The Witch's Head

by H. Rider Haggard

“Well, I am blowed!” he said, wiping the cold perspiration from his forehead.

“Oh, Reginald, I do wish you would get that horrible thing out of the house; there has been nothing but misfortune ever since it has been here. I cannot bear it, I cannot bear it!” said Dolly, hysterically.

“Nonsense, you superstitious child!” answered Mr. Cardus, who was now recovering from his start. “The gauntlet knocked the door open, that was all. It is nothing but a mummied head; but, if you don’t like it, I will send it to the British Museum to-morrow.”

“Oh, please do, Reginald,” answered Dorothy, who appeared quite unhinged.

So hurried had been their retreat from the room that everybody had forgotten “Hard-riding Atterleigh” sitting in the dark in the ingle-nook. But the bustle in the room had attracted him, and already, before they had left, he had projected his large head covered with the tangled gray locks, and begun to stare about. Presently his eyes fell upon the crystal orbs, and then, to him, the orbs appeared to cease their wanderings and rest upon his eyes. For awhile the two heads stared at each other thus—the golden head without a body in the box, and the gray head that, thrust out as it were from the ingle-wall, seemed to have no body either. They stared and stared, till at last the golden head got the mastery of the grey head, and the old man crept from his corner, crept down the room till he was almost beneath the baleful eyes, and nodded, nodded, nodded at them.

And they, too, seemed to nod, nod, nod at him. Then he retreated backwards as slowly as he had come, nodding all the while, till he came to where the broken assegai lay upon the table, and, taking it, thrust it up his sleeve. As he did so, the ray of light faded and the fiery eyes went out. It was as though the thick white lids and long eyelashes had dropped over them.

None of the other four returned to the sitting-room that night.

When he had recovered from his fright, Jeremy went into his little room, the same in which he used to stuff birds as a boy, and busied himself with his farm accounts. Mr. Cardus, Dorothy, and Ernest walked about together in the balmy moonlight, for, very shortly after the twilight had departed, the great harvest-moon came up and flooded the world with light. Mr. Cardus was in a talkative, excited mood that night. He talked about his affairs, which he had now finally wound up, and about Mary Atterleigh, mentioning little tricks of manner and voice which were reproduced in Dorothy. He talked too about Ernest’s and Dorothy’s marriage, and said what a comfort it was to him. Finally, about ten o’clock, he said that he was tired and was going to bed.

“God bless you, my dears; sleep well! Good-night,” he said. “We will settle about that new orchid-house to-morrow. Good-night, good-night.”

Shortly afterwards Dorothy and Ernest also went to bed, reaching their room by a back entrance, for they neither of them felt inclined to come under the fire of the crystal eyes again, and soon they were asleep in each other’s arms.