"In the first place," replied John Silence, making himself comfortable against the rock, "it is of human origin, this animal; it is undoubted lycanthropy."
His words had the effect precisely of a bombshell. Maloney listened as though he had been struck.
"You puzzle me utterly," he said, sitting up closer and staring at him.
"Perhaps," replied the other, "but if you'll listen to me for a few moments you may be less puzzled at the end—or more. It depends how much you know. Let me go further and say that you have underestimated, or miscalculated, the effect of this primitive wild life upon all of you."
"In what way?" asked the clergyman, bristling a trifle.
"It is strong medicine for any town-dweller, and for some of you it has been too strong. One of you has gone wild." He uttered these last words with great emphasis.
"Gone savage," he added, looking from one to the other.
Neither of us found anything to reply.
"To say that the brute has awakened in a man is not a mere metaphor always," he went on presently.
"Of course not!"