“He is not one of the regular priests of the temple,” said Strickland. “I think I should peculiarly like to lay my hands on him.”
There was no spring in our gallop on the racecourse that evening. The horses were stale, and moved as though they had been ridden out.
“The fright after breakfast has been too much for them,” said Strickland.
That was the only remark he made through the remainder of the ride. Once or twice I think he swore to himself; but that did not count.
We came back in the dark at seven o’clock, and saw that there were no lights in the bungalow. “Careless ruffians my servants are!” said Strickland.
My horse reared at something on the carriage drive, and Fleete stood up under its nose.
“What are you doing, grovelling about the garden?” said Strickland.
But both horses bolted and nearly threw us. We dismounted by the stables and returned to Fleete, who was on his hands and knees under the orange- bushes.
“What the devil’s wrong with you?” said Strickland.
“Nothing, nothing in the world,” said Fleete, speaking very quickly and thickly. “I’ve been gardening-botanising you know. The smell of the earth is delightful. I think I’m going for a walk-a long walk-all night.”
Then I saw that there was something excessively out of order somewhere, and I said to Strickland, “I am not dining out.”
“Bless you!” said Strickland. “Here, Fleete, get up. You’ll catch fever there. Come in to dinner and let’s have the lamps lit. We’ll all dine at home.”
Fleete stood up unwillingly, and said, “No lamps-no lamps. It’s much nicer here. Let’s dine outside and have some more chops-lots of ’em and underdone—bloody ones with gristle.”
Now a December evening in Northern India is bitterly cold, and Fleete’s suggestion was that of a maniac.
“Come in,” said Strickland sternly. “Come in at once.”
Fleete came, and when the lamps were brought, we saw that he was literally plastered with dirt from head to foot. He must have been rolling in the garden. He shrank from the light and went to his room. His eyes were horrible to look at. There was a green light behind them, not in them, if you understand, and the man’s lower lip hung down.
Strickland said, “There is going to be trouble-big trouble-to-night. Don’t you change your riding-things.”
We waited and waited for Fleete’s reappearance, and ordered dinner in the meantime. We could hear him moving about his own room, but there was no light there. Presently from the room came the long-drawn howl of a wolf.
People write and talk lightly of blood running cold and hair standing up and things of that kind. Both sensations are too horrible to be trifled with. My heart stopped as though a knife had been driven through it, and Strickland turned as white as the tablecloth.
The howl was repeated, and was answered by another howl far across the fields.
That set the gilded roof on the horror. Strickland dashed into Fleete’s room. I followed, and we saw Fleete getting out of the window. He made beast-noises in the back of his throat. He could not answer us when we shouted at him. He spat.
I don’t quite remember what followed, but I think that Strickland must have stunned him with the long boot-jack or else I should never have been able to sit on his chest. Fleete could not speak, he could only snarl, and his snarls were those of a wolf, not of a man. The human spirit must have been giving way all day and have died out with the twilight. We were dealing with a beast that had once been Fleete.
The affair was beyond any human and rational experience. I tried to say “Hydrophobia,” but the word wouldn’t come, because I knew that I was lying.
We bound this beast with leather thongs of the punkah-rope, and tied its thumbs and big toes together, and gagged it with a shoe-horn, which makes a very efficient gag if you know how to arrange it. Then we carried it into the dining-room, and sent a man to Dumoise, the doctor, telling him to come over at once. After we had despatched the messenger and were drawing breath, Strickland said, “It’s no good. This isn’t any doctor’s work.” I, also, knew that he spoke the truth.
The beast’s head was free, and it threw it about from side to side. Any one entering the room would have believed that we were curing a wolf’s pelt. That was the most loathsome accessory of all.
Strickland sat with his chin in the heel of his fist, watching the beast as it wriggled on the ground, but saying nothing. The shirt had been torn open in the scuffle and showed the black rosette mark on the left breast. It stood out like a blister.
In the silence of the watching we heard something without mewing like a she-otter. We both rose to our feet, and, I answer for myself, not Strickland, felt sick—actually and physically sick. We told each other, as did the men in Pinafore, that it was the cat.
Dumoise arrived, and I never saw a little man so unprofessionally shocked. He said that it was a heart-rending case of hydrophobia, and that nothing could be done. At least any palliative measures would only prolong the agony. The beast was foaming at the mouth. Fleete, as we told Dumoise, had been bitten by dogs once or twice. Any man who keeps half a dozen terriers must expect a nip now and again. Dumoise could offer no help. He could only certify that Fleete was dying of hydrophobia. The beast was then howling, for it had managed to spit out the shoe-horn. Dumoise said that he would be ready to certify to the cause of death, and that the end was certain. He was a good little man, and he offered to remain with us; but Strickland refused the kindness. He did not wish to poison Dumoise’s New Year. He would only ask him not to give the real cause of Fleete’s death to the public.
So Dumoise left, deeply agitated; and as soon as the noise of the cart-wheels had died away, Strickland told me, in a whisper, his suspicions. They were so wildly improbable that he dared not say them out aloud; and I, who entertained all Strickland’s beliefs, was so ashamed of owning to them that I pretended to disbelieve.
“Even if the Silver Man had bewtiched Fleete for polluting the image of Hanuman, the punishment could not have fallen so quickly.”
As I was whispering this the cry outside the house rose again, and the beast fell into a fresh paroxysm of struggling till we were afraid that the thongs that held it would give way.
“Watch!” said Strickland. “If this happens six times I shall take the law into my own hands. I order you to help me.”
He went into his room and came out in a few minutes with the barrels of an old shot-gun, a piece of fishing-line, some thick cord, and his heavy wooden bedstead. I reported that the convulsions had followed the cry by two seconds in each case, and the beast seemed perceptibly weaker.
Strickland muttered, “But he can’t take away the life! He can’t take away the life!”
I said, though I knew that I was arguing against myself, “It may be a cat. It must be a cat. If the Silver Man is responsible, why does he dare to come here?”
Strickland arranged the wood on the hearth, put the gun-barrels into the glow of the fire, spread the twine on the table and broke a walking stick in two. There was one yard of fishing line, gut, lapped with wire, such as is used for mahseer-fishing, and he tied the two ends together in a loop.
Then he said, “How can we catch him? He must be taken alive and unhurt.”
I said that we must trust in Providence, and go out softly with polo-sticks into the shrubbery at the front of the house. The man or animal that made the cry was evidently moving round the house as regularly as a night-watchman. We could wait in the bushes till he came by and knock him over.