CENE 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 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!

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