Free Trust the Saint by Leslie Charteris Page B

came down running.
    And all that had happened while the rhinoceros hesitated imperceptibly over renewing its assault on an object that had become limp and prostrate.
    Then it caught sight of the Saint racing towards it, yelling insanely, and found a more interesting target for its fury. With a slobbery whroosh! it veered to meet him.
    Simon tried the trick that he had seen banderilleros use when planting their darts in a bull during their phase of the fight. He swerved a little to his right, Usebio and the fallen cape being to his left; and then at the last moment that he dared he dug in his heels and broke back diagonally to the left, at the same time hurling the spear towards the oncoming rhino’s left jowl. The point could have made no more than a pinprick in the pachyderm’s vulcanized hide, but it added its distraction to the surprise of the Saint’s change of course, and the behemoth thundered by him with a momentum that even its own colossal power needed time to check.
    In that dreadfully evanescent respite the Saint reached the cape, snatched it up, and spread it as he had been taught to do by friendly toreros at the testing of calves. In the one sideways glance that he could spare, he saw Usebio rolling over and struggling to rise up on his hands and knees.
    “A la barrera!” Simon shouted, and went on in Spanish, which would most clearly penetrate Usebio’s daze: “I will keep him off. But hurry!”
    Then the rhino was bearing down on him like an express train. He would not have apologized for the cliche. It seemed to shake the earth like the biggest locomotive that ever ran on rails. But somehow he led it past him with the cape, not stylishly, but as best he recalled the movement.
    It lurched and grunted and skidded around and came again. And again he made it follow the cloth instead of his body.
    If Iantha Lamb had screamed again he would have laughed without a flicker of his eyes.
    But he did get a glimpse of Usebio crawling painfully but with increasing strength towards the fence, and knew that he hadn’t misinterpreted the collision which had felled the matador. Usebio had only been winded by a glancing blow, perhaps with a couple of cracked ribs, but nothing worse. If he could only get out of the corral.
    Three, four, five, six more times the Saint gave his best simulated veronicas to a rampaging homicidal quadruped which whirled and came back for more with a terrifying swiftness and relentless persistence that even the bravest Andalusian bull never matched. But neither would his technique and configurations have brought oles from the captious critics in the Plaza de toros at Seville. This was a reproach that Simon had no leisure to fret about. He was busy enough keeping the most mean-tempered Diceros africanus that ever had the privilege of an introduction to European culture from eviscerating him with one of its anachronistic horns.
    Somehow he was able to keep the performance going until Usebio had rolled under the low bar of the stockade, safely to one side of the segment towards which Simon was baiting the rhino, until he knew everything was all right and he shamelessly dropped the cape over its head and sprawled over the top banister just as his paleolithic playmate crashed into the posts like a berserk baby tank.
    There were many more people outside than he had left there—men in uniforms and parts of uniforms and other clothes. He had been distantly aware of their arrival during his last passes but had been far too occupied to take much note of it.
    “What d’you think you’re doing?” demanded the ranking one unnecessarily.
    “Settling a silly bet,” Simon replied placatingly. “I know it was naughty of us, but there’s no harm done.”
    The keeper turned his flashlight from Usebio, who was now standing up brushing off his clothes, to Vail, who was dabbing his mouth with a red-stained handkerchief.
    “Oh, no? What about him?”
    “He slipped trying to get over the fence first, when