"A wedding present from Hugh Dalton, is all I heard about the matter," returned the fellow, quietly turning a morsel of tobacco in his mouth, and eyeing the knight with ineffable contempt.
"You must give information of this most horrible murder—you witnessed it—it will make your fortune," continued Sir Willmott, springing from the seat, and, like a drowning man, seizing even at a straw. "I can take your deposition—this most foul murder may make your fortune—think of that.—What ho!" he would have called the porter, but the man prevented him, and then burst into a laugh, wild as a wild sea-wave.
"Lodge informations! You a law-maker! May I never spin another yarn, but ye are precious timber! Shiver and blazes! haven't ye with your palaver and devilry worked harm enou' aboard our ship, but ye want me to be pickled up, or swing from the yard-arm! No, no, master; I'll keep off such a lee-shore. I've no objections in life to a—any thing—but ye'r informations. Ah! ah! ah! what sinnifies a hundred such as that," and he kicked at the bloody head, "or such as you," pointing to Sir Willmott, "in comparison to the bold Buccaneer! Look here, master—whatever ye'r name be—they say the law and the pirates often sail under false colours; and blow me but I believe it now, when sich as you have to do with one of 'em. Bah! I'd cry for the figure-head of our ship, if she had sich a bridegroom."
"You shall not escape me, villain!" exclaimed Sir Willmott, rendered desperate by his adverse fortunes, and springing towards the seaman.—"But stay," he added, drawing back, "you," hesitatingly, "you are honest to your captain: well, there is something you could do for me, that——" He paused—and the sailor took advantage of the pause to say,—
"A farewell and foul weather to ye, master! Look, if you could make ye'r whole head into one great diamond, and lay it at my feet, as that carrion lies at yours, may I die on a sandbank like a dry herring, if I'd take it to do one of the dirty jobs ye're for ever plotting!"
Oh, what a degrading thing it is to be scoffed at by our superiors! How prone we are to resent it when our equals meet us with a sneer! But when the offscouring of society, the reptiles that we could have trodden under foot, may rail at and scorn us with impunity, how doubly bitter, how perfectly insupportable must it be! The very ministers of evil scouted him, and sin and misery thought him too contemptible to deal with! Burrell gnashed his teeth and struck his temples with his clenched fist—the room turned round—the bloody head of Jeromio uplifted itself to his imaginings, and gibbered, and cursed, and muttered, and laughed at him in fiendish merriment! If Zillah could have seen Burrell at that moment, she would have pitied and prayed for him: the strong man trembled as a weak girl in the shiverings of a mortal fever—his heart shuddered within his bosom—he lost all power of reasoning, and it was not until huge drops of perspiration had forced their way along his burning brow, that he at all recovered his faculties. He gazed around the small apartment; but the man was gone. The lodge window that looked on the road was open, and the knight's first effort was to reach it. The pure air of heaven, breathing so sweetly upon his pale and agonised countenance, revived him for the moment, and his energetic mind in a short space was restrung and wound up to fresh exertion. He resolved to set some of his own people to watch about the grounds, in case Zillah should attempt to obtain entrance; and though he felt assured they would do but little for him, yet he knew they would do much for gold, and that he resolved they should have in abundance. The marriage once over, he fancied himself safe—safe from all but the Buccaneer. Hope is strong at all times, but never more so than when we are roused from despair. He turned from the window, and his eye fell on the bloody head of the traitor Jeromio. He knew that, if the porter saw it, there would be an outcry and an investigation, which it was absolutely necessary, under existing circumstances, to avoid; for old Saul was one of those honest creatures who hold it a duty to tell all truth, and nothing but truth, to their employers. He therefore wrapped it carefully in the napkin in which it had been originally enveloped, and then covered it over with his own kerchief. After another moment of deliberation, he summoned the old man, and directed him to bear it to the house.
"But where is the stranger, sir?" inquired Saul.
"Oh, he passed from the window, to save you the trouble of unclosing the gate."
It was fortunate for Sir Willmott Burrell that age had deprived Saul of more faculties than one.