"I will," said Bill Breakstone firmly. "Moreover, I will act from a play by the greatest of all writers. Throw the wood together there and let the blaze spring up. I want you to see me." A dozen willing hands tossed together the logs which sent up a swift, high flame. The whole circle was lighted brightly, and Bill Breakstone stood up. Phil had never taken seriously his assertion that he had been an actor, but now he suddenly changed his opinion. He stood for a few moments in the full blaze of the light, a tall, slender figure, his face lean and shaven smoothly. His expression changed absolutely. He seemed wholly unconscious of the young soldiers about him, of the palms, or of the stone or adobe houses of the town. Then, in a tone of martial fervor he began to recite scraps from Shakespeare dealing with war and battle, Macbeth’s defiance to Macduff, Richard on the battlefield, and other of the old familiar passages. But they were new to most of those about him, and Breakstone himself, as he afterward said, was stirred that night by an uncommon fire and spirit. Something greater than he, perhaps the effect of time and place, seemed to have laid hold of him. The fire and spirit were communicated to his audience, which rapidly increased in numbers, although he did not see it, so deeply was he filled with his own words, carrying him far back into other lands among the scenes that he described. The applause rose again and again, and always he was urged to go on. As he recited for the sixth time, a thick-set, strong figure appeared at the edge of the throng, and men at once made way for it. The figure was that of a man with gray hair, and with a deep line down either cheek. Breakstone’s passing glance caught the face and divined in an instant his identity. The applause, the demand for more, rose again, and after a little hesitation the actor began: "’My people are with sickness much encumbered My numbers lessened, and these few I have, Almost no better than so many French; Who, when they were in health, I tell the herald, I thought upon one pair of English legs Did walk three Frenchmen, yet Forgive me, God, That I do brag thus. This poor air of France Hath blown that voice in me. I must repent, Go, therefore, tell thy master here I am; My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk, My army but a weak and sickly guard--’" He paused a moment, but the man with the gray hair and lined cheeks still stood in an attitude of deep attention, and, skipping some of the lines, he continued: "’If we may pass we will; if we be hindered We shall your tawny ground with your red blood Discolor; and so, Montjoy, fare you well, The sum of all our answer is but this: We would not seek a battle as we are; Nor as we are, we say we will not shun it, So tell your master.’"