his head as if in search of something. At last one of the wandering tentacles touched me, and in a moment the others were wound around me, and I was tenderly enclosed in a sort of living and pulsating network, which did not squeeze or crush me, but merely retained me as in a covered basket of open work. When I had lost my powers of movement I had for an instant contemplated the horrible possibility of falling through space to the distant sea, but now I felt perfectly safe again. My ability to move was restored, too, though, instead of floating through the air, I trod upon the mass of twisted tentacles. My first impulse was to explore my extra-ordinary place of refuge. It was ovoid in shape. At one end the extremities of the orange feelers were matted and knotted together into a hard firm mass; but at the other I discovered an immense opening which I immediately recognised as the mouth-by this time greatly increased in size of my elastic conductor. I entered it, walking boldly over the warm, smooth lower-lip, climbing with some difficulty
