The Buccaneer - A Tale

"Ah! our little Ranger," said the man, extending his rough hand, "it

charms me to see you! I feared you were nabbed somehow, for I knew you'd

be cursedly down in the feathers from what the whole island is talking

of.--Hast seen the Skipper?"

"Where is he?"

"That's exactly what I want to know; but no one has seen him, that I

hear of, since he seized the poor girl, dead as she 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."