Signior.

LOR. Vien qui presto!

Enter PEDRINGANO.

PED. Hath your lordship any seruice to command me?

LOR. I, Pedringano, seruice of import.
And, not to spend the time in trifling words,
Thus stands the case: it is not long, thou knowst,
Since I did shield thee from my fathers wrath
For thy conueniance in Andreas love,
For which thou wert adiudg'd to punishment;
I stood betwixt thee and thy punishment,
And since thou knowest how I haue favored thee.
Now to these fauours will I adde reward,
Not with faire woords, but store of golden coyne
And lands and liuing ioynd with dignities,
If thou but satisfie my iust demaund;
Tell truth and haue me for thy lasting freend.

PED. What-ere it be your lordship shall demaund,
My bounden duety bids me tell the truth,
If case it lye in me to tell the truth.

LOR. Then, Pedringano, this is my demaund;
Whome loues my sister Bel-imperia?
For she reposeth all her trust in thee.
Speak, man, and gaine both freendship and reward:
I meane, whome loues she in Andreas place?

PED. Alas, my lord, since Don Andreas death
I haue no credit with her as before,
And therefore know not if she loue or no.

LOR. Nay, if thou dally, then I am thy foe,
And feare shall force what frendship cannot winne.
Thy death shall bury what thy life conceales.
Thou dyest for more esteeming her than me!

[Draws his sword.]

PED. Oh stay, my lord!

LOR. Yet speak the truth, and I will guerdon thee
And shield thee from what-euer can ensue,
And will conceale what-euer proceeds from thee;
But, if thou dally once againe, thou diest!

PED. If madame Bel-imperia be in loue--

LOR. What, villaine! ifs and ands?

PED. Oh stay, my lord! she loues Horatio!

BALTHAZAR starts back.

LOR. What! Don Horatio, our knight-marshals sonne?

PED. Euen him, my lord.

LOR. Now say but how knoest thou he is her loue,
And thou shalt finde me kinde and liberall.
Stand vp, I say, and feareles tell the truth.

PED. She sent him letters,--which my-selfe perusde,--
Full-fraught with lines and arguments of loue,
Perferring him before Prince Balthazar.

LOR. Sweare on this crosse that what thou saiest is true,
And that thou wilt conseale what thou hast tolde.

PED. I s