BALTHAZAR Then trust me. These knuckles work it.
BALTHAZAR Yes. Subjects may stumble, when kings walk astray. Thine Acts shall be a new Apocrypha.
Enter Medina, Alba, [Carlo], and Daenia, met by Balthazar with a poniard and a pistol.
BALTHAZAR You met a Hydra. See, if one head fails Another with a sulphurous beak stands yawning.
BALTHAZAR A great man's vices, that can raise all hell. What would you call that man, who under-sail in a most goodly ship, wherein he ventures his life, fortunes, and honours, yet in a fury should hew the mast down, cast sails overboard, fire all the tacklings, and to crown this madness, should blow up all the decks, burn th'oaken ribs, and in that combat 'twix two elements leap desperately, and drown himself in the seas? What were so brave a fellow?
BALTHAZAR That's I. All that brave black villain dwells in me, if I be that black villain. But I am not! A nobler character prints out my brow, which you may thus read, I was banished Spain for emptying a court- hogshead, but repealed so I would, ere my reeking iron was cold, promise to give it a deep crimson dye in - none hear, - stay - no, none hear.
BALTHAZAR Basely to stab a woman, your wronged niece and her most innocent son, Sebastian.
DAENIA What has blunted Thy weapons point at these?
BALTHAZAR My honesty. A sign at which few dwell, pure honesty! I am a vassal to Medina's house, He taught me first the A-B-C of war. E'er I was truncheon high, I had the stile on beardless Captain, writing then but boy, and shall I now turn slave to him that fed me with Cannon- bullets and taught me, ostrich-like to digest iron and steel! No! Yet I yielded with willow-bendings to commanding breaths.
BALTHAZAR Of King and Queen. With supple hams and an ill-boding look, I vowed to do it. Yet, lest some choke-pear <32> of state policy should stop my throat, and spoil my drinking pipe, see, like his cloak, I hung at the King's elbow, till I had got his hand to sign my life.
[Balthazar passes over the document signed by the King.]
MEDINA No, no, Thou art thy self still, noble Balthazar. I ever knew thee honest, and the mark Stands still upon thy forehead.
MEDINA I ever knew thee valiant, and to scorn All acts of baseness. I have seen this man Write in the field such stories with his sword, That our best chieftains swore there was in him As 'twere a new philosophy of fighting, His deeds were so punctilious. In one battle When death so nearly missed my ribs, he struck Three horses stone-dead under me. This man, Three times that day, even through the jaws of danger, Redeemed me up and, I shall print it ever, Stood over my body with Colossus thighs Whilst all the thunder-bolts which war could throw, Fell on his head. And Balthazar, thou canst not Be now but honest still, and valiant still, Not to kill boys and women.