Death of Blind Pew

Blind Pew, the eyeless beggar who had delivered the Black Spot to Billy Bones and sent the old pirate to his grave, meets his own end in a moment of chaotic violence on the road outside the Admiral Benbow Inn. His death is the climax of the night's terror that began with the Hawkins family's flight from the inn and ends with the arrival of the revenue officers, whose horses trample the blind man into the frozen ground. It is a death that is at once accidental and inevitable, the final act of a man whose entire existence had been built on menace and cruelty, and whose blindness, which had been his weapon and his curse, proves his undoing.

The Blind Beggar's Menace

Pew's presence in the story is defined by his disability, which he wields as a tool of intimidation. He first appears at the inn as a "horrible, soft-spoken, eyeless creature" who grips Jim Hawkins's hand "like a vise" and forces the boy to lead him to the captain, threatening to break his arm if he refuses. His blindness is not a weakness but a source of power: he navigates by sound and touch, and his voice is described as "so cruel, and cold, and ugly" that it cowed Jim more than physical pain. He delivers the Black Spot to Billy Bones, the summons that precipitates the captain's fatal stroke, and then vanishes into the night, his stick "tap-tap-tapping" into the distance. This tapping sound becomes a motif of terror, later heard by Jim and his mother as they count the dead captain's money, signaling Pew's return and their narrow escape.

The Night of the Black Spot

Pew's death occurs on the same night he delivers the Black Spot, a night that has already seen the death of Billy Bones and the desperate flight of Jim and his mother. After the captain's body is discovered, the Hawkins family returns to the inn to claim what is owed them, but they are interrupted by the sound of Pew's stick on the frozen road. They flee, hiding under a bridge as Pew and his gang of buccaneers ransack the inn, searching for the treasure map. Pew, enraged by their failure to find it, berates his men, striking out blindly with his stick and cursing them for their cowardice. His fury is so great that he forgets his own vulnerability, and when the signal whistle warns of approaching danger, his men scatter, leaving him alone and helpless.

The Trampling

As the revenue officers, led by Supervisor Dance, gallop down the hill, Pew, disoriented and abandoned, runs straight into the path of the horses. The rider tries to save him, but it is too late. "Down went Pew with a cry that rang high into the night; and the four hoofs trampled and spurned him and passed by. He fell on his side, then gently collapsed upon his face and moved no more." The death is swift and brutal, a fitting end for a man who had lived by violence and intimidation. The officers, horrified by the accident, pull up, and Jim, who has been watching from his hiding place, leaps to his feet and hails them. Pew is dead, "stone dead," and with his death, the immediate threat to the Hawkins family is ended.

Aftermath and Significance

Pew's death has immediate and far-reaching consequences. It allows Jim to deliver the oilskin packet containing the treasure map to Dr. Livesey and Squire Trelawney, setting the stage for the voyage to Treasure Island. It also removes the most dangerous of the old buccaneers, the one who had the cunning and ruthlessness to lead the others. Supervisor Dance, who had been alerted to the pirates' presence by news of the lugger in Kitt's Hole, is glad to have "trod on Master Pew's corns," and the death is seen as a just end for a "black, atrocious miscreant." Pew's demise also underscores the theme of disability as both a source of power and vulnerability: his blindness, which had made him feared, ultimately leads to his destruction when he cannot see the horses coming. In the broader narrative, Pew's death marks the end of the old pirate world and the beginning of the new adventure, a transition from the dark, claustrophobic terror of the inn to the open, dangerous seas of the treasure hunt.