Arethusa. In heaven’s name, who is it?
Pew. It’s a damned 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 cutlass.
Gaunt. The chest? (He leaps, R., and examines chest.) Ah!