Stopping for a few moments at the lodge of Cecil Place, he warned the
old porter not to admit, but to detain, any person, man or woman, who
might inquire for him, no matter under what pretext entrance might be
demanded; for he assured the old man there was a deranged youth, who
pretended to have known him abroad, and who, he was informed, had used
unaccountable threats against him. Sir Willmott, moreover, enforced his
instructions by a handsome present, and was proceeding to the house,
when the gate-bell rang, and a man, habited as a travelling merchant,
presented a parcel, directed "For Sir Willmott Burrell. These----"
Burrell commanded the messenger into the lodge room; the stranger, after
some hesitation, entered. Sir Willmott briefly dismissed the old porter,
and undid the packet; when, lo! the matted and gory head of the Italian,
Jeromio, rolled at his feet. There it lay, in all the hideous deformity
of sudden and violent death! the severed throat, thickened with gouts of
blood! the dimmed spectral eyes starting from their sockets! the lips
shrinking from the teeth of glaring whiteness--there it lay, looking up,
as it were, into the face of the base but horrified associate. His
utterance was impeded, and a thick mist came over him, as he sank into
the old porter's chair.
"What does this mean?" he said at length to the man, whom he now
recognised as one of the sailors of the Fire-fly.--"What means it?"
"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."