BALTHAZAR
Yes.
Subjects may stumble, when kings walk astray.
Thine Acts shall be a new Apocrypha.
Exeunt.
ACT FOUR SCENE ONE
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.
MEDINA
What hath raised up this devil?
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?
ALL
A brave black villain.
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nobler character prints out my brow, which you may thus read, I was banished Spain for emptying a court- hogshead, but repealed so I would, ere my reeking iron was cold, promise to give it a deep crimson dye in - none hear, - stay - no, none hear.
MEDINA
Whom then?