PEW. Cap’n, here’s my respecks. You’ve turned a pious man, Cap’n; it does my ’art good to ’ear you. But you ain’t the only one. O no! I came about and paid off on the other tack before you, I reckon: you ask the Chaplain of the Fleet else, as called me on the quarter-deck before old Admiral ’Awke himself (_touching his hat_), my old commander. [’David Pew,’ he says, ‘five-and-thirty year have I been in this trade, man and boy,’ that chaplain says, ‘and damme, Pew,’ says he, ‘if ever I seen the seaman that could rattle off his catechism within fifty mile of you. Here’s five guineas out of my own pocket,’ he says; ‘and what’s more to the pint,’ he says, ‘I’ll speak to my reverend brother-in-law, the Bishop of Dover,’ he says; ‘and if ever you leave the sea, and wants a place as beadle, why damme,’ says he, ‘you go to him, for you’re the man for him, and him for you.’ GAUNT. David Pew, you never set your foot on a King’s ship in all your life. There lies the road. PEW. Ah, you was always a ’ard man, Cap’n, and a ’ard man to believe, like Didymus the ’Ebrew prophet. But it’s time for me to go, and I’ll be going. My service to you, Cap’n: and I kiss my ’and to that lovely female. ‘Time for us to go, Time for us to go, And when we’d clapped the hatches on, ’Twas time for us to go.’ SCENE IV KIT, ARETHUSA, GAUNT ARETHUSA. Now, Kit? KIT. Well, sir, and now? GAUNT. I find you here in my house at this untimely and unseemly hour; I find you there in company with one who, to my assured knowledge, should long since have swung in the wind at Execution Dock. What brought you? Why did you open my door while I slept to such a companion? Christopher French, I have two treasures. One (_laying his hand on_ ARETHUSA’S _shoulder_) I know you covet. Christopher, is this your love? KIT. Sir, I have been fooled and trapped. That man declared he knew you, declared he could make you change your mind about our marriage. I was drunk, sir, and I believed him: heaven knows I am sober now, and can see my folly; but I believed him then, and followed him. He brought me here, he told me your chest was full of gold that would make men of us for life. At that I saw my fault, sir, and drew my cutlass; and he, in the wink of an eye, roared out for help, leaped at my throat like a weasel and had me rolling on the floor. He was quick, and I, as I tell you, sir, was off my balance. GAUNT. Is this man, Pew, your enemy? KIT. No sir; I never saw him till to-night. GAUNT. Then, if you must stand the justice of your country, come to the proof with a better plea. What? lantern and cutlass yours; you the one that knew the house; you the one that saw; you the one overtaken and denounced; and you spin me a galley yarn like that? If that is all your defence, you’ll hang, sir, hang.