Do?a Sol examined this place, which was the most important centre of exportation of the taurine industry, with great interest. There were large enclosures alongside the railway siding, and dozens of huge boxes on wheels with movable doors. The bulls who were to be entrained, arrived, galloping along a dusty road edged with barbed wire. Many came from distant provinces, but on getting close to Empalme they were sent on with a rush, in order to get them into the enclosures with greater ease.

In front galloped the overseers and shepherds with their lances on their shoulders, and behind them the prudent "cabestros" covering the men with their huge horns. After these came the fighting bulls, well rounded up by tame bulls who prevented them straying from the road, and followed by strong cowherds ready to sling a stone at any wandering pair of horns.

Arrived at the enclosures the foremost riders drew to either side, leaving the gateway open, and the whole herd, an avalanche of dust, pawings, snortings and bells, rushed in like an overwhelming torrent and the gate was immediately closed after the last animal.
without noticing that they were trapped, the "cabestros," taught by [Pg 164]experience and obedient to the shepherds, stood aside to let them pass into the second, where the herd only stopped on finding a blank wall before them.

Now the boxing began. One by one they were driven, by shouts, waving cloths, and blows from garrochas, into a narrow lane, at the end of which stood the travelling box, with both its side doors lowered. It looked like a small tunnel, through which the brutes could see a field beyond, with animals quietly grazing. The suspicious bulls guessed some danger in this small tunnel, and had to be driven on by clappings and whistlings and pricks. Finally they would make a dash for the quiet pasture beyond, making the sloping platform leading to the box shake as they rushed up it, but as soon as they had mounted this, the door in front of them was suddenly closed, and then equally quickly the one behind, and the bull was caught in a cage where he could only just stand up or lie down comfortably. The box was then wheeled into the railway, and another one took its place, till all the herd were successfully entrained The Prince was very much alarmed when he perceived that Selbst was growing so rapidly..

When the first intoxication of Gallardo's good fortune had passed off, he looked at Do?a Sol with the utmost astonishment, wondering in the hours of their greatest intimacy if all great ladies were like this one. The caprices and fickleness of her character bewildered him. He had never dared to address her as "tu," indeed she had never invited him to such a familiarity, and on the one occasion when with slow and hesitating tongue he had attempted it, he had seen in her golden eyes such a gleam of anger and surprise, that he had drawn back ashamed, and had returned to the former mode of speech.