e kind, and execute us while we bear the shapes of men, ere
fire and water have destroyed our figures; let me go whole out of the
world, I care not, and find my body when I rise again, so as I need
not be ashamed of it.

_Har._ 'Tis well you are merry; will you yet confess?

_Beam._ Never.

_Har._ Bear them away to torture.

_Van. Her._ We will try your constancy.

_Beam._ We will shame your cruelty; if we deserve our tortures, 'tis
first for freeing such an infamous nation, that ought to have been
slaves, and then for trusting them as partners, who had cast off the
yoke of their lawful sovereign.

_Har._ Away, I'll hear no more.--Now who comes the next?
[_Exeunt the English with a Guard._

_Fisc._ Towerson's page, a ship-boy, and a woman.

_Har._ Call them in. [_Exit a Messenger._

_Van Her._ We shall have easy work with them.

_Fisc._ Not so easy as you imagine, they have endured the beverage
already; all masters of their pain, no one confessing.

_Har._ The devil's in these English! those brave boys would prove
stout topers if they lived.

_Enter Page, a Boy, and a Woman, led as from torture._

Come hither, ye perverse imps; they say you have endured the water
torment, we will try what fire will do with you: You, sirrah, confess;
were not you knowing of Towerson's plot, against this fort and island?

_Page._ I have told your hangman no, twelve times within this hour,
when I was at the last gasp; and that is a time, I think, when a man
should not dissemble.

_Har._ A man! mark you that now; you English boys have learnt a trick
of late, of growing men betimes; and doing men's work, too, before you
come to twenty.

_Van Her._ Sirrah, I will try if you are a salamander and can live in
the fire.

_Page._ Sure you think my father got me of some Dutchwoman, and that I
am but of a half-strain courage; but you shall find that I am all over
English as well in fire as water.

_Boy._ Well, of all religions, I do not like your Dutch.

_Fisc._ No? and why, young stripling?

_Boy._ Because your penance comes before confession.

_Har._ Do you mock us, sirrah? To the fire with him.

_Boy._ Do so; all you shall get by it is this; before I answered no;
now I'll be sullen and will talk no more.

_Har._ Best cutting off these little rogues betime; if they grow men,
they will have the spirit of revenge in them.

_Page._ Yes, as your children h