anderilleros are rung
on. One comes forward--dressed like the rest, but without any cloak as a
protection--carrying a pair of gaily-papered wooden darts, pointed with
a large iron barb at one end. He walks into the centre, places his feet
together, and defies the bull by a rapid poise of the twin sticks, one
in each hand.

If the bull charges at once it is touch and go with the holder, and he
must plant his barbs exactly parallel either in the nape of the bull's
neck or behind the shoulders--always well on top and within an inch or
two of each other. A slight clumsiness is loudly hooted and whistled at
by the audience, who are as keen critics of everything that transpires
as our own crowds are of cricket.

It takes years to make a good banderillero. Three, or even four pairs of
banderillas are planted in the shoulder of the bull, and they mislike
him much. He tosses his head and roars angrily when the first pair are
placed, but the pain of the inch-long barb, as it falls over and grips
the flesh, generally bewilders the bull for a second, and allows the
banderillero time to slip aside and run for the barriers.

It is one of the most perilous feats, this placing of darts, for they
are never thrown, except in the accounts of bull-fights that occur in
novels or newspapers, but thrust into the enemy's neck by hand.

Possibly the bull refuses to charge until the fighter runs towards him
from an obtuse angle, and this is the easiest plan for the man. On the
other hand, a daring matador will sometimes take a pair of darts and sit
on a chair before his prey.

On the charge the slayer slips aside, plants the darts neatly, and the
chair often flies twenty feet into the air. This is seldom practised,
except at the great Easter fights during Holy Week.

[Illustration: "NOW ONE OR THE OTHER HAS TO DIE."]

The darts are about two feet six inches long, and merely round pieces of
deal, more or less straight, with a wrought-iron semi-arrow at the
extremity. The barb is thus single, like a fish-hook. There is not room
on a bull for more than four pairs, if they are placed properly; so the
banderilleros are rung out, and the trumpets sound the entry for the
last act of the red drama.

The matador comes forward. He walks up to the bedizened and top-hatted
president, doffs his cap, and makes a speech. He holds a red cloth in
one hand, about four feet square, and in the other a straight Toledo
sword with a slightly rounded end. Ther