The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. StevensonStevenson, Robert Louis
General
The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Drama
PEW (_seated on chest_). You follow this. I’m sick of drinking bilge,
when I might be rolling in my coach, and I’m dog-sick of Jack Gaunt.
Who’s he to be wallowing in gold, when a better man is groping crusts in
the gutter and spunging for rum? Now, here in this blasted chest is the
gold to make men of us for life: gold, ay, gobs of it; and writin’s
too—things that if I had the proof of ’em I’d hold Jack Gaunt to the
grindstone till his face was flat. I’d have done it single-handed; but
I’m blind, worse luck: I’m all in the damned dark here, poking with a
stick—Lord, burn up with lime the eyes that saw it! That’s why I raked
up you. Come, out with your iron, and prise the lid off. You shall
touch your snack, and have the wench for nothing; ay, and fling her in
the street, when done.
KIT. So you brought me here to steal did you?
PEW. Ay did I; and you shall. I’m a biter: I bring blood.
KIT. Now, Pew, you came here on my promise, or I’d kill you like a rat.
As it is, out of that door! One, two, three (_drawing his cutlass_), and
off!
PEW (_leaping at his throat_, _and with a great voice_). Help! murder!
thieves!
SCENE 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?]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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