He paused, lighting a cigarette. I stood looking at him. The cold politeness of manner with which he had taken my taunt, his perfect self-mastery, filled me with wonder. He was no callow youth, that man, whoever he might be. He was boring at the floor with the end of a limber cane as he continued to address me. "Now, look here," he went on, with a little gesture of his left hand, between the fingers of which a cigarette was burning. "You are now in the temple of a patriotic society acting with no letters patent, but in the good cause of his Most Excellent Majesty King George III, to whom be health and happiness." As he spoke the name he raised his hat, and a cheer came from all sides of us. "It is gathered this night," he continued, "to avenge the death of Lord Ronley, a friend of his Majesty, and of many here present, and an honored member of this order. For his death you, and you alone, are responsible, and, we suspect, under circumstances of no credit to your sword. Many of our people have been cut off from their comrades and slain by cowardly stealth, have been led into ambush and cruelly cut to pieces by an overwhelming number, have been shut in prison and done to death by starvation or by stabs of a knife there in your country. Not content with the weapons of a soldier, you have even resorted to the barbarity of the poison-wasp. Pardon me, but you Yankees do not seem to have any mercy or fairness for a foe. We shall give you better treatment. You shall not be killed like a rat in a trap. You shall have a chance for your life. Had you halted, had you been a coward, you would not have been worthy to fight in this arena. You would not have come where you are standing, and possibly even now your grave would have been filled. If you survive the ordeal that is to come, I hope it will prove an example to you of the honor that is due to bravery, of the fairness due a foe."