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.