"Howsomever, we did open the fingers," continued the master, "and found by its delicate whiteness, and a ring on the wedding-finger, that it belonged to a woman. When we got on board, the blood in various parts of the quarter-deck, and at the gangways, indicated the murderous tragedy that had been acted; but no semblance of human being could we find except a head,--a bloody head that seemed to have been purposely placed upon a flour-cask that was upended near the windlass. 'Well, I'm bless'd,' says one of our boasun's-mates, who had steered the pinnace,--'I'm bless'd if they arn't shaved you clean enough at any rate; but d--my tarry trousers, look at that!--why then I'm a Dutchman if it arn't winking at me.'--'Bathershin!' says an Irish topman, 'it's stretching his daylights he is, mightily plased to see such good company;' and sure enough the eyes were rolling about in a strange fashion for a head as had no movables to consort to it; and presently the mouth opened wide, and then the teeth snap'd to again, just like a cat-fish at St. Jago's. 'It's a horrible sight,' said one of the cutters, 'and them fellows'll go to ---- for it, that's one consolation; but ain't it mighty queer, sir, that a head without ever a body should be arter making such wry faces, and opening and shutting his sallyport, seeing as he's scratched out of his mess?' A hideous grin distorted every feature,--so hideous that it made me shudder; and first one eye and then the other opened in rapid succession. 'I say, Jem,' says one of the pinnaces to the boasun's-mate,--'I say, Jem, mayhap the gentleman wants a bit o' pig-tail, for most likely he arn't had a chaw since he lost his 'bacca-box.' This sally, with the usual recklessness of seamen, produced a general laugh, which emboldened Jem to take out his quid, and, watching an opportunity, he claps it into between the jaws; but before he could gather in the slack of his arm, the teeth were fast hold of his fingers, and there he was, jamm'd like Jackson, and roaring out ten thousand murders. He tried to snatch his hand away, but the head held on to the cask like grim death against the doctor; at last away it roll'd over and Jem got clear, but the head stuck fast, and then we discovered that there was a body inside. The head of the cask had been taken out, and a hole cut hardly large enough to admit of the poor fellow's neck; but nevertheless it had been hoop'd up again, and when we got on board he was in the last convulsive gasps of strangulation. We released him immediately, but it was only to find him so shockingly mutilated that he died in about ten minutes afterwards; and not a soul was left to tell us the fatal tale, though from an ensign and some shreds of papers we conjectured the brig was a Spaniard. The pirates had scuttled her. She made water too fast to think of saving her, and in a couple of hours she went down."