Fisc. Let them laugh, that win at last.

  Enter Captain MIDDLETON, and a Woman with him, all pale and
  weakly, and in tattered garments.

Tow. Captain Middleton, you are arrived in a good hour, to be partaker of my happiness, which is as great this day, as love and expectation can make it. [Rising up to salute MIDDLETON.

Mid. And may it long continue so!

Tow. But how happens it, that, setting out with us from England, you came not sooner hither.

Mid. It seems the winds favoured you with a quicker passage; you know I lost you in a storm on the other side of the Cape, with which disabled, I was forced to put into St Helen’s isle; there ’twas my fortune to preserve the life of this our countrywoman; the rest let her relate.

Isab. Alas, she seems half-starved, unfit to make relations.

Van Her. How the devil came she off?  I know her but too well, and fear she knows me too.

Tow. Pray, countrywoman, speak.

Eng Wom. Then thus in brief; in my dear husband’s company, I parted from our sweet native isle:  we to Lantore were bound, with letters from the States of Holland, gained for reparation of great damages sustained by us; when, by the insulting Dutch, our countrymen, against all show of right, were dispossessed, and naked sent away from that rich island, and from Poleroon.

Har.  Sen. Woman, you speak with too much spleen; I must not hear my countrymen affronted.

Eng.  Wom.. I wish they did not merit much worse of me, than I can say of them.—­Well, we sailed forward with a merry gale, till near St Helen’s isle we were overtaken, or rather waylaid, by a Holland vessel; the captain of which ship, whom here I see, the man who quitted us of all we had in those rich parts before, now fearing to restore his ill-got goods, first hailed, and then invited us on board, keeping himself concealed; his base lieutenant plied all our English mariners with wine, and when in dead of night they lay secure in silent sleep, most barbarously commanded they should be thrown overboard.

Fisc. Sir, do not hear it out.

Har.  Sen. This is all false and scandalous.

Tow. Pray, sir, attend the story.

Eng.  Wom. The vessel rifled, and the rich hold rummaged, they sink it down to rights; but first I should have told you, (grief, alas, has spoiled my memory) that my dear husband, wakened at the noise, before they reached the cabin where we lay, took me all trembling with the sudden fright, and leapt into the boat; we cut the cordage, and so put out to sea, driving at mercy of the waves and wind; so scaped we in the dark.  To sum up all, we got to shore, and in the mountains hid us, until the barbarous Hollanders were gone.

Tow. Where is your husband, countrywoman?