selfe 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.

_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 La