. Hold, hold, what, all policy dead? no prevention of
mischiefs stirring.

PROS. Why, by -- what shall I swear by? thou shalt have her,
by my soul.

LOR. JU. I pray thee have patience, I am satisfied: Prospero,
omit no offered occasion that may make my desires complete, I
beseech thee.

PROS. I warrant thee.

[EXEUNT.]

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

ENTER LORENZO SEN., PETO, MEETING MUSCO.

PETO. Was your man a soldier, sir?

LOR. SE. Ay, a knave, I took him up begging upon the way,
This morning as I was coming to the city.
Oh! here he is; come on, you make fair speed:
Why, where in God's name have you been so long?

MUS. Marry, (God's my comfort) where I thought I should
have had little comfort of your worship's service.

LOR. SE. How so?

MUS. O God, sir! your coming to the city, and your
entertainment of men, and your sending me to watch;
indeed, all the circumstances are as open to your son as
to yourself.

LOR. SE. How should that be? Unless that villain Musco
Have told him of the letter, and discovered
All that I strictly charged him to conceal? 'tis so.

MUS. I'faith, you have hit it: 'tis so indeed.

LOR. SE. But how should he know thee to be my man?

MUS. Nay, sir, I cannot tell; unless it were by the
black art? is not your son a scholar, sir?

LOR. SE. Yes; but I hope his soul is not allied
To such a devilish practice: if it were,
I had just cause to weep my part in him.
And curse the time of his creation.
But where didst thou find them, Portensio?

MUS. Nay, sir, rather you should ask where they found me?
for I'll be sworn I was going along in the street,
thinking nothing, when (of a sudden) one calls, "Signior
Lorenzo's man": another, he cries "soldier": and thus half
a dozen of them, till they had got me within doors, where
I no sooner came, but out flies their rapiers and all bent
against my breast, they swore some two or three hundred
oaths, and all to tell me I was but a dead man, if I did
not confess where you were, and how I was employed, and
about what; which, when they could not get out of me, (as
God's my judge, they should have kill'd me first,) they
lock'd me up into a room in the top of a house, where, by
great miracle, (having a light heart) I slid down by a
bottom of packthread into the street, and so scaped: b