Gom. Who? he meek?  I’m sure I quake at the very thought of him; why, he’s as fierce as Rhodomont; he made assault and battery upon my person, beat me into all the colours of the rainbow; and every word this abominable priest has uttered is as false as the Alcoran.  But if you want a thorough-paced liar, that will swear through thick and thin, commend me to a friar.

  Enter LORENZO, who comes behind the Company, and stands at his
  Fathers back unseen, over-against GOMEZ.

Lor. How now!  What’s here to do? my cause a trying, as I live, and that before my own father.—­Now fourscore take him for an old bawdy magistrate, that stands like the picture of madam Justice, with a pair of scales in his hand, to weigh lechery by ounces! [Aside.

Alph. Well—­but all this while, who is this colonel Hernando?

Gom. He’s the first begotten of Beelzebub, with a face as terrible as Demogorgon. [LORENZO peeps over ALPHONSO’S Head,
                                and stares at GOMEZ. 
No!  I lie, I lie.  He’s a very proper handsome fellow! well proportioned, and clean shaped, with a face like a cherubin.

Ped. What, backward and forward, Gomez! dost thou hunt counter?

Alph. Had this colonel any former design upon your wife? for, if that be proved, you shall have justice.

Gom. [Aside.] Now I dare speak,—­let him look as dreadfully as he will.—­I say, sir, and I will prove it, that he had a lewd design upon her body, and attempted to corrupt her honesty.
                         [LORENZO lifts up his fist clenched at him.
I confess my wife was as willing—­as himself; and, I believe, ’twas she corrupted him; for I have known him formerly a very civil and modest person.

Elv. You see, sir, he contradicts himself at every word; he’s plainly mad.

Alph. Speak boldly, man! and say what thou wilt stand by:  did he strike thee?

Gom. I will speak boldly; he struck me on the face before my own threshold, that the very walls cried shame to him.
                                            [LORENZO holds up again.
’Tis true, I gave him provocation, for the man’s as peaceable a gentleman as any is in all Spain.

Dom. Now the truth comes out, in spite of him.

Ped. I believe the friar has bewitched him.

Alph. For my part, I see no wrong that has been offered him.

Gom. How? no wrong? why, he ravished me, with the help of two soldiers, carried me away vi et armis, and would put me into a plot against government. [LORENZO holds up again. I confess, I never could endure the government, because it was tyrannical; but my sides and shoulders are black and blue, as I can strip and show the marks of them. [LORENZO again. But that might happen, too, by a fall that I got yesterday upon the pebbles. [All laugh.