“‘Ach. Dumkopf! Of course! I haf forgot dot. But, ve vill fool dot hell-plant. He goes yet on hunger-strike—no? Ve try now dot forcible feeding.’
“He took out his knife and cut from a near-by tree several small splinters.
“Ve vill feed him, so. Dot vood, it vill be for him a greadt feast, und he shall eat und eat, und we vill study him und see vot we vill see.’
“Laughing, he bent over and shook out the tiny gray residue which was in the box. He dropped in a sliver of wood and was bending over to refill his box when I felt a sting on my foot. I looked down, and my heart stood still.
“On my shoe, just in between the laces, was a spot of gray. I could not move. I was cold. I can not describe how I felt, but I seemed turned to stone. My flesh quivered and shrank and I was sick—very sick. Sigmund looked up, startled, and then he looked at my feet.
“The next thing I knew I was on my back, my foot in his hand. One slash of his knife across the thongs which laced my boot, and he jerked it off.
“The biting grew worse. I heard him gasp, and then I felt a sharp pain. My head swam and I must have fainted. I regained consciousness—I don’t know how soon after—and I found myself back under the trees. I looked at my foot, which was throbbing and burning like fire. It was swathed in a bandage that Von Housmann had taken from his emergency kit and was wrapping around the instep. It was deeply stained with blood. I moved, and he looked up. He smiled when he saw I was conscious.
“‘Dot was a close shave—yes? It had just eaten into der shoe as I pulled it off und one spot—lige a bencil dot—on your skin vas gray. So I cut it out and all around it, und so you haf a hole in your foot, but—you haf your foot. Now so! You lie here, und I get der niggers and ve take you to bed.’
“A tent was soon erected and I was carried into it. For two days I lay there, delirious half the time. Sigmund never left my side. He even slept there. He was insistent that it was his fault. He said one of the apparently dead fungi had dropped on my shoe and had revived there. That is, the plant, instead of dying, had shriveled up, but the life-nucleus was still strong. I shudder even now when I think of what might have been.
“At the end of the third day I was able to hobble about a little with the aid of a cane. That afternoon Sigmund came to me and asked if I would care to go with him to fill his little glass box. I refused, and he laughed. It was the last time I ever heard him laugh. I begged him to leave that stuff alone.