plays [56]
'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 an 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 put 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. Begone! (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