_Will._ Worthy martialist! may I speak? _1st Troop._ Ay so? _Will._ Is the King there in person? _2nd Troop._ Surely not; he is in that city of abomination, Oxford. [_Here CROMWELL enters, U.E.R., with his face covered._] _Will._ Is it not true that ye did ask them that guard the city to yield it in the King's name? _2nd Troop._ I heard the message: it was so worded. _Will._ 'Tis an excellent contradiction, to fight for and against. If ye should meet the King now in battle, would you fire on him with your pistols, or cleave him with your swords? _1st Troop._ Nay! _Crom._ [_Discovering himself._] But I say, yea! _Will._ [Without seeing CROMWELL.] What, in his own name, kill him for himself, for his own sake, as it were? I would fain argue that with your general--[_sees CROMWELL._]--another time. Farewell, worthy sirs! _Crom._ Stay, thou base knave! I'll have thee whipped without The army of the saints. Hearken ye all! Charles Stuart I would gladly smite to death: Not as a king, but as a man that fights Against the honour, conscience of the king, And the true rights of all his loving subjects. Is any here the muscles of whose arm Grow slack to think he may meet such an one In arms to-morrow? Let him home to-day, God and his country have no need of him. _Soldiers._ A Cromwell! Cromwell! Lead on, we'll slay the king. _Crom._ I did but say If ye should meet him, ye would not turn back. _Soldiers._ No! No! _Crom._ Nor slur the onset? _Soldiers._ No! _Crom._ Nor spare A courtier for his likeness to the King? _Soldiers._ No! No! _Crom._ Why then ye are mine own, [_observing the soldiers._] My brave and trusty Ironsides! See here Are some right honest faces I have known From childhood, and they'll follow me to death, If needed.--Let the paltry Scot go hence, And even Fairfax rein his charger back-- We'll on unto the breach. The Lord Himself Will ride in thunder with our mail-clad host: The proudest head that ever wore a crown Shall not withstand us.--Strike! and spare not! Ho! Down with the curs'd of God! _Soldiers._ A Cromwell! Cromwell! Let us come on! _Crom._ The sun that stood in Heaven, Until his beams grew red with two days' blood Of slaughtered Canaan, shall see them flee like chaff before us-- _Soldiers._ Joshua! cry aloud, A Joshua!-- _Crom._ These gay Philistine lords That fight for Dagon, will ye fly them, or Hurl them and Dagon down?-- _Soldiers._ A Samson! Samson! [_Distant cannon heard. Cheering from the Soldiers._] _Will._ [_Aside._] Here's gory enthusiasm! Now whilst every man is ready to preach individually on his own account, and the whole collectively are about to sing a psalm, I will endeavour to steal away unperceived, lest any of them, imagining himself somewhere between Deuteronomy and Kings, should take it upon himself to proclaim that I come from Gibeon, and so--