m. "Some one will lend you a sword if
you have the courage to hold it," he said, scornfully.

Once again Messer Guido intervened, eagerly, passionately. "For God's
sake, forbear," he entreated Dante, and thrusting himself against the
other. "Messer Simone," he said, "you cannot deny me if I take up this
quarrel."

My Dante laid an arresting hand upon Messer Guido's arm. "Gently, Messer
Guido," he said, "you are too good, and if I were a woman I could not
choose a nobler champion. But being no better than a man, I must even
champion myself to the best of my wit." He paused, and his eyes followed
the course of Simone's gaze and then came back to Simone. "You are a
soldier," he said; "it is your business to kill. You prize the life of
other men lightly; 'tis but a puff of your heavy breath and out goes his
candle. I am no such butcher, and though I am not unskilled in arms, we
should be ill-matched, you and I." And as he spoke he laughed softly, as
at some jest known only to himself.

Now Messer Guido, that was growing very angry, as I could see from the
way in which the color quitted his cheeks, thrust himself in front of
Dante, and he spoke to Simone boldly. "He says rightly," he cried. "A
stripling against your bulk. It were murder."

Simone always addressed Messer Guido with as much courtesy as he could
compass, for the sake of his great house and his great friends, and his
standing with the Reds, that was as high as his own with the Yellows.
"Then he should not steal roses," he answered, quietly enough. But
immediately thereafter, as if the mention of roses had stirred him to
fury, his wrath foamed over again, and, turning to Dante, he shouted,
"Give me the rose, you cowardly clerk, or I will pinch out your life
between finger and thumb!" He held out his huge hand as he spoke, and to
those who looked at it, or to me, at least, among the multitude, it
seemed easy enough for him to carry out his threat, for Messer Dante
looked so slight and spare in the front of such a ruffian.

But Messer Dante was in no ways discomposed, and he still kept smiling
while he shook his head, and he answered very quietly: "Idle giant, you
will do no such thing. For if you prize my life very little, you prize
your own life very well. Now, while I think nothing of your life, I also
think nothing of my own, and would rather end it here in this instant
than surrender this flower. Why, I would see a hundred fellows like you
dead and damned