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!
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, cutlass 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 Assizes. 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.]
Gaunt. Christopher, the facts are all against you. I find you here in my house at midnight: you who at least had eyes to see, and must have known whither you were going. It was this man, not you, who called me up: and when I came in, it was he who was uppermost and who gave you up to justice. This unsheathed cutlass is yours; there hangs the scabbard, empty; and as for the dark lantern, of what use is light to the blind? and who could have trimmed and lighted it but you?