Van. Her. Dispatch him; he will be a shrewd witness against us, if he returns to Europe.
Fisc. I have thought better, if you please,—to kill him by form of law, as accessary to the English plot, which I have long been forging.
Har. Send one to seize him strait. [Exit a Messenger.] But what you said, that Towerson was guiltless of my son's death, I easily believe, and never thought otherwise, though I dissembled.
Van Her. Nor I; but it was well done to feign that story.
1 Dutch. The true one was too foul.
2 Dutch. And afterwards to draw the English off from his concernment, to their own, I think 'twas rarely managed that.
Har. So far, 'twas well; now to proceed, for I would gladly know, whether the grounds are plausible enough of this pretended plot.
Fisc. With favour of this honourable court, give me but leave to smooth the way before you. Some two or three nights since, (it matters not,) a Japan soldier, under captain Perez, came to a centinel upon the guard, and in familiar talk did question him about this castle, of its strength, and how he thought it might be taken; this discourse the other told me early the next morning: I thereupon did issue private orders, to rack the Japanese, myself being present.
Har. But what's this to the English?
Fisc. You shall hear: I asked him, when his pains were strongest on him, if Towerson, or the English factory, had never hired him to betray the fort? he answered, (as it was true) they never had; nor was his meaning more in that discourse, than as a soldier to inform himself, and so to pass the time.