there, in front of fourteen thousand aficionados who had come to see him kill bulls, he kissed her again and again on her lips and her nose and her eyes, murmuring all the while that he loved her.
"We were mad last night!" she moaned.
"That was last night!" he cried.
"Oh! take me! take me!" she managed to gasp out between her racking sobs. "I have been so lonely for you!" She saw him look around. "There's still time for your killings. Let the other matadors kill first. You shall have the last bulls. I must have you first!" she implored him.
El Gallo hesitated momentarily. But when he looked down into her tearful face, when he saw the bulge of her bosom at her bodice promising a bevy of beautiful breasts, when he saw her nostrils dilating in passion for him, he realized that he could decide in only one way. So, taking her up in his arms, he carried her to one side where the infirmary was. And all the while, the thousands, sensing his object, laughed and cheered and whistled and called bits of advice for him.
Zurito, the master's picador, came rushing over to him. "But not before the fight, master!" he protested.
"Go fuck yourself!" El Gallo called out gaily.
But Zurito was happy. For, all night before, he had seen the mad light in El Gallo's eyes. Now, the mad light was gone. He was happy once more. Perhaps this fuck before a fight might weaken him. But, after all, he was El Gallo, than whom there was no better matador. He would be somewhat weak, but there was no bull born yet who could subdue the master matador, El Gallo. And so Zurito stared at his master staggering with his load of woman into the infirmary, and sighed and returned to his place in the parade.
In the infirmary, the pair found the place empty. The doctors and internes and nurses had all left for their seats in the ring to view the fights. Not until someone got a cuerno from a bull would they interrupt their lovemaking. Both of them hoped fervently that none would be gored by the bulls that afternoon so that they could fuck to their hearts' content without fear of being bothered by interlopers.
"Hurry! hurry!" La Tarantula murmured as El Gallo began to divest himself of the heavily embroidered jacket he wore in the bull ring, the while she began to take her own clothing off.
"No!" he commanded, "that is for me! I shall undress you!" and with these words, he threw his jacket aside and leaped to her as she stood next to a low hung operating table covered with a white sheet. Almost tearing the hooks away, he seized her dress and lifted it tenderly as though he were drawing away the holy veil from the temple of Isis.
Underneath he discovered only pure clean nakedness, the delicious nakedness of La Tarantula's warm luscious body. He took a soughing intake of breath at the sight that confronted him. Entirely unashamed, La Tarantula now stood in front of him, displaying all of her varied charms. Her long black silk stockings, drawn almost to the cleft of her cunt, accentuated the lighter shades of her olive skin. Her breasts rose and fell in the rhythm of passion that had seized her in its toils and was tightening in her with an iron vicelike hold. Nakedly, unashamedly, she allowed his gaze to wander to her hair fringed cunt and his eyes lingered there, like a food connoisseur who is loathe to take his eyes from a choice viand, taking in each curve, each line, each intimate detail of her femininity.
"Take me!" she implored, holding her arms up to him. El Gallo stepped up to her. Wonder was in his eyes. Desire was in his fingers. Passion was in his cock which had already doubled itself in size and rigidity. And as he threw himself in La Tarantula's arms she felt the great pulsing thing alive in his trousers. And as he kissed her wildly, she allowed her hand to roam down to his trouser flap and unbutton it. Then she inserted her hand into the opening and wrapped her slim fingers around the already-hardened organ. Immediately it took a sudden spurt like a runner receiving his second wind. It shot out like a racehorse from the barrier. And as she drew the flap aside, it tumbled from its resting place and against her nakedness where it pulsed like a mad thing. Again La Tarantula inserted her hand to his cock. But this time her busy fingers wrapped themselves around that amazing ballsac that harboured the famous triple testicles. She felt the rough wrinkled skin. She reacted pleasurably to the tiny hairs scattered over its surface. But most of all she reacted to the pulsations that throbbed through it, the pulsations that were being caused because of her own provocative proximity.
All this while, El Gallo himself was not caught napping. He had taken hold of her nipple in his mouth and with tender lippings was nuzzling it to a stiffness that indicated the enormity of the passion that was flooding through her. At times he would bite playfully at the lobe of her ear, for he had discovered that little action to be quite exciting to her. And when he felt her fingers stroking his balls and prick, he went at his task with an added virility, not knowing what else he could do in order to demonstrate his love for her.
By this time they had worked each other up to the heat necessary to assuring themselves of a good fuck. La Tarantula was murmuring, "I love you! I love you!" El Gallo was demanding of her the reason for her untoward actions the night before when she had allowed the bull to have his bestial cock inserted into her beautiful cunny.
But La Tarantula was too impatient for the oncoming fuck to bother her head over answering. All she could do was gasp out love endearments to him the while she stroked his balls and buttocks and cock with hot rapid palps of fingers. They could excite themselves no higher. Already, both were panting from their exertions. La Tarantula was working her hips and buttocks in the familiar sexual circle as she felt the bulk of El Gallo's prick press against her and nestle among the pubic hairs.
Finally, El Gallo could withhold himself no longer. Taking her up in his arms once more, he carried her over to the operating table where he placed her tenderly outstretched on the white expanse of sheet. There, she spread her legs out wide for him. For the minute he smiled when an odd thought came to him.
"You are lying in the right place!" he said.
"Why?" she asked wonderingly.
"Because when the matador receives a cuerno from a bull, he is brought here and he is laid out on this bed where his gaping wounds are treated by the doctors."
"And I?" she asked.
"You too have a gaping red wound," he said with a grin, inserting his finger into the gash that glowed between her legs. His finger sank into the moist flesh pulsing under his finger's touch. He raised the digit to come in contact with a stiff little facsimile of his own elongated penis.
"What does the doctor do when the matador with the gaping red gash of a cuerno is brought here?" La Tarantula asked archly.
"He closes up the wound!" El Gallo replied.
"I suffer greatly from my deep gash, good doctor El Gallo!" she answered.
"And I am ever handy with the needle!" El Gallo replied. And, suiting the action to the word, he leaped up onto the bed, spread her legs still wider and adjusted his cock so that it barely rested in the aperture that God had placed in woman's body for that purpose. For a few seconds he teased her by merely allowing the tip to rest in the entrance so that she could feel it was there but not all there. Then, when he saw a petulant frown come into her face, he leaned his entire weight against the bloated pecker, sinking its entire length in to the hilt and wrenching from the lips of the joy-anguished La Tarantula below him the deepest moan of combined pleasure and pain. Back and forth his body went, each time drawing the needle in and out. And, as he drew the penis out, La Tarantula began to practice one of her artful tricks on him. Instead of allowing him to withdraw easily, she contracted the muscles in her cunt so that they wrapped themselves around his cock like iron bands. The result was an intense pleasure as though he was being milked.
"There!" he said as he continued to pump the organ into her, and between grunts. "Is that… ugh!.. not better than… ugh!.. that foul… ugh! … beast?"
La Tarantula was unable to make answer. Instead, she took hold of his face between her hands and drew his head down to hers. Then, opening her mouth as wide as she could, she made as though to swallow his whole mouth in hers, nipping his lips and his tongue with her front teeth, darting her active tongue into crevices of his mouth that even he himself was unaware existed. Nose to nose they breathed in the fire from each other's nostrils, the saliva from their mouths mingling in sweet fluxion, their busy fingers, roaming over every part of their bodies, exploring for sensitive spots, eagerly trying to ferret out some place that had not been lovingly caressed.
From the outside, La Tarantula heard the sounds of the bullfight. A bull bellowed and roared. A horse whinnied out as the bull's horns sank deeply into its entrails, while the picador on the horse sank his pic into the muscle hump on the back of the bull. So absorbed did she become in the external sounds, ruminating and conjecturing on their causes, that she did not sense the oncoming orgasm until it was almost ready to come upon her. Then, she was suddenly brought back to the fact that she was being deliciously fucked by El Gallo, the El Gallo, and that in the background of her consciousness, there lurked the first signs of an approaching spasm of passion. Slowly and slowly the orgasm gathered its forces, piling up in back of her body like floodwaters behind the dike, seething within her with the same impetuous rhythm that precedes an inundation.
Then it was that she experienced the strangest of emotions. Time and time again she had been brought to the same point. The seething, boiling millrace within her was an old story. This emotion was a different emotion. This passion was the old passion magnified a hundredfold.
This was love!
At last she was experiencing that most elusive of sensations. She had read of love in the romantic novels of Spain. She had heard the young girls tell of love. Love was on everyone's lips. Love, it was said, made the world go round.
This was love!
Those supposed passions of the past, they had not been love. They had been imitations of love. This was love. Behind the physical pleasures there peeped a spiritual awakening, the birth of a regard for her love partner that had never been present in her. She looked up into the face of El Gallo, the sweat streaming from his forehead. She saw a light in his eyes that she had never seen there before. He was in love with her too. That was why he had looked so sad last night. That was why he had wept. He loved her. And she loved him. That was love! That was why this old passion was magnified to a point where she thought that she could not stand the pressure of her boiling orgiastic senses. And as she felt his long cock travelling the length of her vagina, touching, titillating the mouth of her womb it seemed, she knew that she had found the one man to whom she could respond wholeheartedly. Then and there she sensed the orgasm. Then and there she succumbed to her emotions. She almost swooned in the resultant pleasures that swarmed over her like the enemy in an attack.
"I'm coming!" she whispered, "I'm coming!"
"Me too!" he answered laconically.
Then she came, her ass ploughing up and back in an attempt to match El Gallo's fierce thrusts. Her plasm flowed all over her and under her and about her, enveloping her in its effulgent caresses. And, at the same time, she felt three short spurts against the walls of her cunny together with a pleasing, smooth, fluidic inundation of his juice gushing into her. Together they lay and she wrapped her legs around his legs. And she stuck her mouth to his mouth. She cleaved her tongue to his tongue, and rolled her hips to his hips. She knew that nothing now was ever going to part them, that their bodies were one, their lives were one, their future was one.
Their orgasms over, neither said a word. Both were puffing mightily.
As if to heighten his emotion, La Tarantula nipped the flesh of his cheek playfully. It sent an electric current through him so that he gave his limp prick in her moist cunny a muscle jerk. She reciprocated in turn with the muscles in her cunt, contracting them so that they felt like a ring of fire around his cock. They continued to do this playfully for some time, the while their laboured gasps became normal. But, by the time they had managed to breathe right, they discovered that, in their playfulness, she had worked his quondam flaccid prick up to a hard-on again, so that it bulked in her quim once more. And, to boot, she had worked herself up to another pitch where she itched for the violent fuck thrusts once again. There was nothing that could be done about it except fuck. And so, having rested from the terrific ardours of the first orgasm, El Gallo set to work once more, throwing his enlarged prick into his lover's awaiting organ, sensing the lovingness with which she followed his every motion, his every action, his every labour of love.
He too sensed the fact that this was different. That this was love such as he had never before known to be existent. His frequent fucking jousts with the putas and lumias of the streets and the stage, they, compared to his reactions now, had merely been knotholes in a fence. Their simulated attempts at passion were as child's play compared with this flaming volcanic eruption of love under him, that loved every inch of him and for whom he had regard such as he had never before known.
She was as vital to him now as life itself. He must never let her go from his sight.
She, too, was thinking the same thing. And when she told him her thoughts, the while he was pumping his cock into her, they sealed their marriage, as it were, with a pure lipkiss that was devoid of the customary passion and tricks that they practiced.
Again La Tarantula became aware of the closeness of another orgasm.
Again she whispered to El Gallo that she was going to come. Again he prepared himself so that he could come into her the moment he felt her body stiffen under him with her legs wrapped around his legs, her hands clutching his torso, her tongue amorously searching for contact with his tongue.
Again they flooded each other with bliss. Their bodies churned in the throes of the passionate maelstrom. His cock bolted in and out like a stallion. Her cunt received it avidly, sucking its entire length into its cavity. They laboured in panted breaths. And then they receded into the afterfuck that comes as a postlude to passion and lay still, their hearts beating, bodies electric with love, their limbs quivering in the wake of their excitement.
For a while, El Gallo allowed the shrivelled cock to remain in her cunt and wallow in the fluids there. But soon he turned over on his back and stared up at the ceiling, the while he played with her breasts.
At that point, they heard the sound of voices approaching.
Immediately, El Gallo leaped up from the bed, helping La Tarantula to her feet, too. She scampered into a side room with her dress. When she returned calm and composed, but her cheeks flushed, she saw Zurito and a number of others of El Gallo's cuadrilla of aides imploring with him as he adjusted his trouser flap. Zurito was helping him on with his elaborate jacket and cape.
"They are demanding El Gallo!" he begged.
"Then it will be El Gallo they shall get!" he said, preparing to leave. He took La Tarantula in his arms and kissed her. "Boys!" he said, "this is to be the future Senora El Gallo!" Then he swept out of the room crying,
"A los toros! to the bulls!"
When La Tarantula found herself once more in her box, she discovered that the picador Zurito had mounted his rangy horse and was preparing his long lance like pic for the bull. Her El Gallo was standing to one side watching the proceedings. Her heart went out to him when she recalled the hectic half hour they had just spent together.
Then she saw him place himself behind a flat plank shelter jutting out of the barrera. One of the officials, the alguacil, rode over to the president's box and asked for the key to the red door behind which the bull to be killed was waiting. He caught the thrown key in his plumed hat as the crowd clapped. Then he rode over to the bullpen where he gave the key to the doorkeeper. Ring servants smoothed down the hoof prints of the horse. El Gallo stood behind his burladero. Two banderilleros, one on each side of the ring, stood against the fence. It was very quiet now. La Tarantula's heart beat faster because she realized that this was all for her lover, El Gallo, whose name had just been shouted to the skies by the excited fans. The president gave his signal with a wave of his white handkerchief. The trumpet sounded.
And an old white bearded man unlocked the door of the toril where the champing bull was penned, pulling heavily on it.
The bull came bellowing out of the toril. La Tarantula gasped. It was the Miura bull of last night! It was the bull that she had allowed to fuck her. A deep sense of shame crept over her. But this was changed immediately when she saw that El Gallo, too, had recognized the Miura. For he looked up to where she was seated and waved to her. He would avenge this insult with the death of this bull, he would kill it cleanly and neatly and with dispatch.
One of the banderilleros ran across the course trailing a cape. The bull followed the cape. Then the matador El Gallo stepped out from his shelter. Standing in front of the bull, he waved the cape. El Gallo began to put him through his paces. He cited him from the front, standing still as the bull charged, and with his arms moving the cape slowly just ahead of the bull's horns, passing the bull's horns close by his body with a slow movement of the cape, seeming to keep him controlled in the folds of the cape, bringing him past his body each time as he turned and recharged. He did this five times and then finished off with a swirl of the cape that turned his back on the bull, thus cutting the bull's charge brusquely and fixing him to the spot.
La Tarantula thrilled when she saw her man, puny compared to the huge hulking beast, playing tricks with the animal, it being completely at his mercy. And when she saw the dangling sac of the bull's balls, she thrilled in the knowledge that her man, too, was endowed with almost as large a ball-sac, and, to top it off, he had three instead of two balls. Thoughts such as this made her squirm, for a hot spot appeared in the region of her cunny and she became riggish for the feel of El Gallo's prick.
The three acts of the bullfight had begun in earnest now. Picadors on horses, armed with long spiked poles, prodded the point of the pole into the muscle hump of the bull, enraging it to a point of madness.
Three horses were gored by the bull, their entrails trailing out from their guts like a string of ribbon. Soon they were covered by canvases and the ring made ready for the second act, that of banderillas long sticks of about a yard long with a harpoon-shaped steel point. These were placed two at a time in the humped muscle at the top of the bull's neck as he charged the banderillas who held them. They, too, were designed to slow up the bull and regulate his carriage. Four pairs of banderilleras were stuck into the bull.
Then El Gallo came out of his burladero. Directly to the spot beneath La Tarantula he came and there dedicated the ear of the bull to her, his espoused one. The audience cheered them both when they heard this announcement. Word of the news travelled through the ring. But the bull was to be killed. Bowing again, El Gallo backed away to prepare for his work with the muleta, a scarlet cloth folded over a stick which has a sharp spike at one end and a handle at the other. The matador uses this to master the bull, preparing him for a killing and finally holding it in his left hand to lower the bull's head and keeping it lowered while he kills the animal with a sword thrust high up between his shoulder blades.
El Gallo went through the whole rigmarole of the matador's craft with the aplomb of the master that he was. Time after time, after a difficult trick, the audience would applaud his daring, marvelling at the grace he displayed in avoiding the mad rushes of the bull, imploring with him at times not to take such risks in allowing the bull's horns to brush so closely to his stomach. But El Gallo was reborn. He had found his first love. He was displaying his prowess before her right now. The peacock struts its finery in front of the female. And so, El Gallo strutted his knowledge for La Tarantula.
Then came the time for the killing. The bull, dazed by the tricks of the matador, stood square on his four feet facing the man who was about five feet away from him, his feet together, his muleta in his left hand and the sword which he had drawn out of a leather scabbard in his right. El Gallo raised the muleta to see whether the bull followed it with his eyes. Then he lowered the cloth, held it and the sword together, then turned so that he was standing sideways toward the bull, made a twist with his left hand that unfurled the cloth over the stick of the muleta, drew the sword up from the lowered muleta and sighted along it to the bull, his head, the blade of the sword and his left shoulder pointing toward the bull, the muleta held low in his hand. El Gallo drew himself up taut and started toward the bull. Immediately, the bull charged the man.
La Tarantula held her breath. She saw the hulking beast charging her lover. She saw El Gallo lower his muleta, thus lowering the head of the bull. Then he shot his right arm forward, the sword entering the exact spot atop the bull's neck.
Suddenly, a flicker of wind swept the cloth of the muleta upward.
Instantly the bull's head followed the wind raised cloth. Squarely into El Gallo's guts the cruel, jagged horns of the Miura went. Impaled on the horn, El Gallo went upward. When the bull's head came down, El Gallo rolled off. The bull again rushed forward, nuzzling the prostrate figure with his bloodied horn so that El Gallo's guts issued from his belly in a pool of blood.
The audience groaned. The bull bellowed once and then fell over on its back, dead, the sword having finally done its work.
But across the breadth of the ring there sounded the strange eerie cry of a woman in pain. La Tarantula had struck again. The bull that had had its enormous prick in her lay in the dirt, its legs stuck stiffly up into the air. The man who was going to become her husband lay next to the bull, his life blood oozing out from a jagged hole in his belly.
When the ballad singers went through the village the next morning singing: Oh! hear of the death of El Gallo the great! they knew that they couldn't sell their printed ballad to the old men who sat in the street drinking sunshine. For they were mumbling into their beards of how La Tarantula had struck again.
Once the bull.
And again the matador.