2nd Troop. Not so—­for this morning, when a surrender was demanded, they would have hanged our messenger.  That raging Beelzebub, Rupert, in expected hourly to the relief. [Distant firing.] There! there! he is come.

1st Troop. What say the generals?

2nd Troop. Our own Cromwell is very prompt; but the rest chafe much, and the Scots are sore backsliders.

3rd Troop. I would we might be led on and the trumpets sounded, that the walls of yon Jericho might fall about their ears, and deliver them into our hands alive.

Will. Worthy martialist! may I speak?

1st Troop. Ay so?

Will. Is the King there in person?

2nd Troop. Surely not; he is in that city of abomination, Oxford.

[Here CROMWELL enters, U.E.R., with his face covered.]

Will. Is it not true that ye did ask them that guard the city to yield it in the King’s name?

2nd Troop. I heard the message:  it was so worded.

Will. ’Tis an excellent contradiction, to fight for and against.  If ye should meet the King now in battle, would you fire on him with your pistols, or cleave him with your swords?

1st Troop. Nay!

Crom. [Discovering himself.] But I say, yea!

Will. [Without seeing CROMWELL.] What, in his own name, kill him for himself, for his own sake, as it were?  I would fain argue that with your general—­[sees CROMWELL.]—­another time.  Farewell, worthy sirs!

Crom. Stay, thou base knave!  I’ll have thee whipped without
The army of the saints.  Hearken ye all! 
Charles Stuart I would gladly smite to death: 
Not as a king, but as a man that fights
Against the honour, conscience of the king,
And the true rights of all his loving subjects. 
Is any here the muscles of whose arm
Grow slack to think he may meet such an one
In arms to-morrow?  Let him home to-day,
God and his country have no need of him.

Soldiers. A Cromwell!  Cromwell!  Lead on, we’ll slay the king.

Crom. I did but say If ye should meet him, ye would not turn back.

Soldiers. No!  No!

Crom. Nor slur the onset?

Soldiers. No!

Crom. Nor spare A courtier for his likeness to the King?

Soldiers. No!  No!

Crom. Why then ye are mine own, [observing the soldiers.]
My brave and trusty Ironsides!  See here
Are some right honest faces I have known
From childhood, and they’ll follow me to death,
If needed.—­Let the paltry Scot go hence,
And even Fairfax rein his charger back—­
We’ll on unto the breach.  The Lord Himself
Will ride in thunder with our mail-clad host: 
The proudest head that ever wore a crown
Shall not withstand us.—­Strike! and spare not!  Ho! 
Down with the curs’d of God!