Now they were almost entirely detached, only the tips
touching the meerschaum, and those particular feelers were gathered up as
though the creature were in the act of taking a spring. Of course I was
under a misapprehension: the feelers _couldn't_ have been twined; a moment
before I should have been ready to bet a thousand to one that they were.
Still, one does make mistakes, and very egregious mistakes, at times. At
the same time, I confess that when I saw that dreadful-looking animal
poised on the extreme edge of the bowl, for all the world as though it
were just going to spring at me, I was a little startled. I remembered
that when I was smoking the pipe I did think I saw the uplifted tentacle
moving, as though it were reaching out to me. And I had a clear
recollection that just as I had been sinking into that strange state of
unconsciousness, I had been under the impression that the creature was
writhing and twisting, as though it had suddenly become instinct with
life. Under the circumstances, these reflections were not pleasant. I
wished Tress had not talked that nonsense about the thing being haunted.
It was surely sufficient to know that it was drugged and poisonous,
without anything else.
I replaced it in the sandalwood box. I locked the box in a cabinet. Quite
apart from the question as to whether that pipe was or was not haunted, I
know it haunted me.
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