The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 15

Arethusa. You’ll see when he returns. (He wrenches her arm again.) Ah!

Pew. Is he still on piety?

Arethusa. O, he is a Christian man!

Pew. A Christian man, is he? Where does he keep his rum?

Arethusa. Nay, you shall steal nothing by my help.

Pew. No more I shall (becoming amorous). You’re a lovely woman, that’s what you are; how would you like old Pew for a sweetheart, hey? He’s blind, is Pew, but strong as a lion; and the sex is his ’ole delight. Ah, them beautiful, beautiful lips! A kiss! Come!

Arethusa. Leave go, leave go!

Pew. Hey? you would?

Arethusa. Ah! (She thrusts him down, and escapes to door, R.)

SCENE VII

Pew (picking himself up). Ah, she’s a bouncer, she is! Where’s my stick? That’s the sort of female for David Pew. Didn’t she fight? and didn’t she struggle? and shouldn’t I like to twist her lovely neck for her? Pew’s way with ’em all: the prettier they was, the uglier he were to ’em. Pew’s way: a way he had with him; and a damned good way too. (Listens at L. door.) That’s her bedroom, I reckon; and she’s double-locked herself in. Good again: it’s a crying mercy the Admiral didn’t come in. But you always loses your ’ed, Pew, with a female: that’s what charms ’em. – Now for business. The front door. No bar; on’y a big lock (trying keys from his pocket). Key one; no go. Key two; no go. Key three; ah, that does it. Ah! (feeling key) him with the three wards and the little ’un: good again! Now if I could only find a mate in this rotten country ’amlick: one to be eyes to me; I can steer, but I can’t conn myself, worse luck! If I could only find a mate. And to-night about three bells in the middle watch, old Pew will take a little cruise, and lay aboard his ancient friend the Admiral; or, barring that, the Admiral’s old sea-chest – the chest he kept the shiners in aboard the brig. Where is it, I wonder? in his berth, or in the cabin here? It’s big enough, and the brass bands is plain to feel by. (Searching about with stick.) Dresser – chair (knocking his head on the cupboard). Ah! – O, corner cupboard. Admiral’s chair – Admiral’s table – Admiral’s – hey! what’s this? – a book – sheepskin – smells like a ’oly Bible. Chair (his stick just avoids the chest). No sea-chest. I must have a mate to see for me, to see for old Pew: him as had eyes like a eagle! Meanwhile, rum. Corner cupboard, of course (tap-tapping). Rum – rum – rum. Hey? (He listens.) Footsteps. Is it the Admiral? (With the whine.) Kind Christian friends —

SCENE VIII

Pew; to him, Gaunt

Gaunt. What brings you here?

Pew. Cap’n, do my ears deceive me? or is this my old commander?

Gaunt. My name is John Gaunt. Who are you, my man, and what’s your business?

Pew. Here’s the facks, so help me. A lovely female in this house was Christian enough to pity the poor blind; and lo and be’old! who should she turn out to be but my old commander’s daughter! “My dear,” says I to her, “I was the Admiral’s own particular bo’sun.” – “La, sailor,” she says to me, “how glad he’ll be to see you!” – “Ah,” says I, “won’t he just – that’s all.” – “I’ll go and fetch him,” she says; “you make yourself at ’ome.” And off she went; and, Commander, here I am.

Gaunt (sitting down). Well.

Pew. Well, Cap’n?

Gaunt. What do you want?

Pew. Well, Admiral, in a general way, what I want in a manner of speaking is money and rum. (A pause.)

Gaunt. David Pew, I have known you a long time.

Pew. And so you have; aboard the old Arethusa; and you don’t seem that cheered up as I’d looked for, with a old shipmate dropping in, one as has been seeking you two years and more – and blind at that. Don’t you remember the old chantie? —

“Time for us to go,
Time for us to go,
And when we’d clapped the hatches on,
’Twas time for us to go.”

What a note you had to sing, what a swaller for a pannikin of rum, and what a fist for the shiners. Ah, Cap’n, they didn’t call you Admiral Guinea for nothing. I can see that old sea-chest of yours – her with the brass bands, where you kept your gold dust and doubloons: you know! – I can see her as well this minute as though you and me was still at it playing pÅt on the lid of her… You don’t say nothing, Cap’n?.. Well, here it is: I want money and I want rum. You don’t know what it is to want rum, you don’t: it gets to that p’int that you would kill a ’ole ship’s company for just one guttle of it. What? Admiral Guinea, my old Commander, go back on poor old Pew? and him high and dry? (Not you! When we had words over the negro lass at Lagos, what did you do? fair dealings was your word: fair as between man and man; and we had it out with p’int and edge on Lagos sands. And you’re not going back on your word to me, now I’m old and blind! No, no! belay that, I say. Give me the old motto: Fair dealings, as between man and man.)

Gaunt. David Pew, it were better for you that you were sunk in fifty fathom. I know your life; and first and last, it is one broadside of wickedness. You were a porter in a school, and beat a boy to death; you ran for it, turned slaver, and shipped with me, a green hand. Ay, that was the craft for you; that was the right craft, and I was the right captain; there was none worse that sailed to Guinea. Well, what came of that? In five years’ time you made yourself the terror and abhorrence of your messmates. The worst hands detested you; your captain – that was me, John Gaunt, the chief of sinners – cast you out for a Jonah. (Who was it stabbed the Portuguese and made off inland with his miserable wife? Who, raging drunk on rum, clapped fire to the baracoons and burned the poor soulless creatures in their chains?) Ay, you were a scandal to the Guinea coast, from Lagos down to Calabar; and when at last I sent you ashore, a marooned man – your shipmates, devils as they were, cheering and rejoicing to be quit of you – by heaven, it was a ton’s weight off the brig!

Pew. Cap’n Gaunt, Cap’n Gaunt, these are ugly words.

Gaunt. What next? You shipped with Flint the Pirate. What you did then I know not; the deep seas have kept the secret; kept it, ay, and will keep against the Great Day. God smote you with blindness, but you heeded not the sign. That was His last mercy; look for no more. To your knees, man, and repent. Pray for a new heart; flush out your sins with tears; flee while you may from the terrors of the wrath to come.

Pew. Now, I want this clear: Do I understand that you’re going back on me, and you’ll see me damned first?

Gaunt. Of me you shall have neither money nor strong drink: not a guinea to spend in riot; not a drop to fire your heart with devilry.

Pew. Cap’n, do you think it wise to quarrel with me? I put it to you now, Cap’n, fairly, as between man and man – do you think it wise?

Gaunt. I fear nothing. My feet are on the Rock. Be-gone! (He opens the Bible and begins to read.)

Pew (after a pause). Well, Cap’n, you know best, no doubt; and David Pew’s about the last man, though I says it, to up and thwart an old Commander. You’ve been ’ard on David Pew, Cap’n: ’ard on the poor blind; but you’ll live to regret it – ah, my Christian friend, you’ll live to eat them words up. But there’s no malice here: that ain’t Pew’s way; here’s a sailor’s hand upon it… You don’t say nothing? (Gaunt turns a page.) Ah, reading, was you? Reading, by thunder! Well, here’s my respecks. (Singing) —

“Time for us to go,
Time for us to go,
When the money’s out, and the liquor’s done,
Why, it’s time for us to go.”

(He goes tapping up to door, turns on the threshold, and listens. Gaunt turns a page. Pew, with a grimace, strikes his hand upon the pocket with the keys, and goes.)

ACT II

The Stage represents the parlour of the “Admiral Benbow” inn. Fireplace, R., with high-backed settles on each side; in front of these, and facing the audience, R., a small table laid with a cloth. Tables, L., with glasses, pipes, etc. Broadside ballads on the wall. Outer door of inn, with half-door in L., corner back; door, R., beyond the fireplace; window with red half-curtains; spittoons; candles on both the front tables; night without

SCENE I

Pew; afterwards Mrs. Drake, out and in

Pew (entering). Kind Christian friends – (listening, then dropping the whine). Hey? nobody! Hey? A grog-shop not two cable-lengths from the Admiral’s back-door, and the Admiral not there? I never knew a seaman brought so low: he ain’t but the bones of the man he used to be. Bear away for the New Jerusalem, and this is what you run aground on, is it? Good again; but it ain’t Pew’s way; Pew’s way is rum. – Sanded floor. Rum is his word, and rum his motion. – Settle – chimbly – settle again – spittoon – table rigged for supper. Table – glass. (Drinks heeltap.) Brandy and water; and not enough of it to wet your eye; damn all greediness, I say. Pot (drinks), small beer – a drink that I ab’or like bilge! What I want is rum. (Calling and rapping with stick on table.) Halloa, there! House, ahoy!

Mrs. Drake (without). Coming, sir, coming. (She enters, R.) What can I do – ? (Seeing Pew.) Well, I never did! Now, beggar-man, what’s for you?

Pew. Rum, ma’am, rum; and a bit o’ supper.

Mrs. Drake. And a bed to follow, I shouldn’t wonder!

Pew. And a bed to follow: if you please.

Mrs. Drake. This is the “Admiral Benbow,” a respectable house, and receives none but decent company; and I’ll ask you to go somewhere else, for I don’t like the looks of you.

Pew. Turn me away? Why, Lord love you, I’m David Pew – old David Pew – him as was Benbow’s own particular cox’n. You wouldn’t turn away old Pew from the sign of his late commander’s ’ed? Ah, my British female, you’d have used me different if you’d seen me in the fight! (There laid old Benbow, both his legs shot off, in a basket, and the blessed spy-glass at his eye to that same hour: a picter, ma’am, of naval daring: when a round shot come, and took and knocked a bucketful of shivers right into my poor daylights. “Damme,” says the Admiral, “is that old Pew, my old Pew?” he says. – “It’s old Pew, sir,” says the first lootenant, “worse luck,” he says. – “Then damme,” says Admiral Benbow, “if that’s how they serve a lion-’arted seaman, damme if I care to live,” he says; and, ma’am, he laid down his spy-glass.)

Mrs. Drake. Blind man, I don’t fancy you, and that’s the truth; and I’ll thank you to take yourself off.