King.  It staggers me.

Omnes.  Amazement! looke to the King.

    ANGEL SINGS.

    She comes, she comes, she comes! 
    No banquets are so sweete as Martyrdomes. 
          She comes!

(Angel descends.)

Anton.  ’Tis vanish’d, Sir, agen.

Dam.  Meere Negromancy.

Cosmo.  This is the apparition of some divell Stealing a glorious shape, and cryes ‘she comes’!

Clown.  If all divels were no worse, would I were amongst ’em.

King.  Our power is mockt by magicall impostures; They shall not mock our tortures.  Let Eugenius And Bellizarius fright away these shadowes Rung from sharp tortures:  drag them hither.

Epi.  To th’stake?

Clown.  As Beares are?

King.  And upon your lives My longings feast with her, though her base limbes Be in a thousand pieces.

Clown.  She shall be gathered up.

[Exit.  Epid. and Clowne.

(Victoria rises out of the cave, white.)

Vict.  What’s the Kings will?  I am here.  Are your tormentors ready to give battaile?  I am ready for them, and though I lose My life hope to winne the day.

King.  What art thou?

Vict.  An armed Christian.

King.  What’s thy name?

Vict. Victoria:  in my name there’s conquest writ:  I therefore feare no threat[e]nings! but pray That thou maist dye a good king.

Omnes.  This is not she, Sir.

King.  It is, but on her brow some Deity sits. 
What are those Fayries dressing up her haire,
Whilst sweeter spirits dancing in her eyes
Bewitcheth me to them?

    Enter Epidophorus, Bellizarius, Eugenius, and Clowne.

Oh Victoria, love me! 
And see, thy Husband, now a slave whose life
Hangs at a needles poynt, shall live, so thou
Breath but the doome.—­Trayters! what sorcerous hand
Has built upon this inchantment of a Christian
To make me doat upon the beauty of it? 
How comes she to this habite?  Went she thus in?

Epi.  No, Sir, mine owne hande stript her into rags.

Clown.  For any meat shee has eaten her face needes not make you doate; and for cleane linen Ile sweare it was not brought into the Iaile, for there they scorne to shift once a weeke.

King. Bellizarius, woe thy wife that she would love me, And thou shalt live.

Belliz.  I will.—­Victoria,
By all those chaste fires kindled in our bosomes
Through which pure love shin’d on our marriage night;
Nay, with a bolder conjuration,
By all those thornes and bryers which thy soft feet
Tread boldly on to finde a path to heaven,
I begge of thee, even on my knee I beg,
That thou wouldst love this King, take him by th’hand,
Warme his in thine, and hang about his necke,
And seale ten thousand kisses on his cheeke,
So he will tread his false gods under foote.