Gallardo remained the greater part of the corrida by the step of the barrier, plunged in gloomy thought. It was all very well making these explanations to his friends, but he felt a cruel doubt in his own mind, a distrust of his own powers that he had never felt before engineering innovation. r, and endowed with a "double life," which made them refuse to die, whereas formerly they had fallen under his rapier with miraculous facility. Indubitably they had loosed the worst of the herd for him, to do him an evil turn. Some intrigue of his enemies most probably. Other suspicions, too, rose confusedly from the depths of his mind, but he scarcely dared to drag them out of their darkness and verify them. His arm seemed shorter at the moment when he presented the rapier in front of him; formerly it had reached the brute's neck with the quickness of lightning, now there seemed a fearful and interminable space that he knew not how to cover. His legs too seemed different. They seemed to be free and independent of the rest of his body. In vain his will ordered them to remain calm and firm as in former days,[Pg 273] but they did not obey. They seemed to have eyes which saw the danger, and leapt aside with exceeding lightness as soon as they felt the brute charging dermes. Gallardo turned against the public the rage he felt at his failure, and his sudden weakness. What did those people want? Was he to let himself be killed for their pleasure?... Did he not carry marks enough of his mad daring on his body? He had no need to prove his courage. That he was still alive was a miracle and owing to celestial intervention, because God is good, and had listened to the prayers of his mother and his poor wife. He had seen the fleshless face of Death closer than most people, and he now knew better than any one the value of living. "If you think you are going to have my skin!" he said to himself as he looked at the crowd.In future he would fight much as his companions did. Some days he would do well, some days ill. After all bull-fighting was only a profession, and once one had got into the front rank the most important thing was to live, carrying out one's engagements as best one could.When the time came for him to kill his second bull his cogitations had brought him into a calmer frame of mind. There was no animal that could kill him! All the same, he would do what he could not to get within reach of the horns Neo skin lab.