Act the Fourth
Scene I On Board a Spanish Vessel
After an alarum, enter a Spanish Captain, with Sailors, bringing in an English Merchant, Spencer, and the Surgeon, prisoners.
Spanish Captain.
For Fayal’s loss and spoil, by the English done,
We are in part revenged. There’s not a vessel
That bears upon her top St. George’s cross,
But for that act shall suffer.
Merchant.
Insult not, Spaniard,
Nor be too proud, that thou by odds of ships,
Provision, men, and powder, madest us yield.
Had you come one to one, or made assault
With reasonable advantage, we by this
Had made the carcase of your ship your graves,
Low sunk to the sea’s bottom.
Spanish Captain.
Englishman, thy ship shall yield us pillage.
These prisoners we will keep in strongest hold,
To pay no other ransom than their lives.
Spencer.
Degenerate Spaniard, there’s no nobless in thee,
To threaten men unarmed and miserable.
Thou mightst as well tread o’er a field of slaughter,
And kill them o’er that are already slain,
And brag thy manhood.
Spanish Captain.
Sirrah, what are you?
Spencer.
Thy equal, as I am a prisoner;
But once, to stay a better man than thou,
A gentleman in my country.
Spanish Captain.
Wert thou not so, we have strappados, bolts,
And engines,45 to the mainmast fastenèd,
Can make you gentle.
Spencer.
Spaniard, do thy worst:
Thou canst not act more tortures than my courage
Is able to endure.
Spanish Captain.
These Englishmen,
Nothing can daunt them. Even in misery,
They’ll not regard their masters.
Spencer.
Masters! Insulting, bragging Thrasos!46
Spanish Captain.
His sauciness we’ll punish ’bove the rest;
About their censures47 we will next devise.
And now towards Spain, with our brave English prize.
[Flourish. Exeunt.