Scene—Dawn of the following morning—exterior of the Bartlett home, showing the main entrance, facing left, toward the harbor. On either side of the door, two large windows, their heavy green shutters tightly closed. In front of the door, a small porch, the roof supported by four white column. A flight of three steps goes up to this porch from the ground. Two paths lead to the steps through the straggly patches of grass, one around the corner of the house to the rear, the other straight to the left to the edge of the cliff where there is a small projecting iron platform, fenced in by a rail. The top of a steel ladder can be seen. This ladder leads up the side or the cliff from the shore below to the platform. The edge of the cliff extends from the left corner front, half-diagonally back to the right, rear-center.
In the grey half-light of the dawn, Horne, Cates, and Jimmy Kanaka are discovered. Horne is standing on the steel platform looking down at the shore below. Cates is sprawled on the ground nearby. Jimmy squats on his haunches, his eyes staring out to sea as if he were trying to pierce the distance to the warm islands of his birth. Cates wears dungarees, Jimmy dungaree pants and a black jersey; Horne, the same as in Act Two.
Cates—[With sluggish indifference.] Ain’t she finished with it yet?
Horne—[Irritably.] No, damn her! I kin see ’em all together on the wharf at the bow o’ the schooner. That old crow o’ a woman o’ his! Why the hell don’t she christen her and be done with it and let us make sail?
Cates—[After a pause.] Funny, ain’t it—his orderin’ us to come up here and wait till it’s all done.
Horne—[Angrily.] That’s her doin’, too. She thinks we ain’t good enough to be where she is. [After a pause.] But there’s nothin’ funny to me that he does no more. He’s still out o’ his head, d’ye know that, Cates?
Cates—[Stupidly.] I ain’t noticed nothin’ diff’rent ’bout him.
Horne—[Scornfully.] He axed me if I ever seen them two in my sleep—that cook and the boy o’ the Triton. Said he did often.
Cates—[Immediately protesting uneasily as if he had been accused.] They was with us in the boat b’fore we fetched the island, that’s all ’bout ’em I remember. I was crazy, after.
Horne—[Looking at him with contempt.] So was we all crazy, for the matter o’ that. I’ll not call ye a liar, Cates, but—a hell o’ a man ye be! You wasn’t so out o’ your head that ye forgot the gold, was ye?