Why he should emphasise this warning just as Channing had done struck me as very curious. It might be, of course, that he was in love with her himself, and regarded me as a possible rival. This, indeed, was the impression conveyed to me by his words, and it aroused within me a vague feeling of distrust. That quick sinister glance when I had been introduced still lingered in my memory.
“I can’t think why you should so repeatedly warn me,” I remarked, laughing with affected amusement. “It really isn’t likely that I shall fall in love with her.”
He made no response. He only puffed slowly at his cigar, and smiled cynically through the veil of smoke he created.
I replaced my cigar in my mouth—for my friend was evidently a connoisseur of Havanas, and this was an excellent one—but at that instant my tongue, as I twisted it in my mouth, came in contact with the cut end of the weed, and I felt pricked as if by some sharp point. Quickly I removed it and examined it closely, exclaiming—
“Do they wrap up needles in your cigars? Look!” And I passed it across to him, indicating where, protruding from the end, which I had chopped off with the cutter on my watchguard, was the tiny point of either a needle or a pin.
“Extraordinary!” he ejaculated, taking it from my hand and examining it carefully.
But ere a few moments had elapsed I felt a strange sensation creeping upon me; a curious chilliness ran down my spine, my tongue seemed swelling until it filled my mouth, and my brain felt aflame.
“God?” I cried, springing to my feet in alarm. “Why, I believe I’m poisoned!”
“Nonsense!” he laughed. His voice seemed to sound afar off, and I saw his dog’s face slowly assume an expression of evil as he sat opposite, intently watching me.
A sudden dizziness seized me; a spasm of sharp pain shot through all my limbs from head to toe; my senses reeled, I could see nothing distinctly. The man Hickman’s ugly visage seemed slowly to fade in a blurred, blood-red mist.