BIMBO
You were going to! You would have if I hadn’t stopped you! Now I’ve warned you twice, and you take care! (He claps his hands and the Gunner appears in the doorway.) Fetch me in that old merchantlike critter with the fat paunch.
(The Gunner withdraws.)
LYDIA
You want my father to see it, too, when you——
(She looks at the glowing brazier and shudders.)
BIMBO (crisply)
The fat old merchantlike body is your father, is he?
LYDIA (weeping)
Yes—my father.
BIMBO (thoughtfully)
And you and he the only passengers aboard. (To Robert.) The old man says he owns shares in your ship and cargo.
ROBERT (sullenly)
Yes, and in other ships and cargoes. ’Tis Mr. Driscoll, the great Liverpool merchant, and I warn you if harm comes to him, or to his daughter here, the whole British Navy will——
BIMBO (snarling)
The “whole British Navy”! The whole British Navy is hot after me now, mate, and has been these two years. This ship you’re sitting in I took from the whole British Navy! Do you know what port I sailed out of when I first took on the honorable calling of a gentleman sea rover?
ROBERT (sullenly)
No, I don’t.
BIMBO
Marblehead. I’m a Marblehead sailorman, born in Salem. You send the British Navy after me, meat, and old Doytcher King Geordie in it, and I’ll have his crown off his head and sell it for ten shillin’ in Boston market the Monday after!
ROBERT
’Tis no surprise to me that a pirate speaks treason to his king.