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THE MADNESS OF JOHN HARNED
ran around the ring in search of a way to get out. The capadors stepped forth and flared their capes, but he refused to charge upon them.
"It is a stupid bull," said Maria Valenzuela.
"I beg pardon," said John Harned; "but it would seem to me a wise bull. He knows he must not fight man. See! He smells death there in the ring."
True. The bull, pausing where the last one had died, was smelling the wet sand and snorting. Again he ran around the ring, with raised head, looking at the faces of the thousands that hissed him, that threw orange-peel at him and called him names. But the smell of blood decided him, and he charged a capador, so without warning that the man just escaped. He dropped his cape and dodged into the shelter. The bull struck the wall of the ring with a crash. And John Harned said, in a quiet voice, as though he talked to himself:
"I will give one thousand sucres to the lazar-house of Quito if a bull kills a man this day."
"You like bulls?" said Maria Valenzuela with a smile.
"I like such men less," said John Harned. "A toreador is not a brave man. He surely cannot
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