“Get up, Jeremy!” said his sister, sharply, “and stop writhing about there like a great snake. You look as though you had been murdered; it is horrible!”
Jeremy arose laughing, and, having obtained Dorothy’s permission, they all lit their pipes, and, sitting there in the fading light, fell to talking about that sad scene of slaughter, which indeed appeared that night to have a strange fascination for Mr. Cardus. He asked Ernest and Jeremy about it again and again—how this man was killed, and that?—did they die at once? and so on.
The subject was always distressing to Ernest, and one to which he rarely alluded, full as it was for him of the most painful recollections, especially those connected with his dear friend Alston and his son.
Dorothy knew this, and knew too that Ernest would be low spirited, for at least a day after the conversation, which she did her best to stop. At last she succeeded; but the melancholy associations connected with the talk had apparently already done their work, for everybody lapsed into the most complete silence, and sat grouped together at the top end of the old oak table as quietly as though they were cut in stone. Meanwhile, the twilight deepened, and little gusts of wind arose, and gently shook the old-fashioned window-lattices, making a sound as though feeble hands were trying to throw them open. The dull evening light crept from place to place, and threw great shadows about the room, glanced upon the armour on its panelled walls, and at last began to die away into darkness. The whole scene was eerie, and for some unknown reason it oppressed Dorothy. She wondered why everybody was so silent, and yet she herself did not feel equal to breaking the silence; there was a load upon her heart.
Just then a curious thing happened. As may be remembered, the case containing the wonderful mummied head, found by Eva Ceswick, had years before been placed by Jeremy upon a bracket at the end of the room. Round about this case hung various pieces of armour, and among others, above it, suspended by a piece of string from a projecting hook, was a heavy iron gauntlet. For many years—twenty or more—it had hung from the hook, but now at last the string was worn through, and even as Dorothy was wondering at the silence it gave. Down came the heavy iron hand with a crash, and, as it passed, it caught the latch of the long air-tight case, and jarred the door wide open.
Everybody in the room sprang to their feet, and, as they did so, a last ray from the setting sun struggled through one of the windows and rested upon the open case, staining it, and all about it, the hue of blood, and filling the fearful crystal eyes within with a lurid light. How they glowed and shone, to be sure, after their long years of sleep!—for the case had scarcely been opened for years—while their tremulous glance, now dull, now intense, according as the light played upon them, appeared to wander round and round the room, as though in search of somebody or something.
It was an awful sight which that ray of sunlight showed, as it played upon the trembling crystal orbs, the scornful, deathly features, and the matchless hair that streamed on either side. Together with the sudden break in the silence, caused by the crashing fall of the gauntlet, as it had done many years before, it proved altogether too much for the beholder’s nerves.
“What is that?” asked Ernest, with a start, as the gauntlet fell.
Dorothy glanced up and gave a little cry of horror. “Oh, that dreadful head! it is looking at us.”
They all rose to their feet, and Dorothy, seizing Ernest by one hand, and covering her eyes with the other, retreated, slowly followed by the others, towards the swing-door. Soon they had reached the door, were through it, down the passage, and out into the peaceful stillness of the evening. Then Jeremy spoke, and his language was more forcible than polite.