Chapter 34

_Enter_ Vallentio _passing over the Stage, is met by a Rabble of Citizens_.

_1 Cit_. Well, Colonel, have you delivered our Grievances to the Queen?

_Val_. Yes, I have.

_1 Cit_. Well, and what Success? shall we have a King?

_Val_. And why a King? why should you be thus earnest for a King? what good will a King do you? he’s but a single Man, cannot redeem the lost Victory, cannot raise up your dead Members, no, nor levy new ones.

_1 Cit_. That’s all one, Colonel, we will have a King: for look ye, Colonel, we have thought of a King, and therefore we will have one. Hah, Neighbours! a substantial Reason.

_All_. Ay, ay, a King, a King.

_Val_. I like your Resolution, but not your Reason; and must have a better than that.

_1 Cit_. ‘Sha, Sir, we can give you many, though that’s sufficient; as look you, Sir, ‘tis first a new thing to have a King--a thing--a thing--we have not been acquainted with in our Age: besides, we have lost the Victory, and we are very angry with some body, and must vent it somewhere. You know, Colonel, we have busy Heads, working Brains, which must be executed; therefore, what say you, are we to have leave to shut up Shop, and go to work with long Staff and Bilbo, or are we to be very mutinous, and do’t in spite of you?

_Val_. You shall not need; go, shut up your Shops, gather your Fellow-mutineers together, and meet me at the Citadel; but be sure you’re well arm’d, lest the Queen’s Guards prevent you.

_1 Cit_. I warrant you for honest true Hearts enough at any mischief, though not to go against the _Scythians_; for, Colonel, we love Civil Wars, Colonel, Civil Wars.

_Val_. Make haste, and then I’ll shew you my Orders for the King’s Deliverance.

_Cit_. Oh, incomparable Colonel! we will raise thy Statue in Brass in the Market-place, and worship it when we have done--but harkye, Colonel, are we to give no Quarter?

_Val_. None to those that oppose you.

_All_. No, no, none, none.

_Cit_. Oh, how this will please ye all, my Mates--

[_Citizens goes out. Enter_ Pimante.

_Pim_. Oh, Colonel, the Princess, Colonel.

_Val_. Well, Sir.

_Pim_. She’s fled away, and none knows whither.

_Val_. I left her in her Tent just now.

_Pim_. Ay, ay, Colonel, that’s all one, she’s gone just as she shou’d have been married too--there’s the Devil on’t! Oh, the Days we shou’d have seen! the dancing, loving Days!

_Val_. Gone alone?

_Pim_. No, no, that dissembling thing _Semiris_ is with her; she only left a Letter for the Queen, which she has sent to the Prince of _Scythia_. Oh, adieu, adieu, to Love and Musick. [_Goes out crying_.

_Val_. This is strange--if she be gone, ‘tis time the King were free--I’ll haste to meet the Rabble, that it may not look like an act of my own. [_Exit_.