him so confidently undertake to do. I, with a troop of Florentines, will suddenly surprise him; such I will have, whom I am sure he knows not from the enemy: we will bind and hoodwink him so, that he shall suppose no other but that he is carried into the leaguer of the adversaries, when we bring him to our own tents. Be but your lordship present at his examination: if he do not, for the promise of his life and in the highest compulsion of base fear, offer to betray you and deliver all the intelligence in his power against you, and that with the divine forfeit of his soul upon oath, never trust my judgment in any thing. O, for the love of laughter, let him fetch his drum; he says he has a stratagem for't: when your lordship sees the bottom of his success in't, and to what metal this counterfeit lump of ore will be melted, if you give him not John Drum's entertainment, your inclining cannot be removed. Here he comes. O, for the love of laughter, hinder not the honour of his design: let him fetch off his drum in any hand. How now, monsieur! this drum sticks sorely in your disposition. A pox on't, let it go; 'tis but a drum. 'But a drum'! is't 'but a drum'? A drum so lost! There was excellent command,--to charge in with our horse upon our own wings, and to rend our own soldiers! That was not to be blamed in the command of the service: it was a disaster of war that Caesar himself could not have prevented, if he had been there to command. Well, we cannot greatly condemn our success: some dishonour we had in the loss of that drum; but it is not to be recovered. It might have been recovered. It might; but it is not now. It is to be recovered: but that the merit of service is seldom attributed to the true and exact performer, I would have that drum or another, or 'hic jacet.' Why, if you have a stomach, to't, monsieur: if you think your mystery in stratagem can bring this instrument of honour again into his native quarter, be magnanimous in the enterprise and go on; I will grace the attempt for a worthy exploit: if you speed well in it, the duke shall both speak of it. and extend to you what further becomes his greatness, even to the utmost syllable of your worthiness. By the hand of a soldier, I will undertake it. But you must not now slumber in it. I'll about it this evening: and I will presently pen down my dilemmas, encourage myself in my certainty, put myself into my mortal