Bal.  Yes; Subjects may stumble when Kings walk astray:  Thine Acts shall be a new Apocrypha.

[Exeunt.

Actus Quartus.

SCAENA PRIMA.

    Enter Medina, Alba and Daenia, met by Baltazar
    with a Ponyard and a Pistoll.

Bal.  You meet a Hydra; see, if one head failes; Another with a sulphurous beake stands yawning.

Med.  What hath rais’d up this Devill?

Bal.  A great mans vices, that can raise all hell. 
What woo’d you call that man, who under-saile
In a most goodly ship wherein he ventures
His life, fortunes and honours, yet in a fury
Should hew the Mast downe, cast Sayles over-boord,
Fire all the Tacklings, and to crowne this madnesse
Shoo’d blow up all the Deckes, burne th’oaken ribbes
And in that Combat ’twixt two Elements
Leape desperately and drowne himselfe i’th Seas,—­
What were so brave a fellow?

Omnes.  A brave blacke villaine.

Bal.  That’s I; all that brave blacke villaine dwels in me,
If I be that blacke villaine; but I am not: 
A Nobler Character prints out my brow,
Which you may thus read:  I was banish’d Spaine
For emptying a Court-Hogshead, but repeal’d
So I woo’d (e’re my reeking Iron was cold)
Promise to give it a deepe crimson dye
In—­none heare?—­stay—­no, none heare.

Med.  Whom then?

Bal.  Basely to stab a woman, your wrong’d Neece, And her most innocent sonne Sebastian.

Alb.  The Boare now foames with whetting.

Daen.  What has blunted Thy weapons point at these?

Bal.  My honesty,
A signe at which few dwell, pure honesty. 
I am a vassaile to Medina’s house;
He taught me first the A, B, C of warre[203]
E’re I was Truncheon-high I had the stile
Of beardlesse Captaine, writing then but boy: 
And shall I now turne slave to him that fed me
With Cannon-bullets, and taught me, Estridge[204]-like,
To digest Iron and Steele? no:  yet I yeelded
With willow-bendings to commanding breaths.

Med.  Of whom?

Bal.  Of King and Queene:  with supple Hams
And an ill-boading looke I vow’d to doo’t;
Yet, lest some choake-peare[205] of State-policy
Shoo’d stop my throat and spoyle my drinking-pipe,
See (like his cloake) I hung at the Kings elbow
Till I had got his hand to signe my life.

Daen.  Shall we see this and sleepe?

Alb.  No, whilst these wake.

Med.  ’Tis the Kings hand.

Bal.  Thinke you me a quoyner?

Med.  No, no, thou art thy selfe still, Noble Baltazar; I ever knew thee honest, and the marke Stands still upon thy forehead.

Bal.  Else flea the skin off.