“And that Thing was writhing and twisting. The gray mass extended as far as I could see ahead; to the right the sandy shore of the river stopped it; and to the left and in front of us it terminated at a distance of a few yards away from the trees where a belt of sand intervened.
“I don’t know how long we stood there, my friend Von Housmann and I. It fascinated us. At last he spoke.
“‘Heilige Mütter. Was kommt da? Vat in der name off all dot iss holy do you call dot? Nefer haf I seen such before. Eferyvere I haf traffeled, but nefer haf I seen a sight lige dot. I tell you, it makes my flesh crawl!’
“‘It makes me sick to look at it,’ I answered. ‘It looks like—like living corruption.’
“The old German shook his head. He was baffled. We knew we were looking upon something that no living mortal had ever gazed upon before. And our flesh crawled, as we watched that Thing writhing beneath its blanket of gray.
“We walked slowly and cautiously across the strip of sand to the edge of the gray patch. As I bent over, the pungency of the odor bit into the membrane of my nostrils like an acid, and my eyes smarted.
“And then I saw something that drove all other thoughts from my mind. The mass was a mosslike growth of tiny gray fungi. They were shaped like miniature mushrooms, but out of the top of each grew a countless number of antennae that twisted and writhed around ceaselessly in the air.
“They seemed to be feeling and groping around for something, and it was this incessant movement that gave to the patch that quivering undulation which I had noticed before. I stared until my eyes ached.
“‘What do you make of it?’ I asked my friend.
“‘Ach, I do not know. It iss incompbrehensible. I haf nefer seen such a—a t’ing in my whole, long life. It iss, I should say, some sort off a fungoid growt’. Ya, it iss clearly dot. But der species—um, dot iss not so clear. Und dose liddle feelers; on a fungus dot iss new. It iss unheard off. See, der veddammte t’ings iss lige lifting fingers; dey svay und tvist lige dey vas feeling for somet’ings, not? I am egseedingly curious. Und, I am baffled—und, my frient, I do not lige dot.’