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