BIMBO, THE PIRATE

BIMBO THE PIRATE

A Comedy

By BOOTH TARKINGTON

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK LONDON MCMXXVI

COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY All Rights Reserved

This play is fully protected by the copyright law, all conditions of which have been complied with. Permission for amateur production without the usual royalty charges, may be obtained by writing to the Editor of The Ladies’ Home Journal, Philadelphia, Pa.

The professional stage rights are reserved by the author. For permission to produce the play professionally, application must be made to Booth Tarkington, Indianapolis, Indiana.

Copyright, 1924, by The Curtis Publishing Company Copyright, 1925, by Doubleday, Page and Company PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CHARACTERS

Robert Lydia The Gunner Deuteronomy Bimbo Driscoll

STAGE PLAN FOR “BIMBO”

BIMBO, THE PIRATE

Note: “Visit the old jail and see the pirate Trickey’s Bible still preserved there.”—Description of York Village, Me.

“The ‘Articles’ [rules for the government of George Lowther’s pirate ship] were sworn to ... on a Bible.... We have an Article which we are sworn to, which is, not to force any married Man to serve us.... No gaming for money at cards or dice was allowed under any circumstances. No women were allowed on board.... When a vessel was captured, if a woman was found on board a sentinel was placed over her immediately.... First, You are to keep such good Orders among your said Briganteen’s Company that Swearing, Drunkenness and Prophaness be avoided, or duly Punished; And that God be duly worshiped.”—The Pirates of the New England Coast, by George Francis Dow and John Henry Edmonds.

“On the Sabbath Day only such tasks were permitted as had to do with working of the Ship and there was no Diversion ... but to read books of a religious nature.”—Narrative of a Seaman Captured and Forced by Pirates.

SCENE

The rise of the curtain discloses a stage too dark to permit the audience to be sure of more than a single detail. This is a large brass lantern of feeble illumination; it hangs at about the middle of the stage, a little more than six feet above the floor, and is in motion, swinging slightly, as in response to a turbulence which has been made evident since a moment or two before the curtain’s ascent. The turbulence is manifested by a composite sound, somewhat muffled, the trampling of feet, bellowings and angry shoutings, and a rattle of drums; and the repeated blare of fierce trumpets. Then[2] a girl’s voice is heard screaming in an anguish of fear and protest; for several moments the screams are heard above the other sounds, but end abruptly. There is a hoarse cheering; the trumpets are blown triumphantly to an accompaniment of drums; and then follows a short interval of silence; after which a door at the back of the stage is opened, a girl’s voice is heard to moan and murmur as if she panted for breath; there is the thump

of a human body falling upon wood; and the faint light of the lantern allows us to see an indistinct figure prostrate upon the floor beneath it.

A HOARSE VOICE There, missus! P’raps you’ll have sense enough to lay there! I never did know a prudent female make such a commotion! (Thus grumbling, the Hoarse Voice withdraws, the door closes, and silence follows, broken presently by the girl’s renewed moaning. A Troubled Voice, a man’s, speaks huskily out of the darkness at the right side of the stage.)

THE TROUBLED VOICE (weakly) Who is that?

THE GIRL (plaintively) Whose voice is that?

THE TROUBLED VOICE Is that you? Lydia?

THE GIRL (faintly) Robert? Is it Robert?

ROBERT (of the troubled voice) Yes. They’ve lashed me beneath a table—or it might be a bench—and it’s bolted to the deck. What of you, Lydia?

[3]

LYDIA My hands are tied behind me. My ankles are lashed together.

ROBERT Villains!

LYDIA (faintly) Bloodhounds! Bloodhounds of the sea, Robert! (He groans; she goes on.) When they began leaping aboard us—ah, the horrid sight!—I saw you fighting among them. I tried to reach you——

ROBERT I tried to come to you, Lydia!

LYDIA (weeping) Dear heart, I saw it!

ROBERT (faintly) I think my head is broke. I was struck into a swoon, Lydia, and knew naught till I found them lashing me beneath this bench. I can see a little. That lantern doesn’t look like one of ours. I thought they’d brought me to our captain’s cabin, but that lantern——

LYDIA (interrupting him, faintly and with horror) No, no! Robert, don’t you know where we are?

ROBERT It hasn’t the feel of our own ship.

LYDIA No; we’re in the other, Robert!

ROBERT (feebly) We are?

LYDIA (weeping) They dragged me across the rail and threw me here. This is the pirate ship, Robert.

[4]

ROBERT Then may Providence have mercy on our souls!

LYDIA (still weeping) I saw them lay hold of my father—he tried to struggle—— (She sobs.)

ROBERT Struggle? What could it boot? (He groans.) What booted anything? From our very sighting the strange sail we were done. No breeze for us in a flat sea—and he, with his great crew at oars, overhauling us; he came upon us like a shark to the body of a dead porpoise!

LYDIA Hark! They’re quiet now on the deck above us.

ROBERT They have the two ships lashed together, and they’re on ours, taking store of the plunder.

LYDIA (shuddering) Will they murder all our crew, Robert—(with a sob)—and my father—and—and us?

ROBERT (solemnly) We are in the hands of Providence, Lydia.

LYDIA (weeping) Ah, no! In the hands of horrid pirates! (She sobs; is then quiet for a moment, and speaks in a tone of pathetic reflection.) How sudden it came upon us, Robert!

ROBERT Sudden? Aye, sudden as a tide wave in the Indy oceans; it’ll come out of a level sea and carry away[5] half your ship while you’re taking a puff o’ your pipe! Sudden’s the way of the sea, Lydia.

LYDIA Oh, I believe it! Was it only a little while ago you and I stood and watched the moon lift itself out of the water so quietly?

ROBERT Yes, at nightfall.

LYDIA And we were happy—and didn’t know it! We thought we had trouble! We were afraid to tell my father that you and I had found love together; we were afraid of what he would say. How strange it seems now; we thought that was trouble!

ROBERT Aye, sweetheart; it’s strange.

LYDIA When they come to us how will they murder us, Robert?

ROBERT (groaning) I don’t know!

LYDIA Will they throw us into the sea, tied as we are?

ROBERT I can’t tell!

LYDIA Do you think they would be kind enough to murder us together—if I asked them? (He groans, not answering.) If I begged them, don’t you think they might, Robert?

ROBERT (in a strangled voice) I—I hope so.

[6]

LYDIA Hark!

ROBERT What do you hear?

LYDIA (faintly) I think they are coming now. (There is silence; then she whispers.) Hark! (Silence again; after which a slight noise is heard; the door at the back of the stage is opened and a man appears there, carrying an iron lantern that affords a somewhat better view of the scene and of the three persons now animating it, though they and the place are still indistinct, the lights insufficient and the shadows heavy. The cabin walls are dark wood, hung irregularly with one or two strips of tapestry and some Oriental rugs. In each side wall are three small square windows, now covered by short red curtains; the ceiling, of brown wood, is low. Against the walls are several rough sea chests; there is a brass brazier with a grilled cover near the center of the cabin; and against the rear wall there is a tall cupboard, closed. A rough and heavy wooden table, six feet long, is upon the right of the stage and is set parallel with the side walls. Upon it are some articles of antique pattern; a large copper bowl, a painted wooden box with a padlock, some pewter mugs, a large

ledger and a jar of long clay pipes. Beneath the table Robert is seen stretched upon the floor. His wrists are lashed to the rearward legs of the table and his ankles to the others. He is an athletic young man, about twenty-seven, and is dressed with a little more elegance than one might expect to see upon the mate of a merchant ship in the year 1725, though at present his attire and long curled hair are naturally[7] much disarranged. One of the sleeves of his coat is almost torn away; his neckwear, of linen, bordered with lace, is in tatters; and his forehead shows a cut from a sharp edge. Lydia, a beautiful maiden of eighteen or nineteen, is also a little too elegant for a rough sea voyage; and although her fineries are naturally rumpled by mishandling, she would otherwise receive favorable mention from the critics of St. James’s, for, like Robert, she has been dressing to a lover’s eye. She now lies upon her side beneath the central lantern, her ankles tied, her wrists roped behind her, and her long, luxuriant curls disordered.

The man who has just entered by the only door that leads into the cabin—upon the left at the back—is the pirate ship’s Gunner. He is big in person, brawny, and brown-skinned. His long, coarse, black hair hangs about his face; a white cloth, stained with red, is bound round his head, covering one eye; and his cheeks and chin are blurred by two or three days’ growth of beard. He wears a gay but soiled kerchief at his throat, a green coat heavily ornamented with gold lace, loose yellow breeches almost to the ankles, and is barefooted. At his waist hangs a heavy cutlass.)

THE GUNNER (as he enters) We’ll just have a better look at ye! We think belike you’re worth lookin’ at too! (He laughs chucklingly, moving to the right.)

LYDIA (crying out and turning so that her face is away from him) No! You shall not look at me!

THE GUNNER (halting, surprised) Eh? I didn’t mean you, missus. I mean this fine lad[8] on his back here. (He goes to Robert, holds the lantern near him and stares at him.) Aye! A fine, lusty young man! I thought so. You give me a bit of a tousle, lad. It was you put this cut over my eye.

ROBERT I’d put another over the other one if I——

THE GUNNER (laughing harshly) Aye; I’d trust ye for that. I did a little to your own head. (He stoops and feels the top of Robert’s head as he speaks.) I give ye a knob there to handle ye by. (He laughs and gives a pat of his heavy hand to the injury.)

ROBERT (wincing) Don’t!

THE GUNNER (repeating the pat) I put a fine knob on ye.

ROBERT (in pain) Cut my throat and be done with it if that’s what you came for.

THE GUNNER (straightening up) The captain’s comin’ to talk to ye.

LYDIA Our captain?

THE GUNNER (laughing) I guess he’s your captain now, missus. His honor, Captain Bimbo.

LYDIA The pirate captain?

THE GUNNER Aye, missus—his honor, Captain Deuteronomy Bimbo, Esquire, commodore of all the high seas of the world[9] and president of our company of one hunder’ and seventy-one free gen’lemen rovers and brave seamen!

ROBERT (groaning) Bimbo? Is it the pirate Bimbo that’s taken us?

THE GUNNER (astonished) Why, if you’re the seafarin’ body ye look to be I should think ye’d know it. Who but Bimbo and his company could have took a ship as neat as we took yours? Bimbo? I should say it is Bimbo!

ROBERT (despairingly) Bimbo!

LYDIA Is he worse than other pirates, Robert?

ROBERT We’re under the tiger’s claw, Lydia.

THE GUNNER (contemptuously) You talk like an ignorant man. (Going to the windows at the right, he begins to set back the curtains, letting in a rosy light.) Sunrise is on the way; I’ll just give ye some light to see the “tiger” by, lad! (He crosses and opens the other curtains, talking as he does so.) And look that ye speak him respectful. It’s not every common mate of a merchant vessel he honors with his converse. Tiger, ye might find him, if ye scratch him.

LYDIA (faltering) Have they—have they murdered—my father—yet?

THE GUNNER Which would he be now? Is it a fat old Lunnon merchantlike man in a brindle wig and gold buckles to his shoon?

[10]

LYDIA Yes. Have they——

THE GUNNER (dryly) No. He’s not murdered yet.

LYDIA Will they let me speak to him before they——

THE GUNNER Ask Captain Bimbo, missus. (There is a flourish of trumpets outside.) That’ll be him now.

LYDIA (shuddering) Ah!

ROBERT (groaning) Bimbo! (Drums beat and the trumpets sound again; then the notorious sea rover and pirate captain, Deuteronomy Bimbo, strides into the cabin and comes to an abrupt halt, staring from one to the other of his prostrate captives. He is a straight-standing, lean, active man of thirty-five, so deeply tanned that his swarthiness might make him seem almost a mulatto; and yet, with his long, black, carefully curled hair framing his face, he is neither an ugly man nor, in spite of the sharp severity of his expression, is he of an aspect obviously sinister. He is scrupulously dressed; has fine lace at his throat; wears a brocaded black-and-crimson coat, black silk waistcoat and black silk breeches and stockings, with silver buckles to his shoes. There is a dark crimson sash about his waist, with a bandolier of the same color passing over his left shoulder; and attached by crimson silk ribbons to the sash and bandolier are eight pistols. He carries no sword or cutlass, but has a great plumed hat in his hand.)

[11]

BIMBO (to the Gunner, sharply, with a brief gesture toward Robert) Make the gentleman easy. (He goes on decisively to the table, tosses his hat upon it and picks up the ledger.)

THE GUNNER Aye, your honor. (He proceeds at once to release Robert from his lashings.) A fine, strong, active seaman he is too.

BIMBO (growlingly) D’ye think I’ve no eyes? (He is intent upon the ledger, which he has opened.)

THE GUNNER (continuing his task) I put a knob on his head for a handle to him if we need one. (Chuckling, he pats Robert’s head again. Robert winces, groaning.)

BIMBO Ha’ done! (He seats himself at the table, studying the ledger.)

THE GUNNER (completing his task) There, lad! His honor gives ye lief to stretch out the kinks in ye.

ROBERT (rising quickly, though painfully) Lydia! (He rushes to her, bending over to unfasten her wrists.)

THE GUNNER (following threateningly) Here! His honor didn’t say you could——

[12]

BIMBO (interrupting sharply, without looking up from the ledger, in which he has begun to write with a quill pen) Stand where you are. Let him alone. (The Gunner instantly obeys.)

ROBERT (untying Lydia) Lydia, poor child! Lydia!

LYDIA (whimpering) Poor Robert! (As she rises he instantly puts her behind him and stands upon the defensive, facing the Gunner and Bimbo.)

ROBERT (with a gleam in his eye) We’re not done yet, Lydia. (He grips the back of a heavy wooden chair.)

THE GUNNER (threateningly) What’s in your mind to do with that chair?

ROBERT (ominously) I think I could kill one man with it—two, I hope.

BIMBO (not looking up) Don’t lift that chair.

ROBERT (fiercely) Won’t I? (He moves suddenly to swing the chair up as a weapon, but, although he struggles with it, cannot move it. He groans, and the Gunner laughs loudly.)

THE GUNNER (laughing) It’s only bolted to the deck! Heave her up, cully!

BIMBO (still preoccupied with his writing) We keep the seas longer than you of the merchant ships, mate. We can’t let much lie about loose. Don’t[13] brain us with the chair; sit in it. (He glances across at them authoritatively.) You in that one, madam. (He points to another chair near Robert’s. They stare at him; he stares back, and after a moment they obey him. Bimbo looks at Robert.) I suppose you’re in a puzzle what we’ll do with you, mate.

ROBERT I’ve faced death before this.

BIMBO (throwing down his pen impatiently) You expect to have your throat cut, do you?

ROBERT (swallowing) When you give the word for it. What else?

BIMBO (to the Gunner, angrily) You hear him?

THE GUNNER (gloomily) Aye! It’s the way of our calling!

BIMBO (disgustedly) It’s sickening! (He gets up and paces the floor angrily for a moment or two, then turns sharply to Robert.) You think that’s all we want of a man like you—a man that fought a hundred of us when not another of your whole ship’s company lifted a cutlass! You think all we want of you is to slit your guzzlet, do you? Aye! You do! From the look of your fool face I see it. Sickening!

ROBERT (huskily) Then what do you want? To hang me instead of cutting my throat?

BIMBO Faugh! (He turns back to the table and throws himself in his chair. The two captives watch him, terrorized,[14] and as at some resentful thought he strikes the table with his clenched fist, Lydia utters a little cry. He stares at her fiercely.) What, mistress?

LYDIA Nothing. (Shivers.)

BIMBO (gruffly to the Gunner) Send us Brimstone with fire.

LYDIA (crying out at this faintly) Ah! (The Gunner goes out promptly.)

BIMBO What?

LYDIA (weakly) Brimstone and fire! For—what?

BIMBO For you.

ROBERT For her?

BIMBO Who else? D’ye think I want ’em for me? For you, mistress! (He begins to apply himself to the ledger.)

LYDIA (appealingly) Robert! (She rises, and so does Robert.)

ROBERT (hoarsely) Lydia! (She clings to him.)

BIMBO (standing up angrily) Stand away from that woman!

[15]

LYDIA Robert——

BIMBO (roaring) Stand away from her! (He overawes them, and slowly their arms fall from each other. Staring miserably at him all the while, they resume their seats.)

BIMBO (grunting) That’s better! (He returns to his seat and the ledger. The door opens and Lydia and Robert turn apprehensively as another pirate enters. He is dressed much as is the Gunner, but is gaunt and of an extreme and unnatural pallor, his eyes glistening dishearteningly from dark hollows. He carries a pan of smoking hot embers.)

LYDIA (horrified) Robert! (Robert half rises.)

BIMBO (fiercely) Sit where you are! (Robert sinks into his seat. Bimbo explains.) It’s Brimstone and hot coals that I sent for.

LYDIA (appealing to the man with the coals) Don’t hurt me! Don’t hurt me! Don’t——

BIMBO He’s deaf and dumb, mistress.

LYDIA (choking) Oh! (The Deaf-and-Dumb Man makes an unpleasant vocal sound, looking at Bimbo, who points to the brazier. The man dumps his coals in the brazier and stands beside it. The brazier glows. Lydia and Robert stare at it in[16] anguish. The Deaf-and-Dumb Man looks at Bimbo inquiringly, and the latter waves his hand. The Deaf-and-Dumb Man retires to a position near the door. Lydia, panting, sinks down in her chair.)

ROBERT (hoarsely) I have my hands free. They shan’t touch you, sweetheart!

BIMBO (angrily) Stop that!

ROBERT I will speak to her!

BIMBO (sharply) Speak to her? Yes. But don’t you call her sweetheart.

ROBERT (defiantly, yet with a tender accent) She is my sweetheart.

BIMBO That may be; but don’t you call her so to-day, or I’ll have ’em truss you down again. (He again applies himself to his ledger. Lydia again looks at the brazier, shudders, and begins to weep spasmodically.)

LYDIA (brokenly) Was it only a little while ago—when the moon rose—and you and I were happy, Robert?

ROBERT I think—I think life is just a moon path on the sea. It looks all shining white and beautiful—but of a sudden a shark’s fin glides across it. We were swimmers in that moon path, sweet——

[17]

BIMBO (interrupting fiercely) Don’t you call her sweetheart!

ROBERT (defiantly) Now, look ye, I won’t be told——

BIMBO You were going to! You would have if I hadn’t stopped you! Now I’ve warned you twice, and you take care! (He claps his hands and the Gunner appears in the doorway.) Fetch me in that old merchantlike critter with the fat paunch. (The Gunner withdraws.)

LYDIA You want my father to see it, too, when you—— (She looks at the glowing brazier and shudders.)

BIMBO (crisply) The fat old merchantlike body is your father, is he?

LYDIA (weeping) Yes—my father.

BIMBO (thoughtfully) And you and he the only passengers aboard. (To Robert.) The old man says he owns shares in your ship and cargo.

ROBERT (sullenly) Yes, and in other ships and cargoes. ’Tis Mr. Driscoll, the great Liverpool merchant, and I warn you if harm comes to him, or to his daughter here, the whole British Navy will——