Med.  I ever knew thee valiant and to scorne
All acts of basenesse:  I have seene this man
Write in the field such stories with his sword
That our best chiefetaines swore there was in him
As ’twere a new Philosophy of fighting,
His deeds were so Puntillious.  In one battell,
When death so nearely mist my ribs, he strucke
Three horses stone-dead under me:  this man
Three times that day (even through the jawes of danger)
Redeem’d me up, and (I shall print it ever)
Stood o’re my body with Colossus thighes
Whilst all the Thunder-bolts which warre could throw
Fell on his head; and, Baltazar, thou canst not
Be now but honest still and valiant still
Not to kill boyes and women.

Bal.  My byter here eats no such meat.

Med.  Goe, fetch the mark’d-out Lambe for slaughter hither;
Good fellow souldier, ayd him—­and stay—­marke,
Give this false fire to the beleeving King,
That the child’s sent to heaven but that the mother
Stands rock’d so strong with friends ten thousand billowes
Cannot once shake her.

Bal.  This I’le doe.

Med.  Away;
Yet one word more; your Counsel, Noble friends;
Harke, Baltazar, because nor eyes nor tongues
Shall by loud Larums that the poore boy lives
Question thy false report, the child shall closely,
Mantled in darknesse, forthwith be conveyed
To the Monastery of Saint Paul.

Omnes.  Good.

Med.  Dispatch then; be quicke.

Bal.  As Lightning. [Exit.

Alb.  This fellow is some Angell drop’d from heaven To preserve Innocence.

Med.  He is a wheele
Of swift and turbulent motion; I have trusted him,
Yet will not hang on him to many plummets
Lest with a headlong Cyre (Gyre?) he ruines all. 
In these State-consternations, when a kingdome
Stands tottering at the Center, out of suspition
Safety growes often.  Let us suspect this fellow;
And that, albeit he shew us the Kings hand,
It may be but a tricke.

Daen.  Your Lordship hits
A poyson’d nayle i’th head:  this waxen fellow
(By the Kings hand so bribing him with gold)
Is set on skrews, perhaps is made his Creature
To turne round every way.

Med.  Out of that feare Will I beget truth; for my selfe in person Will sound the Kings brest.

Carl.  How! your selfe in person.

Alb.  That’s half the prize he gapes for.

Med.  I’le venture it,
And come off well, I warrant you, and rip up
His very entrailes, cut in two his heart
And search each corner in’t; yet shall not he
Know who it is cuts up th’Anatomy.

Daen.  ’Tis an exploit worth wonder.

Carl.  Put the worst; Say some Infernall voyce shoo’d rore from hell The Infant’s cloystering up.