Chapter 101

GAUNT _and_ ARETHUSA _go out_, _L._, _carrying the candles_. _Stage dark_. _A distant clock chimes the quarters_, _and strikes one_. _Then_, _the tap-tapping of Pew’s stick is hear without_; _the key is put into the lock_; _and enter_ PEW, _C._, _he pockets key_, _and is followed by_ KIT, _with dark lantern_

PEW. Quiet, you lubber! Can’t you foot it soft, you that has daylights and a glim?

KIT. All right, old boy. How the devil did we get through the door? Shall I knock him up?

PEW. Stow your gab (_seizing his wrist_). Under your breath!

KIT. Avast that! You’re a savage dog, aren’t you?

PEW. Turn on that glim.

KIT. It’s as right as a trivet, Pew. What next? By George, Pew, I’ll make your fortune.

PEW. Here, now, look round this room, and sharp. D’ye see a old sea-chest?

KIT. See it, Pew? why, d’ye think I’m blind?

PEW. Take me across, and let me feel of her. Mum; catch my hand. Ah, that’s her (_feeling the chest_), that’s the Golden Mary. Now, see here, my bo, if you’ve the pluck of a weevil in a biscuit, this girl is yours; if you hain’t, and think to sheer off, I’m blind, but I’m deadly.

KIT. You’ll keep a civil tongue in your head all the same. I’ll take threats from nobody, blind or not. Let’s knock up the Admiral and be done with it. What I want is to get rid of this dark lantern. It makes me feel like a housebreaker, by George.

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!