Page:Christopher Wren--the wages of virtue.djvu/216

182 with their cold, pale eyes.… The rifle might be loaded.… Rivoli was well aware that every Legionary makes it his business to steal a cartridge sooner or later, and keeps it by him for emergencies, be they of suicide, murder, self-defence, or desertion.… The Englishman had been standing in the attitude of one who loads a rifle at the moment of his entrance. Perhaps his girl had told him of the discovery and assault, and he had been loading the rifle to avenge her.

"Listen to me, Luigi Rivoli," said John Bull, still holding the rifle within a foot of the Italian's breast. "Listen, and I'll tell you what you are. Then I will tell the Section what you are, when they come in.… Then I will tell the whole Company.… Then I will stand on a table in the Canteen and shout it, night after night.… This is what you are. You are a coward. A coward, d'you hear?—a miserable, shrinking, frightened coward, who dare not fight.…"

"Fight! Iddio! Fight! Put down that rifle and I'll tear you limb from limb. Come down into the square and I will break your back. Come down now—and fight for the girl."

"… A trembling, frightened coward who dare not fight, and who calls punching, and hugging and kicking 'fighting.' I challenge you to fight, Luigi Rivoli, with rifles—at one hundred yards and no cover; or with revolvers, at ten paces; or with swords of any sort or kind—if it's only sword-bayonets. Will you fight, or will you be known as Rivoli the Coward throughout both Battalions of the Legion?"

Rivoli half-crouched for a spring, and straightway the rifle sprang to the Englishman's shoulder, as his