nger toes and fingers. Its head was partly human, partly lupine--the
skull, ears, teeth, and eyes were those of a wolf, whilst the remaining
features were those of a man. Its complexion was devoid of colour,
startlingly white; its eyes green and lurid, its expression hellish.

Stanislaus and Anno did not know what to make of it. Was it some
terrible monstrosity that had escaped from a show, or something that was
peculiar to the forest itself, something generated by the giant trees
and dark, silent road? In their sublime terror they shrieked aloud, beat
the air with their hands to ward it off, and finally left their seats to
cling on to the back of the driver's box.

But it came nearer, nearer, and nearer, until they were almost within
reach of its arms. They read death in the glinting greenness of its eyes
and in the flashing of its long bared teeth. The climax of their agony,
they argued, could no longer be postponed. The thing had only to make a
grab at them and they would die of horror--die even before it touched
them. But this was not to be.

They were still staring into the pale malevolent face drawing nearer and
nearer, and wondering when the long twitching fingers would catch them
by the throats, when the droshky with a mad swirl forward cleared the
forest, and they found themselves gazing wildly into empty moonlit
space, with no sign of their pursuer anywhere.

An hour later they narrated their adventure to the Baron. Nothing could
have exceeded his distress. "My dear friends!" he said, "I owe you a
profound apology. I ought to have told my man to choose any other road
rather than that through the forest, which is well known to be haunted.
According to rumour, a werwolf--we have good reason to believe in
werwolfs here--was killed there many years ago."

CHAPTER IV

HOW TO BECOME A WERWOLF

As I have already stated, in some people lycanthropy is hereditary; and
when it is not hereditary it may be acquired through the performance of
certain of the rites ordained by Black Magic. For the present I can only
deal with the more general features of these rites (which vary according
to locality) and the conditions of mind essential to those who would
successfully practise these rites. In the first place, it is necessary
that the person desirous of acquiring the property of lycanthropy should
be in earnest and a believer in those superphysical powers whose favour
he is about to ask.

Assuming we have such