Sentence:  Crawley, who what with the habit of cerebral hallucination due to brandy and the present flutter of his spirits and his conscience, had for a moment or two lost all landmarks of probability, no sooner felt his hand encounter a tail — slight in size, but stiff as a pug's, and straight as a pointer's —than he uttered a dismal howl, and it is said that for a single moment he really suspected premature <WSD>caudation</WSD> had been inflicted on him for his crimes. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  The property of having a caudate extension or tail.