e was, and carried her
through the midst of the soldiers, who had too much fear or too much
nature in 'em to touch him--I don't know which it was. I'm thinking he's
off to the Fire-fly, for he said he'd bury her in the sea;--or hid,
maybe, in some o' the holes at the Gull's Nest--holes only known to a
few of the sly sort, not to us strappers."

"Good God!" exclaimed Robin.

"Ah! you may well say, good God," said Roupall, putting on a look of
great sagacity, "for I'm come to the determination that there's much
need of a good God in the world to circumvent man's wickedness. Why,
look ye here now, if here isn't the head of that infernal Italian,
Jeromio! and what I'm puzzled at is, that, first, it's wrapped in a
napkin which I swear is one of them Holland ones I had o' the Skipper,
and which he swore I could have made more of, had I took them on to
London, instead of tiffing them at Maidstone; and this, outside it, is
Sir Willmott Burrell's--here's the crest broidered in goold:--it's the
finest cambric too," he added, relieving the muslin of its disgusting
burden, and folding it with care, "and 'tis a pity it should be wasted
on filthy flesh; so I'll take care of it--ah! ah! And the napkin's a
good one: it's sinful to spoil any thing God sends--ah! ah! The fellow
used to wear ear-rings too," he continued, stooping over the festering
head, while the ravens, whose appetites had increased when they saw the
covering entirely removed, flapped the topmost branches of the trees
with their wings in their circling, and screamed more vigorously than
before.

"How came it--how happened it?" inquired Robin, perfectly aroused to the
horror of the scene, to which Roupall appeared quite indifferent.

"I know no more than you," replied the good-humoured ruffian, holding up
a jewelled ear-ring between his fingers--"I know no more than you;--Gad,
that's fit for any lady's ear in Kent!--Only I heard it was believed
among the sharks, that my friend Sir Willmott excited a mutiny aboard
the Fire-fly, which this fellow, now without a head, headed--and so, ye
understand, lost his head, as the Skipper's punishment for mutiny. How
it came here--where it may stay--I know not. There, Robin, there are a
pair of rings fit for a queen: maybe, you'll buy them; they're honestly
worth two dollars. Well, you would have bought 'em if she'd ha' lived."

"Me!--her!" exclaimed Robin, closing his teeth, and glaring on Jack
Roupall with fiendish fierceness.