There was no
give to it. It tried to wriggle backwards but I had it under its jaws.
So there we were: it wriggling, writhing and lashing and me laying there
holding it at arms length. I felt the sweat start on me and the hair at
the nap of my neck raise up, and I did some quick and complicated
thinking. Of course, I dared not throw it away, but I got to my feet and
as I did so, tried to bend its head backwards against the stone floor.
But the head slipped sideways. I called on Somerfield for a light then,
and he struck one hurriedly and it went out immediately. All that I saw
was that the thing was white and had a triangular shaped head.
"Somehow I ran against Somerfield before he got another match struck and
he swore at me, saying that I had cut him. I knew that I had touched him
with my outstretched hand that held the beast. I drew back my hand a
little and remembered afterwards that I then felt a slight, elastic
resistance as if the thing that I held had caught on to something, as it
had before to my blanket. Afterwards I found that the thing had gotten
Somerfield's neck. As he struck another match, I saw the low place in
the wall and flung the thing away with a quick jerk. You know the kind
of a motion you'd make getting rid of some unseen noxious thing like
that.
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