Page:Christopher Wren--the wages of virtue.djvu/242

208 himself into wrestling attitude and extended his arms. John Bull moved only to extend his pistol-arm, and Luigi Rivoli recoiled. Strangling men who could not wrestle was one thing, being shot was quite another. The thrice-accursed English dog had got him nicely cornered. To raise a hand to him was to die—better to face his enemy, himself armed than unarmed. Better still to catch him unarmed and stamp the life out of him. He must temporise.

"Ho-ho, Brave Little Man with a Pistol," he sneered. "Behold the English hero who fears the bare hands of no man—while he has a revolver in his own."

"You miss the point, Rivoli," was the reply. "I want nothing to do with you bare-handed. I want you to choose any weapon you like to name," and turning to the deeply interested crowd he raised his voice a little:

"Gentlemen of the Legion," he said, "I challenge le Légionnaire Luigi Rivoli of the Seventh Company of the First Battalion of La Légion Etrangère to fight me with whatever weapon he prefers. We can use our rifles; he can have the choice of the revolvers belonging to me and my friend le Légionnaire Bouckaing Bronceau; we can use our sword-bayonets; we can get sabres from the Spahis; or it can be a rifle-and-bayonet fight. He can choose time, place, and weapon—and, if he will not fight, let him be known as Rivoli the Coward as long as he pollutes our glorious Regiment."

Ringing and repeated cheers greeted the longest public speech that Sir Montague Merline had ever made.