OP : @scotlit@mastodon.scot

ROBIN AND BEN: OR, THE PIRATE AND THE APOTHECARY

: Robert Louis Stevenson’s other pirate tale

Come, lend me an attentive ear

A startling moral tale to hear,

Of Pirate Rob and Chemist Ben,

And different destinies of men……

His clinging breeks, his tarry hat,

The way he swore, the way he spat,

A certain quality of manner,

Alarming like the pirate’s banner—

Something that did not seem to suit all—

Something, O call it bluff, not brutal—

Something at least, howe’er it’s called,

Made Robin generally black-balled…

‘Battle and blood, death and disease,

Upon the tainted Tropic seas—

The attendant sharks that chew the cud—

The abhorred scuppers spouting blood—

The untended dead, the Tropic sun—

The thunder of the murderous gun—

The cut-throat crew—the Captain’s curse—

The tempest blustering worse and worse—

These have I known and these can stand,

But you—I settle out of hand!’

Out flashed the cutlass, down went Ben

Dead and rotten, there and then.