"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."
"Me!—her!" exclaimed Robin, closing his teeth, and glaring on Jack Roupall with fiendish fierceness.
"Keep off!" ejaculated Roupall, securing the ear-rings, and placing himself in a posture of defence—"Keep off! I know ye of old, Robin Hays, with your griping fingers and strong palms! Never quarrel with a man because he doesn't understand ye'r delicacies, which are things each makes in his own mind, so that no one else can taste 'em. I meant no harm; only, mark ye, ye sha'n't throttle me for nothing the next go; so keep off; and I'm off, for sides o' flesh and sides o' iron are astir up there; so this is no place for me. I shall be off, and join King Charlie: he's much in want of strong hands, I hear, and who knows but the time is coming when 'the king shall enjoy his own again?'"
"Do but bury that!" said Robin: ["I] would stay and do it, but that I must to the Nest at once."
"No, no," replied Roupall, striding away in an opposite direction; "let it stay where it is, to poison ravens and the carrion-birds. It is fitting food for them. They had nobler banquets at Naseby and at Marston."