r; and as the
horse fell to its side on on the ground the picador landed on his feet
and escaped, while the capadors lured the bull away. The horse was
emptied of its essential organs. Yet did it rise to its feet screaming.
It was the scream of the horse that did it, that made John Harned
completely mad; for he, too, started to rise to his feet, I heard
him curse low and deep. He never took his eyes from the horse, which,
screaming, strove to run, but fell down instead and rolled on its back
so that all its four legs were kicking in the air. Then the bull charged
it and gored it again and again until it was dead.

John Harned was now on his feet. His eyes were no longer cold like
steel. They were blue flames. He looked at Maria Valenzuela, and she
looked at him, and in his face was a great loathing. The moment of his
madness was upon him. Everybody was looking, now that the horse was
dead; and John Harned was a large man and easy to be seen.

"Sit down," said Luis Cervallos, "or you will make a fool of yourself."

John Harned replied nothing. He struck out his fist. He smote Luis
Cervallos in the face so that he fell like a dead man across the chairs
and did not rise again. He saw nothing of what followed. But I saw much.
Urcisino Castillo, leaning forward from the next box, with his cane
struck John Harned full across the face. And John Harned smote him with
his fist so that in falling he overthrew General Salazar. John Harned
was now in what-you-call Berserker rage--no? The beast primitive in him
was loose and roaring--the beast primitive of the holes and caves of the
long ago.

"You came for a bull-fight," I heard him say, "And by God I'll show you
a man-fight!"

It was a fight. The soldiers guarding the Presidente's box leaped
across, but from one of them he took a rifle and beat them on their
heads with it. From the other box Colonel Jacinto Fierro was shooting at
him with a revolver. The first shot killed a soldier. This I know for
a fact. I saw it. But the second shot struck John Harned in the side.
Whereupon he swore, and with a lunge drove the bayonet of his rifle into
Colonel Jacinto Fierro's body. It was horrible to behold. The Americans
and the English are a brutal race. They sneer at our bull-fighting, yet
do they delight in the shedding of blood. More men were killed that day
because of John Harned than were ever killed in all the history of the
bull-ring of Quito, yes, and of Guayaquil and all Ecuado