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. “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.