He had found it a few minutes ago, near the witch-doctor's hut, scurrying in a direction away from it. The insect, or animal, or whatever the thing was, had the size and shape of a marble. It was greyish-black in colour, had two tiny yellow eyes and, in its mouth, which opened and closed continuously, a number of sharp, white teeth could be seen. In general, it was a tiny sphere with two little legs the same colour as the rest of the body.
When the professor returned to camp he immediately started to make inquiries about the strange creature he had found. He showed it to the first person he met, Mawunya, one of his servants. On being asked what it was, Mawunya peered down into the jar, stared at the monster for a few seconds, then sprang back in terror. He screamed out in his native language, then ran away yelling out, "Kriff! Kriff! Yaaii! Kriff!"
Mawunya was never seen again.
"Stupid fools!" said Professor Jacobs. "Them and their black voodoo rubbish!" Night had fallen. The professor, while examining his tiny pet, was reflecting on the reactions of his men during the day, all of which had been similar to that of Mawunya. The little yellow eyes seemed to glare at him viciously and the mouth, opening and closing, had a hypnotic effect on him. The professor yawned, and decided to continue his studies on the morrow.
Jacobs awoke next morning with a splitting headache. He took a couple of aspirin and picked up his jar. His face fell when he saw that Kriff was gone.
Maybe he could find another one later, but, for the moment, he had much work to do down in the village. As he set off on the dusty road to the village his head felt worse and worse, until suddenly he gave a scream, and fell to the ground as he felt his brain being torn apart. He was found there on the road later in the day. He was lying face upwards, looking quite normal, except that he had only one eye in his head. Where the other used to be was just a hole from which flowed a little trickle of blood. Even as they watched, his finders saw the other eye slowly pulled inwards, heard a munching sound inside the head, and then saw two small yellow eyes peeping out of the space where a few seconds ago there had been one human one. The yellow eyes disappeared at the eye-socket and re-appeared looking out of Jacobs' mouth. Then the thing squeezed out between the white lips and ran over the road towards a group of horrified natives, who all rushed off yelling out, "Kriff! Kriff!"
Back on the road, Professor Jacobs' head was left hollowed out, empty except for the hard skull and the flesh on the outer side of it.
Kriff, the head-eater, had struck.