Page:Options (1909).djvu/250

 side for a few minutes to attend to some detail affecting the seven-o’clock dinner. She was a passed mistress in housekeeping. I had tasted her puddings and bread with beatitude.

When all had gone, I turned casually and saw a basket made of plaited green withes hanging by a nail outside the door-jamb. With a rush that made my hot temples throb there came vividly to my mind recollections of the head-hunters—''those grim, flinty, relentless little men, never seen, but chilling the warmest noonday by the subtle terror of their concealed presence. From time to time, as vanity or ennui or love or jealousy or ambition may move him, one creeps forth with his snickersnee and takes up the silent trail. Back he comes, triumphant, bearing the severed, gory head of his victim His particular brown or white maid lingers, with fluttering bosom, casting soft tiger’s eyes at the evidence of his love for her.''

I stole softly from the house and returned to my hut. From its supporting nails in the wall I took a machete as heavy as a butcher’s cleaver and sharper than a safety-razor. And then I chuckled softly to myself, and set out to the fastidiously appointed private office of Rh