Plays of William E. Henley and R.L. Stevenson Part 44

GAUNT. And you, Arethusa: I was to bring her little maid.

ARETHUSA. G.o.d bless her, yes, and me! But, father, can you not see that she was blessed among women?

GAUNT. Child, child, you speak in ignorance; you touch upon griefs you cannot fathom.

ARETHUSA. No, dearest, no. She loved you, loved you and died of it.

Why else do women live? What would I ask but just to love my Kit and die for him, and look down from heaven, and see him keep my memory holy and live the n.o.bler for my sake?

GAUNT. Ay, do you so love him?

ARETHUSA. Even as my mother loved my father.

GAUNT. Ay? Then we will see. What right have I-You are your mother's child: better, tenderer, wiser than I. Let us seek guidance in prayer.

Good-night, my little maid.

ARETHUSA. O father, I know you at last.

SCENE II

GAUNT _and_ ARETHUSA _go out_, _L._, _carrying the candles_. _Stage dark_. _A distant clock chimes the quarters_, _and strikes one_.

_Then_, _the tap-tapping of Pew's stick is hear without_; _the key is put into the lock_; _and enter_ PEW, _C._, _he pockets key_, _and is followed by_ KIT, _with dark lantern_

PEW. Quiet, you lubber! Can't you foot it soft, you that has daylights and a glim?

KIT. All right, old boy. How the devil did we get through the door?

Shall I knock him up?

PEW. Stow your gab (_seizing his wrist_). Under your breath!

KIT. Avast that! You're a savage dog, aren't you?

PEW. Turn on that glim.

KIT. It's as right as a trivet, Pew. What next? By George, Pew, I'll make your fortune.

PEW. Here, now, look round this room, and sharp. D'ye see a old sea-chest?

KIT. See it, Pew? why, d'ye think I'm blind?

PEW. Take me across, and let me feel of her. Mum; catch my hand. Ah, that's her (_feeling the chest_), that's the Golden Mary. Now, see here, my bo, if you've the pluck of a weevil in a biscuit, this girl is yours; if you hain't, and think to sheer off, I'm blind, but I'm deadly.

KIT. You'll keep a civil tongue in your head all the same. I'll take threats from n.o.body, blind or not. Let's knock up the Admiral and be done with it. What I want is to get rid of this dark lantern. It makes me feel like a housebreaker, by George.

PEW (_seated on chest_). You follow this. I'm sick of drinking bilge, when I might be rolling in my coach, and I'm dog-sick of Jack Gaunt.

Who's he to be wallowing in gold, when a better man is groping crusts in the gutter and spunging for rum? Now, here in this blasted chest is the gold to make men of us for life: gold, ay, gobs of it; and writin's too-things that if I had the proof of 'em I'd hold Jack Gaunt to the grindstone till his face was flat. I'd have done it single-handed; but I'm blind, worse luck: I'm all in the d.a.m.ned dark here, poking with a stick-Lord, burn up with lime the eyes that saw it! That's why I raked up you. Come, out with your iron, and prise the lid off. You shall touch your snack, and have the wench for nothing; ay, and fling her in the street, when done.

KIT. So you brought me here to steal did you?

PEW. Ay did I; and you shall. I'm a biter: I bring blood.

KIT. Now, Pew, you came here on my promise, or I'd kill you like a rat.

As it is, out of that door! One, two, three (_drawing his cutla.s.s_), and off!

PEW (_leaping at his throat_, _and with a great voice_). Help! murder!

thieves!

SCENE III

_To these_, ARETHUSA, GAUNT, _with lights_. _Stage light_. PEW _has_ KIT _down_, _and is throttling him_

PEW. I've got him, Cap'n. What, kill my old commander, and rob him of his blessed child? Not with old Pew!

GAUNT. Get up, David: can't you see you're killing him? Unhand, I say.

ARETHUSA. In heaven's name, who is it?

PEW. It's a d.a.m.ned villain, my pretty; and his name, to the best of my belief, is French.

ARETHUSA. Kit? Kit French? Never!

KIT (_rising_). He's done for me. (_Falls on chest_.)

[PEW. Don't you take on about him, ducky; he ain't worth it. Cap'n Gaunt, I took him and I give him up. You was 'ard on me this morning, Cap'n: this is my way-Pew's way, this is-of paying of you out.

ARETHUSA. Father, this is the blind man that came while you were abroad.

Sure you'll not listen to _him_. And you, Kit, you, what is this?

KIT. Captain Gaunt, that blind devil has half-throttled me. He brought me here-I can't speak-he has almost killed me-and I'd been drinking too.

GAUNT. And you, David Pew, what do you say?]

PEW. Cap'n, the rights of it is this. Me and that young man there was partaking in a friendly drop of rum at the _Admiral Benbow_ inn; and I'd just proposed his blessed Majesty, when the young man he ups and says to me: 'Pew,' he says, 'I like you, Pew: you're a true seaman,' he says; 'and I'm one as sticks at nothing; and damme, Pew,' he says, 'I'll make your fortune.' [Can he deny as them was his words? Look at him, you as has eyes: no, he cannot. 'Come along of me,' he says, 'and damme, I'll make your fortune.'] Well, Cap'n, he lights a dark lantern (which you'll find it somewhere on the floor, I reckon), and out we goes, me follerin'

his lead, as I thought was 'art-of-oak and a true-blue mariner; and the next I knows is, here we was in here, and him a-askin' me to 'old the glim, while he prised the lid off of your old sea-chest with his cutla.s.s.

GAUNT. The chest? (_He leaps_, _R._, _and examines chest_.) Ah!

PEW. Leastways, I was to 'elp him, by his account of it, while he nailed the rhino, and then took and carried off that lovely maid of yours; for a lovely maid she is, and one as touched old Pew's 'art Cap'n, when I 'eard that, my blood biled. 'Young man,' I says, 'you don't know David Pew,' I says; and with that I ups and does my dooty by him, cutla.s.s and all, like a lion-'arted seaman, though blind. [And then in comes you, and I gives him up: as you know for a fack is true, and I'll subscribe at the a.s.sizes. And that, if you was to cut me into junks, is the truth, the 'ole truth, and nothing but the truth, world without end, so help me, amen; and if you'll 'and me over the 'oly Bible, me not having such a thing about me at the moment, why, I'll put a oath upon it like a man.]

ARETHUSA. Father, have you heard?

[GAUNT. I know this man, Arethusa, and the truth is not in him.

ARETHUSA. Well, and why do we wait? We know Kit, do we not?

KIT. Ay, Captain, you know the pair of us, and you can see his face and mine.]