ith metal, the stone sank right through the surface of the Thing as
into a pool of protoplastic slime. When it reached the central core of
the object, a more abundant life suddenly leaped and pulsed from
center to circumference. Visible waves of sentient color circled round
the solid stone. Stabbing swords of light leaped forth from them,
piercing the stone, crumbling it, absorbing it. When it was gone, only
a red spot, like a bloodshot eye, throbbed eerily where it had been.

Before the now thoroughly mystified crowd had time to remark upon this
inexplicable disintegration, a more horrible manifestation occurred.
The Thing, as though thoroughly awakened and vitalized by its unusual
fare, was putting forth a tentacle. Right from the top of the
shivering globe it pushed, sluggishly weaving and prescient of doom.
Wavering, it hung for a moment, turning, twisting, groping. Finally it
shot straight outward swift as a rattler's strike!

Before the closely packed crowd could give room for escape, it had
circled the neck of the nearest bystander, Bill Jones, a cattleman,
and jerked him, writhing and screaming, into the reddish core.
Stupefied with soul-chilling terror, with their mass-consciousness
practically annihilated before a deed with which their minds could
make no association, the crowd could only gasp in sobbing unison and
await the outcome.

* * * * *

The absorption of the stone had taught them what to expect, and for a
moment it seemed that their worst anticipations were to be realised. The
sluggish currents circled through the Thing, swirling the victim's body to
the center. The giant tentacle drew back into the globe and became itself
a current. The concentric circles merged--tightened--became one gleaming
cord that encircled the helpless prey. From the inner circumference of
this cord shot forth, not the swords of light that had powdered the stone
to atoms, but myriads of radiant tentacles that gripped and cupped the
body in a thousand places.

Suddenly the tentacles withdrew themselves, all save the ones that
grasped the head. These seemed to tighten their pressure--to swell and
pulse with a grayish substance that was flowing from the cups into the
cord and from the cord into the body of the mass. Yes, it was a
grayish something, a smokelike Essence that was being drawn from the
cranial cavity. Bill Jones was no longer screaming and gibbering, but
was stiff with the rigidity