their excuse. The air was so still that the ringing sound of flying
hoofs reached the ear when the first ganadero was some two miles in
advance of the procession; one was conscious of the heavy, intoxicating
perfume that stole out from gardens on either side of the road. From the
poplar trees came the ceaseless call of the cigarrons, nightingales sang
amid the orange-orchards of Las Delicias, the melancholy cry of the
bittern rose from the river marshes, mingled with the croaking of the
bull-frogs never at rest. And every venta along the roadside was
crowded, the garden trees were hung with lanterns, guitars tinkled an
accompaniment to malagueñas, jotas, boleros and other songs and dances
of Southern Spain, and through the pageant and festivities prepared in
their honour the bulls moved with silent dignity. Right along the
Guadalquivir's bank, where the lights shone from the faluchas at rest
upon its waters, they tramped almost up to the Tower of Gold, and then
the plaza de toros shone out clearly in the light of huge bonfires
kindled just beyond its boundaries. Guided for the first and last time
by the poles of the ganaderos, the bullocks turned sharply to the right,
and after a moment's hesitation that gave the one touch of suspense to
the proceedings, the fighting bulls followed. The heavy doors were drawn
behind them, the procession dispersed, and, quite unseen by any eyes
save those of the men engaged, each bull was driven to his own condemned
cell, while the bullocks remained by themselves in a small straw-covered
yard. Then profound silence reigned throughout the city, broken only
when the bells clashed from the Giralda Tower and the old serenos who
paraded the streets with spear and lantern cried to the Maria Santissima
that the night was clear.
* * * * *
In his narrow prison El Cuchillo may have noted the coming of the
morning when one white bar of light fell across the wall. There were
sounds of activity beyond the toril, but he remained undisturbed. He had
little room to turn, there was no food, and, worse still, no water.
Hunger, thirst and fear yielded slowly to an overmastering sense of
anger, founded upon his consciousness of giant strength. He bellowed
savagely, and would have given effect to his rage had it been possible
to move freely.
Long hours passed; morning yielded to afternoon. The great splash of
light that came through the bars waxed intense and intolerant and then
waned slowly with the passing hours, while an indescribable sense of
movement filled the twilight of the condemned cell. In some subtle
fashion it told of the gathering of an expectant multitude. On a sudden
a military band, somewhere just beyond the toril, crashed out the
Spanish National Anthem, there were cheers and shouts, succeeded by a
death-like stillness that was broken in its turn by a shrill,
penetrating trumpet call. Time after time, for more than an hour, came
the reverberating notes, the snatches of wild music, the cries from many
thousand throats. Only one word rang clear: "Espartero".
At last El Cuchillo became conscious of voices on either side of him,
the light broadened, and a hand, shooting out a little way above him,
stuck the barbed point of a red rosette in his shoulder. A moment later
the trumpets called again, the front wall of his prison opened as though
by magic, and he dashed forward with a rush that brought him half way
across the yellow arena. A yell from twelve thousand throats arrested
him; he lashed his flanks, blinked a little--for even the setting sun
hurt his eyes after those long hours of darkness--and then answered his
audience with a roar of defiance. Certainly he knew that he was
surrounded by his enemies; perhaps the awful odour of blood that filled
the arena gave him some prevision of the butchery that was to accompany
his death.
Let us pass over the first few minutes of the struggle. El Cuchillo knew
no difference between the armour-cased picadores who carried the spiked
poles, and the hapless, unprotected, blindfolded horses they bestrode.
That is all that needs be said by way of excuse for the six carcases
that strewed the arena when the tercio sounded, carcases from which the
blue-coated attendants had stripped saddle and bridle. With one
exception the picadores had fallen behind their horses in the most
approved fashion; the exception, a heavy man, protected at all vital
points against the reddened horns, was tossed high into the air and
carried off with a broken collar-bone; while Espartero himself drew El
Cuchillo away with some of the most superb cloak-work Seville had seen
since Lagartijo retired from the bull-ring.
With the enthusiasm of the huge auditorium a thrill of amazement was
mingled. Though the bull's neck bore red marks of the picadores' poles,
he was singularly fresh, his breathing was not short and sharp as it
should have been, and he was in no sense distressed.
Conecito came forward with his banderillas, the beribboned spears used
for the second attack upon the bull, and the crowd cheered lustily, for
the banderillero was a favourite. Bull and man seemed to charge
together, and then Conecito was seen travelling post-haste for the
barrier, which he reached just in time, while his opponent drew up and
trotted off gamely but with "half a pair" (the technical term for one
banderilla) hanging from his shoulder. The second banderillero tried
next and failed altogether--El Cuchillo's pace beat him utterly; and
then, to the accompaniment of a roar of applause and a burst of barbaric
music, Espartero himself came forward with a pair of the light lances.
This time there was no mistake. For all Cuchillo's wonderful habit of
using his eyes as he charged he could never quite tell where the great
matador would cross him, and at the second attempt the two lances were
beautifully placed. Then Conecito tried again, with the same result as
before, save that the one sent home was on the other side of the bull's
flank, so that he carried two pairs now. The second banderillero was
quite beaten, but the renowned Rafael Guerra, who led the second
cuadrilla, succeeded, amid thunders of acclamation. Then the judge
raised his hand to the string with which he signalled, the trumpeters
sounded the third call and a great hush fell upon the arena.
Espartero was to kill. The great diestro, who had been testing the
quality of two or three swords, and giving instructions to the footmen
of his cuadrilla, now chose his weapon, and wrapping the scarlet muleta
round it strode across the arena until he stood below the President's
box.
Hat in hand, he asked permission to kill El Cuchillo in manner that
would do honour to Seville. The President raised his hat in token of
assent; Espartero flung his own over the barrier and turned towards the
middle of the arena, where El Cuchillo, standing sturdily defiant,
greeted his coming with a thunderous bellow, and stared with bloodshot
eyes at the gold epaulettes and braid, the gaudy coat, the red waistband
and blood-stained white stockings of his enemy.
Conecito, who now carried one of the plum-coloured cloaks, stood a
little to the left of his chief and heard Espartero speak to the bull as
though he were a human being.
"El Cuchillo," he said slowly, almost solemnly, "you are a great bull
and know no fear. You have killed six horses and you are still fresh. I,
Espartero, salute and honour you. And now one of us must die."
So saying, he unfurled the scarlet cloth, the muleta, and flashed it
across the bull's startled eyes, so that he charged the uncanny thing.
It jumped up out of his reach, and came back just below his nose, and
buzzed round him like a hornet, and led him to jump and turn and twist
and lose his caution, and stand with his forelegs closer and closer
together as Espartero wished, for when they were quite in the normal
condition he could send his espada through the matted hair over the
shoulder and through the lungs to the heart. Then on a sudden, when the
aficionados were telling each other that the end of the splendid animal
would be tame enough, and speculating whether Espartero would kill with
his favourite volapies, or would fall back on the descabello à pulso,
that must be difficult with a bull whose movements were so uncertain, El
Cuchillo seemed to recover his nerve. He ignored the muleta and rushed
at Espartero himself, and in that moment all the diestro's plans were
upset, and he was forced to save himself by one of the agile turns of
which he was the master.
The trumpets sounded a single warning note; Espartero had gone beyond
the time allotted to him. A murmur of astonishment rippled round the
vast arena; never before in the history of Seville had Espartero been
warned. Even the boys who sell programmes and fruit and sandwiches
ceased their cries; the flutter of fans on the sunny side of the ring
faded into stillness almost automatically; and the gaudy flags that
decked the arena seemed to hang breathless. Alone in that vast concourse
matador and bull preserved their tranquillity, and it would be hard to
say which of the two needed it most.
Espartero realised the need for prompt action. With splendid disregard
for danger he returned to his work, and once again the muleta flashed
all round the bull's head, bewildering, dazing and almost stupefying
him, while one of the banderillas that lay right across the animal's
shoulder was lifted into its proper place by a daring stroke of the
sword. For a moment the forelegs came together, and it seemed as though
Espartero hurled himself upon the bull, but a second later the sword was
high in the air, the matador's stroke had been foiled by one of El
Cuchillo's sudden movements, and one blood-stained horn ripped
Espartero's red waistcoat as he jumped aside avoiding death by a
hand's-breadth. The capadores rushed in to cover their chief's defeat,
and El Cuchillo, disdaining the plum-coloured cloaks, made for one man.
The moment of mad chase to the barrier was one of horrible uncertainty,
the capador vaulted and fell, badly bruised, on the other side, and then
El Cuchillo trotted back to the centre of the arena, distressed and
bleeding, but unbeaten. The trumpet called again.
Espartero examined the sword that had been picked up and brought to him,
only to fling it aside. Armed with a fresh one, he paused to replace and
reassure his wondering cuadrilla, and moved forward again. His face was
perfectly colourless, his hand was shaking, the fatigue of the work done
during the long afternoon was making itself felt, for he had killed two
difficult bulls already, and El Cuchillo had been more than twenty
minutes in the arena.
"Give me your horns or take my sword this time," he cried, as he
approached his enemy, and, as though in reply, El Cuchillo bellowed his
defiance to Spain and its champion matador.
Now, in those last moments, the silence was almost as oppressive as the
heat.
Something of the fury of despair seemed to seize upon man and beast,
some shadow of their overwhelming anxiety lay heavily upon the audience.
The muleta had seemingly lost its power to charm, and the matador seemed
resolved to set his life upon the point of his own sword. With a superb
gesture, he lowered the scarlet rag and invited El Cuchillo to charge.
Hundreds of men and women, used though they were to all the carnage of
the arena, turned their eyes away, until a deafening roar roused them to
see Espartero hurled on one side and El Cuchillo in pursuit of the
plum-coloured cloaks, with the sword quivering in his shoulder.
As the shout rolled through the arena, and Espartero walked slowly to
the barrier, the setting sun made a final effort and flooded half the
arena with yellow crocus-coloured light. The pigeons from the Giralda
Tower swept right across the plaza, and from the sunny side rose a
sudden shout of "Pardon! pardon."
It was caught up all over the arena as El Cuchillo, with a mighty
effort, shook the sword out of his shoulder and, with splendid valour,
returned to the centre of the arena, unbeaten still, and ready for the
next attack.
The clamour increased and became deafening until Espartero was seen
walking empty-handed to the corner below the President's box. Then it
died away to absolute silence.
In clear tones that could be heard all over one side of the arena the
great matador asked the President to grant pardon to El Cuchillo for his
splendid fight, which had given more honour to the famous plaza de toros
than would come to it by his death. And the President, listening gravely
to his appeal, raised his hat and replied, "We pardon El Cuchillo on
account of his bravery".
Amid a scene of extraordinary enthusiasm the trumpets sounded again, and
the tame bullocks came into the arena by way of the toril. They grouped
themselves round El Cuchillo, while people cheered and flung hats and
cigars and flowers to Espartero, and the band played Spain's National
Anthem. So the long-horned hero of "the herd of death" passed to the
toril, where the barbs were removed, his wounds were dressed and his
raging thirst was satisfied. And the crowd that had gathered along the
river-side road to see him pass to his death gathered on the morrow to
do him honour on his way back to the pleasant pastures of Utrera, where
old age comes to him to-day, slowly and in peaceful guise.
THE CUCKOO
The month was May, the place was the Heron Wood, which was ablaze with
wild hyacinths and pansies, and full of singing-birds. If you have ever
been through the wood you must know the little open space in the middle
with the pond to which a stray wild duck comes now and again in cold
weather. From one corner of the pond you can see right down the slope to
the wood's end, along a path now overgrown with ferns and weeds, but, in
the old preserving days, a ride cut to enable the squire to shoot his
pheasants. There a Vixen had her earth. She could see over the approach
to the wood and yet remain unseen, so she was well content.
[Illustration: YOUNG CUCKOO [Photo by C. Reid]]
A bird that seemed at first sight to be a sparrow-hawk came into the
wood above the ride, hard-pressed by a flock of sparrows and finches
that were pursuing it with loud, angry cries. Once among the trees, the
hunted one was lost to its pursuers, who gave up the chase and returned
twittering to the open. The Vixen sat quite still. Suddenly she heard
the flutter of leaves, as strong wings passed between them, and in
another minute the bird that might have been taken for a sparrow-hawk
lighted on the branch of the black-thorn above her, lowered his head,
drooped his wings, spread his tail out to the fullest extent and called,
"Cuc-koo," he cried, "Cuc-koo, cuc-cuk-koo".
"Well, I am surprised," said the Vixen, "I thought you were a hawk."
"So did the hedge-sparrows and the green-finches, and the
yellow-hammer," laughed the Cuckoo. "It was very amusing, particularly
as they could not get near me. But I would not like them to catch me in
the open."
"Then why do you try to appear like a hawk when you're a cuckoo," said
the Vixen. "Trouble enough comes to all of us without asking for it. At
least I think so."
"I'm not so foolish as you think," explained the bird, whose plumage,
now it could be seen closely, was very drab and undistinguished, just a
dirty grey with brown markings, and nothing of the gloss that belongs to
the feathers of the hawk tribe. "You see, I'm quite a defenceless bird.
My bill is not made to deal with anything harder than insects. I'm not
built for fighting. Now I'm a fair size, and every hawk can see me when
I fly abroad. If they knew me for a cuckoo, I'd not do much good for
myself, the first that saw me would have a free meal. So I imitate their
flight and all their actions, and they take me for one of themselves. In
this way I am safe to go from place to place; but there is the drawback
that all the little hawk-haters of the woods and hedges are deceived
too, and they mob me as you have seen. However, we can't expect to have
unmixed good luck, and deception involves trouble. Upon my word, I'm
almost as wise as the brown owl himself."
"How do you manage the imitation so well?" asked the Vixen. "I'm not
readily deceived, but I thought you were a hawk."
"Just practice," he replied. "When I'm feeding I can twist and turn up
and down any way you like, and when I'm trying to hide I can slip in and
out among branches in a way your eye could not follow. But when I go
into the open where there may be hawks about, I take a straight flight,
keep my tail spread out, utter no sound at all and go across the fields
as though I were on the look-out for little birds."
"And what are you doing in this part?" asked the Vixen suspiciously. She
was not pleased to see strangers in the wood.
"I've been about since early April," replied the Cuckoo. "I've taken up
my summer quarters here, and I don't mind telling you that there is no
room for any other male cuckoo in this wood. I had to make an exception
to my general rule of peaceful living and fight one of my own tribe for
possession of this pitch. I won, and he has gone across the river."
"What about your mate?" she asked him, and the Cuckoo smiled again,
rather wickedly.
"I don't mind allowing any really charming lady cuckoo to call for a few
days, but she can't stay," he replied. "My instincts are those of a
bachelor."
The Vixen thought it best to change the subject.
"What part have you come from?" she said.
"My winter home is in the centre of Africa," he replied. "A place south
of the equator full of tropical forests, where there are lions and
hippopotami and a few black people in towns and villages where a white
man has never been seen.
"We leave there in March and come north. On our way through Morocco or
Algeria some of us stop, unwilling to cross the sea. You can hear us in
the forests of Ma'mora and Argan, and in the woods of the country of the
Beni M'gild. But the most of us persevere and leave Africa and come into
Spain. There the great spotted cuckoo, who is my cousin, stays and
spends his summer. He is four inches longer than I am; he has a crest on
his head, and white under-parts. He does not thrive as he might, for his
wives will put their eggs in magpies' nests, and those birds are not
good foster-parents. My cousins say that the country north of Spain is
too cold for them; but we say they are too idle or too cowardly to take
the longer journey. We take it, however, making the sea passage as short
as possible, and travelling in separate parties."
"What do you mean by that?" asked the Vixen curiously, and keeping her
eyes upon him as though she feared a surprise.
"You see we male birds come first, and the other folk follow," he
explained. "They come about a week later than we do. We all land in the
South and go quite at our leisure to the northern counties and to
Scotland. One part of these islands is like any other to us so long as
there are plenty of insect-eating birds in the neighbourhood. This year
I arrived about the 6th of April."
"Nobody heard your voice before the 14th," remarked the Vixen, for she
knew every sound from copse and woodland.
"We wait for our females before we sing," said the Cuckoo, "and when our
notes are heard for the first time there is quite a flutter of
excitement in birdland. Dozens of birds come round to ask us what we are
and where we come from; they are in their first year, and have forgotten
our notes. Some of the elders want to hear the news from Africa.
Unfortunately, the novelty soon wears off. Our women-folk can't call as
we do. They have nothing better than a husky note with something like a
common chuckle in it. They try to say 'cuc,' and it sounds like 'kwook'.
And now I've said quite enough for one day, and I'm going to find some
dinner."
He must have lighted not very far away, for he called merrily and
persistently during the next few minutes, and the notes thrilled through
the wood, giving to every living thing the assurance that summer had
returned at last. The Vixen waited awhile, and heard a mild, meek
"kwook-oo-oo," that seemed to be the confidential reply of some fair
lady of the family, then she went back to her earth. Perhaps the Cuckoo
had seen or heard his partner and had gone to a more remote corner to
call to her.
Through the long nights of May and June the Cuckoo seemed to be nearly
always awake. He was quite the last of the woodland birds to go to sleep
and the first to wake up. The Vixen would hear his call break the
silence of the Heron Wood before three o'clock in the morning, when she
was waiting for her lord's return. It was not always the familiar
cuc-koo accented on the first syllable, but sometimes cuc-cuc-koo, and
sometimes, though not often, cuc-koo-koo. He was comparatively shy; most
of the cuckoos that passed over the meadow, calling as they flew, were
hen birds, and it was seldom that he answered their call. One morning in
early June, when the Vixen was playing with her cubs in the shaded
corner by the water, he slipped through the leaves, lighted on a branch
above her head, spread his tail and called loudly, jerking his body with
each note as though the effort was a considerable one, and he did not
want any of the significance of the cry to be lost.
"Why don't you keep your singing for the daytime," said one of the fox
cubs, the biggest in the litter, "instead of waking me up before
sunrise?"
"Well," he replied, "you must not grumble at that. Other birds sleep
soundly because they have been busy all day building their nests or
helping to hatch the eggs or feed the little ones. Naturally enough,
then, the evening finds them tired out, and they sleep until the sun
wakes them. But cuckoos are the wisest birds in all the world. They want
to enjoy the spring and summer without the hard labour that others
practise. So I have no nest to build, no wife to keep, no young to tend,
and I know the Heron Wood in all its beauty as no other bird can hope
to. A very few hours give me all the sleep I require, and when I wake
and see the summer decorating the beautiful wood, I must tell how
grateful I am. It is by my help that the wood returns thanks for the
gift of summer at all hours of the day and night, for when the late
woodlark ceases his song I resume mine."
"That explanation may satisfy you," the Vixen interrupted, "but I am not
sure that it convinces me. For you seem to shirk your duties, and you
can have no share in the joy of the birds that work; you are not a
father."
"You don't know much about it," cried the Cuckoo merrily. "Follow me
now, if you please."
So the Vixen, leaving her cubs to gambol about the little patch of
green-sward, followed, and he went lightly through the wood until he
came to a bush where two accentors, known to the village lads as
hedge-sparrows, had a nest.
"Show yourself," he whispered, and when she did so the sitting bird flew
away hurriedly, leaving six pale-blue eggs exposed to view.
"Look carefully," said the cuckoo with a chuckle, and the Vixen saw that
one egg was rather larger than the rest, and had some tiny black specks
that might have been overlooked at first sight.
"Come away," whispered the Cuckoo. "I don't like to be seen about here.
But I'll tell you in confidence that I'm the father of the big blue
egg."
They moved off quietly to the more secluded corner of the wood where the
cubs had found some rabbits to play with.
"If boys saw the nest they might not recognise that as a cuckoo's egg at
all. Some eggs have red or brown blotches on a grey-white ground; they
were not like this one, and you would not see them in a hedge-sparrow's
nest. They would be in a blackbird's home by the side of the ten-acre
meadow, or a warbler's on the marsh, or in a wagtail's nest."
"I was born in this wood in a hedge-sparrow's nest three years ago,"
said the Cuckoo, on another morning when he sat on a bough above the
Vixen's earth, "and when I am a father the egg is always blue. The
mother of the egg you have just seen visited me for a few days at the
end of May and laid this egg for me on the ground. You see I had no nest
to offer her. So soon as we saw that the colour was blue, as I expected
it to be, we scoured the wood for a nest that had eggs similar to it. We
soon found the hedge-sparrow's. Then we waited patiently for both birds
to go for an airing, and my mate took the egg up in her mouth and flew
with it to the nest. There she left it, and on the following day I said
good-bye to her and she went away."
"Will she lay any more eggs this year?" the Vixen asked him.
"It is quite possible," replied the Cuckoo, "at intervals of a week or
ten days, but they will be no concern of mine, in fact, they may not
even be blue. But they will all find a place in the nests of birds that
have our tastes in food. In parts where there are no insect-eating birds
you would have to search a long time to find a cuckoo."
"Do the hedge-sparrows, and warblers, and pipits and the rest of them
realise the trick you have played upon them?" she asked him. "My mother
once chose a badger's earth for her home and I was the only one that got
out alive."
"Never," he replied lightly. "They only think one of their eggs is a
little unlike the rest, that's all. You know our eggs are quite small
for our size. And when they are all hatched the parents must work harder
than they expected to, for a young cuckoo can eat as much as the rest of
the family put together."