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diff --git a/159-h/159-h.htm b/159-h/159-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..364257c --- /dev/null +++ b/159-h/159-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6131 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> +<meta charset="utf-8"> +<title>The Island of Doctor Moreau | Project Gutenberg</title> +<link href="images/cover.jpg" rel="icon" type="image/x-cover"> +<style> + +body { margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.footnote {font-size: 90%; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +sup { vertical-align: top; font-size: 0.6em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 159 ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt=""> +</div> + +<h1>The Island of Doctor Moreau</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by H. G. Wells</h2> + +<hr> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table> + +<tbody><tr> +<td> <a href="#pref01">INTRODUCTION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">I. IN THE DINGEY OF THE “LADY VAIN”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">II. THE MAN WHO WAS GOING NOWHERE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">III. THE STRANGE FACE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">IV. AT THE SCHOONER’S RAIL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">V. THE MAN WHO HAD NOWHERE TO GO</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">VI. THE EVIL-LOOKING BOATMEN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">VII. THE LOCKED DOOR</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">VIII. THE CRYING OF THE PUMA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">IX. THE THING IN THE FOREST</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">X. THE CRYING OF THE MAN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">XI. THE HUNTING OF THE MAN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">XII. THE SAYERS OF THE LAW</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">XIII. A PARLEY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">XIV. DOCTOR MOREAU EXPLAINS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">XV. CONCERNING THE BEAST FOLK</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">XVI. HOW THE BEAST FOLK TASTE BLOOD</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">XVII. A CATASTROPHE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">XVIII. THE FINDING OF MOREAU</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">XIX. MONTGOMERY’S “BANK HOLIDAY”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">XX. ALONE WITH THE BEAST FOLK</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">XXI. THE REVERSION OF THE BEAST FOLK</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">XXII. THE MAN ALONE</a></td> +</tr> + +</tbody></table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="pref01"></a>INTRODUCTION.</h2> + +<p> +On February the First 1887, the <i>Lady Vain</i> was lost by collision with a +derelict when about the latitude 1° S. and longitude 107° W. +</p> + +<p> +On January the Fifth, 1888—that is eleven months and four days +after—my uncle, Edward Prendick, a private gentleman, who certainly went +aboard the <i>Lady Vain</i> at Callao, and who had been considered drowned, was +picked up in latitude 5° 3′ S. and longitude 101° W. in a small +open boat of which the name was illegible, but which is supposed to have +belonged to the missing schooner <i>Ipecacuanha</i>. He gave such a strange +account of himself that he was supposed demented. Subsequently he alleged that +his mind was a blank from the moment of his escape from the <i>Lady Vain</i>. +His case was discussed among psychologists at the time as a curious instance of +the lapse of memory consequent upon physical and mental stress. The following +narrative was found among his papers by the undersigned, his nephew and heir, +but unaccompanied by any definite request for publication. +</p> + +<p> +The only island known to exist in the region in which my uncle was picked up is +Noble’s Isle, a small volcanic islet and uninhabited. It was visited in +1891 by <i>H. M. S. Scorpion</i>. A party of sailors then landed, but found +nothing living thereon except certain curious white moths, some hogs and +rabbits, and some rather peculiar rats. So that this narrative is without +confirmation in its most essential particular. With that understood, there +seems no harm in putting this strange story before the public in accordance, as +I believe, with my uncle’s intentions. There is at least this much in its +behalf: my uncle passed out of human knowledge about latitude 5° S. and +longitude 105° E., and reappeared in the same part of the ocean after a +space of eleven months. In some way he must have lived during the interval. And +it seems that a schooner called the <i>Ipecacuanha</i> with a drunken captain, +John Davies, did start from Africa with a puma and certain other animals aboard +in January, 1887, that the vessel was well known at several ports in the South +Pacific, and that it finally disappeared from those seas (with a considerable +amount of copra aboard), sailing to its unknown fate from Bayna in December, +1887, a date that tallies entirely with my uncle’s story. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +C<small>HARLES</small> E<small>DWARD</small> P<small>RENDICK</small>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>The Island of Doctor Moreau</h2> + +<p class="center"> +(The Story written by Edward Prendick.) +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap01"></a>I.<br> +IN THE DINGEY OF THE “LADY VAIN.”</h2> + +<p> +I do not propose to add anything to what has already been written concerning +the loss of the <i>Lady Vain</i>. As everyone knows, she collided with a +derelict when ten days out from Callao. The longboat, with seven of the crew, +was picked up eighteen days after by H. M. gunboat <i>Myrtle</i>, and the story +of their terrible privations has become quite as well known as the far more +horrible <i>Medusa</i> case. But I have to add to the published story of the +<i>Lady Vain</i> another, possibly as horrible and far stranger. It has +hitherto been supposed that the four men who were in the dingey perished, but +this is incorrect. I have the best of evidence for this assertion: I was one of +the four men. +</p> + +<p> +But in the first place I must state that there never were <i>four</i> men in +the dingey,—the number was three. Constans, who was “seen by the +captain to jump into the gig,”<a href="#fn1" id="fnref1"><sup>[1]</sup></a> +luckily for us and unluckily for himself did not reach us. He came down out of +the tangle of ropes under the stays of the smashed bowsprit, some small rope +caught his heel as he let go, and he hung for a moment head downward, and then +fell and struck a block or spar floating in the water. We pulled towards him, +but he never came up. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a id="fn1"></a> <a href="#fnref1">[1]</a> +<i>Daily News</i>, March 17, 1887. +</p> + +<p> +I say luckily for us he did not reach us, and I might almost say luckily for +himself; for we had only a small beaker of water and some soddened ship’s +biscuits with us, so sudden had been the alarm, so unprepared the ship for any +disaster. We thought the people on the launch would be better provisioned +(though it seems they were not), and we tried to hail them. They could not have +heard us, and the next morning when the drizzle cleared,—which was not +until past midday,—we could see nothing of them. We could not stand up to +look about us, because of the pitching of the boat. The two other men who had +escaped so far with me were a man named Helmar, a passenger like myself, and a +seaman whose name I don’t know,—a short sturdy man, with a stammer. +</p> + +<p> +We drifted famishing, and, after our water had come to an end, tormented by an +intolerable thirst, for eight days altogether. After the second day the sea +subsided slowly to a glassy calm. It is quite impossible for the ordinary +reader to imagine those eight days. He has not, luckily for himself, anything +in his memory to imagine with. After the first day we said little to one +another, and lay in our places in the boat and stared at the horizon, or +watched, with eyes that grew larger and more haggard every day, the misery and +weakness gaining upon our companions. The sun became pitiless. The water ended +on the fourth day, and we were already thinking strange things and saying them +with our eyes; but it was, I think, the sixth before Helmar gave voice to the +thing we had all been thinking. I remember our voices were dry and thin, so +that we bent towards one another and spared our words. I stood out against it +with all my might, was rather for scuttling the boat and perishing together +among the sharks that followed us; but when Helmar said that if his proposal +was accepted we should have drink, the sailor came round to him. +</p> + +<p> +I would not draw lots however, and in the night the sailor whispered to Helmar +again and again, and I sat in the bows with my clasp-knife in my hand, though I +doubt if I had the stuff in me to fight; and in the morning I agreed to +Helmar’s proposal, and we handed halfpence to find the odd man. The lot +fell upon the sailor; but he was the strongest of us and would not abide by it, +and attacked Helmar with his hands. They grappled together and almost stood up. +I crawled along the boat to them, intending to help Helmar by grasping the +sailor’s leg; but the sailor stumbled with the swaying of the boat, and +the two fell upon the gunwale and rolled overboard together. They sank like +stones. I remember laughing at that, and wondering why I laughed. The laugh +caught me suddenly like a thing from without. +</p> + +<p> +I lay across one of the thwarts for I know not how long, thinking that if I had +the strength I would drink sea-water and madden myself to die quickly. And even +as I lay there I saw, with no more interest than if it had been a picture, a +sail come up towards me over the sky-line. My mind must have been wandering, +and yet I remember all that happened, quite distinctly. I remember how my head +swayed with the seas, and the horizon with the sail above it danced up and +down; but I also remember as distinctly that I had a persuasion that I was +dead, and that I thought what a jest it was that they should come too late by +such a little to catch me in my body. +</p> + +<p> +For an endless period, as it seemed to me, I lay with my head on the thwart +watching the schooner (she was a little ship, schooner-rigged fore and aft) +come up out of the sea. She kept tacking to and fro in a widening compass, for +she was sailing dead into the wind. It never entered my head to attempt to +attract attention, and I do not remember anything distinctly after the sight of +her side until I found myself in a little cabin aft. There’s a dim +half-memory of being lifted up to the gangway, and of a big round countenance +covered with freckles and surrounded with red hair staring at me over the +bulwarks. I also had a disconnected impression of a dark face, with +extraordinary eyes, close to mine; but that I thought was a nightmare, until I +met it again. I fancy I recollect some stuff being poured in between my teeth; +and that is all. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap02"></a>II.<br> +THE MAN WHO WAS GOING NOWHERE.</h2> + +<p> +The cabin in which I found myself was small and rather untidy. A youngish man +with flaxen hair, a bristly straw-coloured moustache, and a dropping nether +lip, was sitting and holding my wrist. For a minute we stared at each other +without speaking. He had watery grey eyes, oddly void of expression. Then just +overhead came a sound like an iron bedstead being knocked about, and the low +angry growling of some large animal. At the same time the man spoke. He +repeated his question,—“How do you feel now?” +</p> + +<p> +I think I said I felt all right. I could not recollect how I had got there. He +must have seen the question in my face, for my voice was inaccessible to me. +</p> + +<p> +“You were picked up in a boat, starving. The name on the boat was the +<i>Lady Vain</i>, and there were spots of blood on the gunwale.” +</p> + +<p> +At the same time my eye caught my hand, so thin that it looked like a dirty +skin-purse full of loose bones, and all the business of the boat came back to +me. +</p> + +<p> +“Have some of this,” said he, and gave me a dose of some scarlet +stuff, iced. +</p> + +<p> +It tasted like blood, and made me feel stronger. +</p> + +<p> +“You were in luck,” said he, “to get picked up by a ship with +a medical man aboard.” He spoke with a slobbering articulation, with the +ghost of a lisp. +</p> + +<p> +“What ship is this?” I said slowly, hoarse from my long silence. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a little trader from Arica and Callao. I never asked where +she came from in the beginning,—out of the land of born fools, I guess. +I’m a passenger myself, from Arica. The silly ass who owns +her,—he’s captain too, named Davies,—he’s lost his +certificate, or something. You know the kind of man,—calls the thing the +<i>Ipecacuanha</i>, of all silly, infernal names; though when there’s +much of a sea without any wind, she certainly acts according.” +</p> + +<p> +(Then the noise overhead began again, a snarling growl and the voice of a human +being together. Then another voice, telling some “Heaven-forsaken +idiot” to desist.) +</p> + +<p> +“You were nearly dead,” said my interlocutor. “It was a very +near thing, indeed. But I’ve put some stuff into you now. Notice your +arm’s sore? Injections. You’ve been insensible for nearly thirty +hours.” +</p> + +<p> +I thought slowly. (I was distracted now by the yelping of a number of dogs.) +“Am I eligible for solid food?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks to me,” he said. “Even now the mutton is +boiling.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” I said with assurance; “I could eat some +mutton.” +</p> + +<p> +“But,” said he with a momentary hesitation, “you know +I’m dying to hear of how you came to be alone in that boat. <i>Damn that +howling</i>!” I thought I detected a certain suspicion in his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +He suddenly left the cabin, and I heard him in violent controversy with some +one, who seemed to me to talk gibberish in response to him. The matter sounded +as though it ended in blows, but in that I thought my ears were mistaken. Then +he shouted at the dogs, and returned to the cabin. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” said he in the doorway. “You were just beginning to +tell me.” +</p> + +<p> +I told him my name, Edward Prendick, and how I had taken to Natural History as +a relief from the dulness of my comfortable independence. +</p> + +<p> +He seemed interested in this. “I’ve done some science myself. I did +my Biology at University College,—getting out the ovary of the earthworm +and the radula of the snail, and all that. Lord! It’s ten years ago. But +go on! go on! tell me about the boat.” +</p> + +<p> +He was evidently satisfied with the frankness of my story, which I told in +concise sentences enough, for I felt horribly weak; and when it was finished he +reverted at once to the topic of Natural History and his own biological +studies. He began to question me closely about Tottenham Court Road and Gower +Street. “Is Caplatzi still flourishing? What a shop that was!” He +had evidently been a very ordinary medical student, and drifted incontinently +to the topic of the music halls. He told me some anecdotes. +</p> + +<p> +“Left it all,” he said, “ten years ago. How jolly it all used +to be! But I made a young ass of myself,—played myself out before I was +twenty-one. I daresay it’s all different now. But I must look up that ass +of a cook, and see what he’s done to your mutton.” +</p> + +<p> +The growling overhead was renewed, so suddenly and with so much savage anger +that it startled me. “What’s that?” I called after him, but +the door had closed. He came back again with the boiled mutton, and I was so +excited by the appetising smell of it that I forgot the noise of the beast that +had troubled me. +</p> + +<p> +After a day of alternate sleep and feeding I was so far recovered as to be able +to get from my bunk to the scuttle, and see the green seas trying to keep pace +with us. I judged the schooner was running before the wind. +Montgomery—that was the name of the flaxen-haired man—came in again +as I stood there, and I asked him for some clothes. He lent me some duck things +of his own, for those I had worn in the boat had been thrown overboard. They +were rather loose for me, for he was large and long in his limbs. He told me +casually that the captain was three-parts drunk in his own cabin. As I assumed +the clothes, I began asking him some questions about the destination of the +ship. He said the ship was bound to Hawaii, but that it had to land him first. +</p> + +<p> +“Where?” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s an island, where I live. So far as I know, it hasn’t +got a name.” +</p> + +<p> +He stared at me with his nether lip dropping, and looked so wilfully stupid of +a sudden that it came into my head that he desired to avoid my questions. I had +the discretion to ask no more. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap03"></a>III.<br> +THE STRANGE FACE.</h2> + +<p> +We left the cabin and found a man at the companion obstructing our way. He was +standing on the ladder with his back to us, peering over the combing of the +hatchway. He was, I could see, a misshapen man, short, broad, and clumsy, with +a crooked back, a hairy neck, and a head sunk between his shoulders. He was +dressed in dark-blue serge, and had peculiarly thick, coarse, black hair. I +heard the unseen dogs growl furiously, and forthwith he ducked +back,—coming into contact with the hand I put out to fend him off from +myself. He turned with animal swiftness. +</p> + +<p> +In some indefinable way the black face thus flashed upon me shocked me +profoundly. It was a singularly deformed one. The facial part projected, +forming something dimly suggestive of a muzzle, and the huge half-open mouth +showed as big white teeth as I had ever seen in a human mouth. His eyes were +blood-shot at the edges, with scarcely a rim of white round the hazel pupils. +There was a curious glow of excitement in his face. +</p> + +<p> +“Confound you!” said Montgomery. “Why the devil don’t +you get out of the way?” +</p> + +<p> +The black-faced man started aside without a word. I went on up the companion, +staring at him instinctively as I did so. Montgomery stayed at the foot for a +moment. “You have no business here, you know,” he said in a +deliberate tone. “Your place is forward.” +</p> + +<p> +The black-faced man cowered. “They—won’t have me +forward.” He spoke slowly, with a queer, hoarse quality in his voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t have you forward!” said Montgomery, in a menacing +voice. “But I tell you to go!” He was on the brink of saying +something further, then looked up at me suddenly and followed me up the ladder. +</p> + +<p> +I had paused half way through the hatchway, looking back, still astonished +beyond measure at the grotesque ugliness of this black-faced creature. I had +never beheld such a repulsive and extraordinary face before, and yet—if +the contradiction is credible—I experienced at the same time an odd +feeling that in some way I <i>had</i> already encountered exactly the features +and gestures that now amazed me. Afterwards it occurred to me that probably I +had seen him as I was lifted aboard; and yet that scarcely satisfied my +suspicion of a previous acquaintance. Yet how one could have set eyes on so +singular a face and yet have forgotten the precise occasion, passed my +imagination. +</p> + +<p> +Montgomery’s movement to follow me released my attention, and I turned +and looked about me at the flush deck of the little schooner. I was already +half prepared by the sounds I had heard for what I saw. Certainly I never +beheld a deck so dirty. It was littered with scraps of carrot, shreds of green +stuff, and indescribable filth. Fastened by chains to the mainmast were a +number of grisly staghounds, who now began leaping and barking at me, and by +the mizzen a huge puma was cramped in a little iron cage far too small even to +give it turning room. Farther under the starboard bulwark were some big hutches +containing a number of rabbits, and a solitary llama was squeezed in a mere box +of a cage forward. The dogs were muzzled by leather straps. The only human +being on deck was a gaunt and silent sailor at the wheel. +</p> + +<p> +The patched and dirty spankers were tense before the wind, and up aloft the +little ship seemed carrying every sail she had. The sky was clear, the sun +midway down the western sky; long waves, capped by the breeze with froth, were +running with us. We went past the steersman to the taffrail, and saw the water +come foaming under the stern and the bubbles go dancing and vanishing in her +wake. I turned and surveyed the unsavoury length of the ship. +</p> + +<p> +“Is this an ocean menagerie?” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“Looks like it,” said Montgomery. +</p> + +<p> +“What are these beasts for? Merchandise, curios? Does the captain think +he is going to sell them somewhere in the South Seas?” +</p> + +<p> +“It looks like it, doesn’t it?” said Montgomery, and turned +towards the wake again. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly we heard a yelp and a volley of furious blasphemy from the companion +hatchway, and the deformed man with the black face came up hurriedly. He was +immediately followed by a heavy red-haired man in a white cap. At the sight of +the former the staghounds, who had all tired of barking at me by this time, +became furiously excited, howling and leaping against their chains. The black +hesitated before them, and this gave the red-haired man time to come up with +him and deliver a tremendous blow between the shoulder-blades. The poor devil +went down like a felled ox, and rolled in the dirt among the furiously excited +dogs. It was lucky for him that they were muzzled. The red-haired man gave a +yawp of exultation and stood staggering, and as it seemed to me in serious +danger of either going backwards down the companion hatchway or forwards upon +his victim. +</p> + +<p> +So soon as the second man had appeared, Montgomery had started forward. +“Steady on there!” he cried, in a tone of remonstrance. A couple of +sailors appeared on the forecastle. The black-faced man, howling in a singular +voice rolled about under the feet of the dogs. No one attempted to help him. +The brutes did their best to worry him, butting their muzzles at him. There was +a quick dance of their lithe grey-figured bodies over the clumsy, prostrate +figure. The sailors forward shouted, as though it was admirable sport. +Montgomery gave an angry exclamation, and went striding down the deck, and I +followed him. The black-faced man scrambled up and staggered forward, going and +leaning over the bulwark by the main shrouds, where he remained, panting and +glaring over his shoulder at the dogs. The red-haired man laughed a satisfied +laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, Captain,” said Montgomery, with his lisp a little +accentuated, gripping the elbows of the red-haired man, “this won’t +do!” +</p> + +<p> +I stood behind Montgomery. The captain came half round, and regarded him with +the dull and solemn eyes of a drunken man. “Wha’ won’t +do?” he said, and added, after looking sleepily into Montgomery’s +face for a minute, “Blasted Sawbones!” +</p> + +<p> +With a sudden movement he shook his arms free, and after two ineffectual +attempts stuck his freckled fists into his side pockets. +</p> + +<p> +“That man’s a passenger,” said Montgomery. “I’d +advise you to keep your hands off him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go to hell!” said the captain, loudly. He suddenly turned and +staggered towards the side. “Do what I like on my own ship,” he +said. +</p> + +<p> +I think Montgomery might have left him then, seeing the brute was drunk; but he +only turned a shade paler, and followed the captain to the bulwarks. +</p> + +<p> +“Look you here, Captain,” he said; “that man of mine is not +to be ill-treated. He has been hazed ever since he came aboard.” +</p> + +<p> +For a minute, alcoholic fumes kept the captain speechless. “Blasted +Sawbones!” was all he considered necessary. +</p> + +<p> +I could see that Montgomery had one of those slow, pertinacious tempers that +will warm day after day to a white heat, and never again cool to forgiveness; +and I saw too that this quarrel had been some time growing. “The +man’s drunk,” said I, perhaps officiously; “you’ll do +no good.” +</p> + +<p> +Montgomery gave an ugly twist to his dropping lip. “He’s always +drunk. Do you think that excuses his assaulting his passengers?” +</p> + +<p> +“My ship,” began the captain, waving his hand unsteadily towards +the cages, “was a clean ship. Look at it now!” It was certainly +anything but clean. “Crew,” continued the captain, “clean, +respectable crew.” +</p> + +<p> +“You agreed to take the beasts.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I’d never set eyes on your infernal island. What the +devil—want beasts for on an island like that? Then, that man of +yours—understood he was a man. He’s a lunatic; and he hadn’t +no business aft. Do you think the whole damned ship belongs to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Your sailors began to haze the poor devil as soon as he came +aboard.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s just what he is—he’s a devil! an ugly devil! My +men can’t stand him. <i>I</i> can’t stand him. None of us +can’t stand him. Nor <i>you</i> either!” +</p> + +<p> +Montgomery turned away. “<i>You</i> leave that man alone, anyhow,” +he said, nodding his head as he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +But the captain meant to quarrel now. He raised his voice. “If he comes +this end of the ship again I’ll cut his insides out, I tell you. Cut out +his blasted insides! Who are <i>you</i>, to tell <i>me</i> what +<i>I’m</i> to do? I tell you I’m captain of this +ship,—captain and owner. I’m the law here, I tell you,—the +law and the prophets. I bargained to take a man and his attendant to and from +Arica, and bring back some animals. I never bargained to carry a mad devil and +a silly Sawbones, a—” +</p> + +<p> +Well, never mind what he called Montgomery. I saw the latter take a step +forward, and interposed. “He’s drunk,” said I. The captain +began some abuse even fouler than the last. “Shut up!” I said, +turning on him sharply, for I had seen danger in Montgomery’s white face. +With that I brought the downpour on myself. +</p> + +<p> +However, I was glad to avert what was uncommonly near a scuffle, even at the +price of the captain’s drunken ill-will. I do not think I have ever heard +quite so much vile language come in a continuous stream from any man’s +lips before, though I have frequented eccentric company enough. I found some of +it hard to endure, though I am a mild-tempered man; but, certainly, when I told +the captain to “shut up” I had forgotten that I was merely a bit of +human flotsam, cut off from my resources and with my fare unpaid; a mere casual +dependant on the bounty, or speculative enterprise, of the ship. He reminded me +of it with considerable vigour; but at any rate I prevented a fight. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap04"></a>IV.<br> +AT THE SCHOONER’S RAIL.</h2> + +<p> +That night land was sighted after sundown, and the schooner hove to. Montgomery +intimated that was his destination. It was too far to see any details; it +seemed to me then simply a low-lying patch of dim blue in the uncertain +blue-grey sea. An almost vertical streak of smoke went up from it into the sky. +The captain was not on deck when it was sighted. After he had vented his wrath +on me he had staggered below, and I understand he went to sleep on the floor of +his own cabin. The mate practically assumed the command. He was the gaunt, +taciturn individual we had seen at the wheel. Apparently he was in an evil +temper with Montgomery. He took not the slightest notice of either of us. We +dined with him in a sulky silence, after a few ineffectual efforts on my part +to talk. It struck me too that the men regarded my companion and his animals in +a singularly unfriendly manner. I found Montgomery very reticent about his +purpose with these creatures, and about his destination; and though I was +sensible of a growing curiosity as to both, I did not press him. +</p> + +<p> +We remained talking on the quarter deck until the sky was thick with stars. +Except for an occasional sound in the yellow-lit forecastle and a movement of +the animals now and then, the night was very still. The puma lay crouched +together, watching us with shining eyes, a black heap in the corner of its +cage. Montgomery produced some cigars. He talked to me of London in a tone of +half-painful reminiscence, asking all kinds of questions about changes that had +taken place. He spoke like a man who had loved his life there, and had been +suddenly and irrevocably cut off from it. I gossiped as well as I could of this +and that. All the time the strangeness of him was shaping itself in my mind; +and as I talked I peered at his odd, pallid face in the dim light of the +binnacle lantern behind me. Then I looked out at the darkling sea, where in the +dimness his little island was hidden. +</p> + +<p> +This man, it seemed to me, had come out of Immensity merely to save my life. +To-morrow he would drop over the side, and vanish again out of my existence. +Even had it been under commonplace circumstances, it would have made me a +trifle thoughtful; but in the first place was the singularity of an educated +man living on this unknown little island, and coupled with that the +extraordinary nature of his luggage. I found myself repeating the +captain’s question. What did he want with the beasts? Why, too, had he +pretended they were not his when I had remarked about them at first? Then, +again, in his personal attendant there was a bizarre quality which had +impressed me profoundly. These circumstances threw a haze of mystery round the +man. They laid hold of my imagination, and hampered my tongue. +</p> + +<p> +Towards midnight our talk of London died away, and we stood side by side +leaning over the bulwarks and staring dreamily over the silent, starlit sea, +each pursuing his own thoughts. It was the atmosphere for sentiment, and I +began upon my gratitude. +</p> + +<p> +“If I may say it,” said I, after a time, “you have saved my +life.” +</p> + +<p> +“Chance,” he answered. “Just chance.” +</p> + +<p> +“I prefer to make my thanks to the accessible agent.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank no one. You had the need, and I had the knowledge; and I injected +and fed you much as I might have collected a specimen. I was bored and wanted +something to do. If I’d been jaded that day, or hadn’t liked your +face, well—it’s a curious question where you would have been +now!” +</p> + +<p> +This damped my mood a little. “At any rate,” I began. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a chance, I tell you,” he interrupted, “as +everything is in a man’s life. Only the asses won’t see it! Why am +I here now, an outcast from civilisation, instead of being a happy man enjoying +all the pleasures of London? Simply because eleven years ago—I lost my +head for ten minutes on a foggy night.” +</p> + +<p> +He stopped. “Yes?” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +We relapsed into silence. Presently he laughed. “There’s something +in this starlight that loosens one’s tongue. I’m an ass, and yet +somehow I would like to tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Whatever you tell me, you may rely upon my keeping to myself—if +that’s it.” +</p> + +<p> +He was on the point of beginning, and then shook his head, doubtfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t,” said I. “It is all the same to me. After all, +it is better to keep your secret. There’s nothing gained but a little +relief if I respect your confidence. If I don’t—well?” +</p> + +<p> +He grunted undecidedly. I felt I had him at a disadvantage, had caught him in +the mood of indiscretion; and to tell the truth I was not curious to learn what +might have driven a young medical student out of London. I have an imagination. +I shrugged my shoulders and turned away. Over the taffrail leant a silent black +figure, watching the stars. It was Montgomery’s strange attendant. It +looked over its shoulder quickly with my movement, then looked away again. +</p> + +<p> +It may seem a little thing to you, perhaps, but it came like a sudden blow to +me. The only light near us was a lantern at the wheel. The creature’s +face was turned for one brief instant out of the dimness of the stern towards +this illumination, and I saw that the eyes that glanced at me shone with a +pale-green light. I did not know then that a reddish luminosity, at least, is +not uncommon in human eyes. The thing came to me as stark inhumanity. That +black figure with its eyes of fire struck down through all my adult thoughts +and feelings, and for a moment the forgotten horrors of childhood came back to +my mind. Then the effect passed as it had come. An uncouth black figure of a +man, a figure of no particular import, hung over the taffrail against the +starlight, and I found Montgomery was speaking to me. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m thinking of turning in, then,” said he, “if +you’ve had enough of this.” +</p> + +<p> +I answered him incongruously. We went below, and he wished me good-night at the +door of my cabin. +</p> + +<p> +That night I had some very unpleasant dreams. The waning moon rose late. Its +light struck a ghostly white beam across my cabin, and made an ominous shape on +the planking by my bunk. Then the staghounds woke, and began howling and +baying; so that I dreamt fitfully, and scarcely slept until the approach of +dawn. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap05"></a>V.<br> +THE MAN WHO HAD NOWHERE TO GO.</h2> + +<p> +In the early morning (it was the second morning after my recovery, and I +believe the fourth after I was picked up), I awoke through an avenue of +tumultuous dreams,—dreams of guns and howling mobs,—and became +sensible of a hoarse shouting above me. I rubbed my eyes and lay listening to +the noise, doubtful for a little while of my whereabouts. Then came a sudden +pattering of bare feet, the sound of heavy objects being thrown about, a +violent creaking and the rattling of chains. I heard the swish of the water as +the ship was suddenly brought round, and a foamy yellow-green wave flew across +the little round window and left it streaming. I jumped into my clothes and +went on deck. +</p> + +<p> +As I came up the ladder I saw against the flushed sky—for the sun was +just rising—the broad back and red hair of the captain, and over his +shoulder the puma spinning from a tackle rigged on to the mizzen spanker-boom. +</p> + +<p> +The poor brute seemed horribly scared, and crouched in the bottom of its little +cage. +</p> + +<p> +“Overboard with ’em!” bawled the captain. “Overboard +with ’em! We’ll have a clean ship soon of the whole bilin’ of +’em.” +</p> + +<p> +He stood in my way, so that I had perforce to tap his shoulder to come on deck. +He came round with a start, and staggered back a few paces to stare at me. It +needed no expert eye to tell that the man was still drunk. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo!” said he, stupidly; and then with a light coming into his +eyes, “Why, it’s Mister—Mister?” +</p> + +<p> +“Prendick,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“Prendick be damned!” said he. “Shut-up,—that’s +your name. Mister Shut-up.” +</p> + +<p> +It was no good answering the brute; but I certainly did not expect his next +move. He held out his hand to the gangway by which Montgomery stood talking to +a massive grey-haired man in dirty-blue flannels, who had apparently just come +aboard. +</p> + +<p> +“That way, Mister Blasted Shut-up! that way!” roared the captain. +</p> + +<p> +Montgomery and his companion turned as he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“That way, Mister Blasted Shut-up,—that’s what I mean! +Overboard, Mister Shut-up,—and sharp! We’re cleaning the ship +out,—cleaning the whole blessed ship out; and overboard you go!” +</p> + +<p> +I stared at him dumfounded. Then it occurred to me that it was exactly the +thing I wanted. The lost prospect of a journey as sole passenger with this +quarrelsome sot was not one to mourn over. I turned towards Montgomery. +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t have you,” said Montgomery’s companion, +concisely. +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t have me!” said I, aghast. He had the squarest and +most resolute face I ever set eyes upon. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” I began, turning to the captain. +</p> + +<p> +“Overboard!” said the captain. “This ship aint for beasts and +cannibals and worse than beasts, any more. Overboard you go, Mister Shut-up. If +they can’t have you, you goes overboard. But, anyhow, you go—with +your friends. I’ve done with this blessed island for evermore, amen! +I’ve had enough of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Montgomery,” I appealed. +</p> + +<p> +He distorted his lower lip, and nodded his head hopelessly at the grey-haired +man beside him, to indicate his powerlessness to help me. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll see to <i>you</i>, presently,” said the captain. +</p> + +<p> +Then began a curious three-cornered altercation. Alternately I appealed to one +and another of the three men,—first to the grey-haired man to let me +land, and then to the drunken captain to keep me aboard. I even bawled +entreaties to the sailors. Montgomery said never a word, only shook his head. +“You’re going overboard, I tell you,” was the captain’s +refrain. “Law be damned! I’m king here.” At last I must +confess my voice suddenly broke in the middle of a vigorous threat. I felt a +gust of hysterical petulance, and went aft and stared dismally at nothing. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile the sailors progressed rapidly with the task of unshipping the +packages and caged animals. A large launch, with two standing lugs, lay under +the lee of the schooner; and into this the strange assortment of goods were +swung. I did not then see the hands from the island that were receiving the +packages, for the hull of the launch was hidden from me by the side of the +schooner. Neither Montgomery nor his companion took the slightest notice of me, +but busied themselves in assisting and directing the four or five sailors who +were unloading the goods. The captain went forward interfering rather than +assisting. I was alternately despairful and desperate. Once or twice as I stood +waiting there for things to accomplish themselves, I could not resist an +impulse to laugh at my miserable quandary. I felt all the wretcheder for the +lack of a breakfast. Hunger and a lack of blood-corpuscles take all the manhood +from a man. I perceived pretty clearly that I had not the stamina either to +resist what the captain chose to do to expel me, or to force myself upon +Montgomery and his companion. So I waited passively upon fate; and the work of +transferring Montgomery’s possessions to the launch went on as if I did +not exist. +</p> + +<p> +Presently that work was finished, and then came a struggle. I was hauled, +resisting weakly enough, to the gangway. Even then I noticed the oddness of the +brown faces of the men who were with Montgomery in the launch; but the launch +was now fully laden, and was shoved off hastily. A broadening gap of green +water appeared under me, and I pushed back with all my strength to avoid +falling headlong. The hands in the launch shouted derisively, and I heard +Montgomery curse at them; and then the captain, the mate, and one of the seamen +helping him, ran me aft towards the stern. +</p> + +<p> +The dingey of the <i>Lady Vain</i> had been towing behind; it was half full of +water, had no oars, and was quite unvictualled. I refused to go aboard her, and +flung myself full length on the deck. In the end, they swung me into her by a +rope (for they had no stern ladder), and then they cut me adrift. I drifted +slowly from the schooner. In a kind of stupor I watched all hands take to the +rigging, and slowly but surely she came round to the wind; the sails fluttered, +and then bellied out as the wind came into them. I stared at her weather-beaten +side heeling steeply towards me; and then she passed out of my range of view. +</p> + +<p> +I did not turn my head to follow her. At first I could scarcely believe what +had happened. I crouched in the bottom of the dingey, stunned, and staring +blankly at the vacant, oily sea. Then I realised that I was in that little hell +of mine again, now half swamped; and looking back over the gunwale, I saw the +schooner standing away from me, with the red-haired captain mocking at me over +the taffrail, and turning towards the island saw the launch growing smaller as +she approached the beach. +</p> + +<p> +Abruptly the cruelty of this desertion became clear to me. I had no means of +reaching the land unless I should chance to drift there. I was still weak, you +must remember, from my exposure in the boat; I was empty and very faint, or I +should have had more heart. But as it was I suddenly began to sob and weep, as +I had never done since I was a little child. The tears ran down my face. In a +passion of despair I struck with my fists at the water in the bottom of the +boat, and kicked savagely at the gunwale. I prayed aloud for God to let me die. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap06"></a>VI.<br> +THE EVIL-LOOKING BOATMEN.</h2> + +<p> +But the islanders, seeing that I was really adrift, took pity on me. I drifted +very slowly to the eastward, approaching the island slantingly; and presently I +saw, with hysterical relief, the launch come round and return towards me. She +was heavily laden, and I could make out as she drew nearer Montgomery’s +white-haired, broad-shouldered companion sitting cramped up with the dogs and +several packing-cases in the stern sheets. This individual stared fixedly at me +without moving or speaking. The black-faced cripple was glaring at me as +fixedly in the bows near the puma. There were three other men +besides,—three strange brutish-looking fellows, at whom the staghounds +were snarling savagely. Montgomery, who was steering, brought the boat by me, +and rising, caught and fastened my painter to the tiller to tow me, for there +was no room aboard. +</p> + +<p> +I had recovered from my hysterical phase by this time and answered his hail, as +he approached, bravely enough. I told him the dingey was nearly swamped, and he +reached me a piggin. I was jerked back as the rope tightened between the boats. +For some time I was busy baling. +</p> + +<p> +It was not until I had got the water under (for the water in the dingey had +been shipped; the boat was perfectly sound) that I had leisure to look at the +people in the launch again. +</p> + +<p> +The white-haired man I found was still regarding me steadfastly, but with an +expression, as I now fancied, of some perplexity. When my eyes met his, he +looked down at the staghound that sat between his knees. He was a +powerfully-built man, as I have said, with a fine forehead and rather heavy +features; but his eyes had that odd drooping of the skin above the lids which +often comes with advancing years, and the fall of his heavy mouth at the +corners gave him an expression of pugnacious resolution. He talked to +Montgomery in a tone too low for me to hear. +</p> + +<p> +From him my eyes travelled to his three men; and a strange crew they were. I +saw only their faces, yet there was something in their faces—I knew not +what—that gave me a queer spasm of disgust. I looked steadily at them, +and the impression did not pass, though I failed to see what had occasioned it. +They seemed to me then to be brown men; but their limbs were oddly swathed in +some thin, dirty, white stuff down even to the fingers and feet: I have never +seen men so wrapped up before, and women so only in the East. They wore turbans +too, and thereunder peered out their elfin faces at me,—faces with +protruding lower-jaws and bright eyes. They had lank black hair, almost like +horsehair, and seemed as they sat to exceed in stature any race of men I have +seen. The white-haired man, who I knew was a good six feet in height, sat a +head below any one of the three. I found afterwards that really none were +taller than myself; but their bodies were abnormally long, and the thigh-part +of the leg short and curiously twisted. At any rate, they were an amazingly +ugly gang, and over the heads of them under the forward lug peered the black +face of the man whose eyes were luminous in the dark. As I stared at them, they +met my gaze; and then first one and then another turned away from my direct +stare, and looked at me in an odd, furtive manner. It occurred to me that I was +perhaps annoying them, and I turned my attention to the island we were +approaching. +</p> + +<p> +It was low, and covered with thick vegetation,—chiefly a kind of palm, +that was new to me. From one point a thin white thread of vapour rose +slantingly to an immense height, and then frayed out like a down feather. We +were now within the embrace of a broad bay flanked on either hand by a low +promontory. The beach was of dull-grey sand, and sloped steeply up to a ridge, +perhaps sixty or seventy feet above the sea-level, and irregularly set with +trees and undergrowth. Half way up was a square enclosure of some greyish +stone, which I found subsequently was built partly of coral and partly of +pumiceous lava. Two thatched roofs peeped from within this enclosure. A man +stood awaiting us at the water’s edge. I fancied while we were still far +off that I saw some other and very grotesque-looking creatures scuttle into the +bushes upon the slope; but I saw nothing of these as we drew nearer. This man +was of a moderate size, and with a black negroid face. He had a large, almost +lipless, mouth, extraordinary lank arms, long thin feet, and bow-legs, and +stood with his heavy face thrust forward staring at us. He was dressed like +Montgomery and his white-haired companion, in jacket and trousers of blue +serge. As we came still nearer, this individual began to run to and fro on the +beach, making the most grotesque movements. +</p> + +<p> +At a word of command from Montgomery, the four men in the launch sprang up, and +with singularly awkward gestures struck the lugs. Montgomery steered us round +and into a narrow little dock excavated in the beach. Then the man on the beach +hastened towards us. This dock, as I call it, was really a mere ditch just long +enough at this phase of the tide to take the longboat. I heard the bows ground +in the sand, staved the dingey off the rudder of the big boat with my piggin, +and freeing the painter, landed. The three muffled men, with the clumsiest +movements, scrambled out upon the sand, and forthwith set to landing the cargo, +assisted by the man on the beach. I was struck especially by the curious +movements of the legs of the three swathed and bandaged boatmen,—not +stiff they were, but distorted in some odd way, almost as if they were jointed +in the wrong place. The dogs were still snarling, and strained at their chains +after these men, as the white-haired man landed with them. The three big +fellows spoke to one another in odd guttural tones, and the man who had waited +for us on the beach began chattering to them excitedly—a foreign +language, as I fancied—as they laid hands on some bales piled near the +stern. Somewhere I had heard such a voice before, and I could not think where. +The white-haired man stood, holding in a tumult of six dogs, and bawling orders +over their din. Montgomery, having unshipped the rudder, landed likewise, and +all set to work at unloading. I was too faint, what with my long fast and the +sun beating down on my bare head, to offer any assistance. +</p> + +<p> +Presently the white-haired man seemed to recollect my presence, and came up to +me. +</p> + +<p> +“You look,” said he, “as though you had scarcely +breakfasted.” His little eyes were a brilliant black under his heavy +brows. “I must apologise for that. Now you are our guest, we must make +you comfortable,—though you are uninvited, you know.” He looked +keenly into my face. “Montgomery says you are an educated man, Mr. +Prendick; says you know something of science. May I ask what that +signifies?” +</p> + +<p> +I told him I had spent some years at the Royal College of Science, and had done +some researches in biology under Huxley. He raised his eyebrows slightly at +that. +</p> + +<p> +“That alters the case a little, Mr. Prendick,” he said, with a +trifle more respect in his manner. “As it happens, we are biologists +here. This is a biological station—of a sort.” His eye rested on +the men in white who were busily hauling the puma, on rollers, towards the +walled yard. “I and Montgomery, at least,” he added. Then, +“When you will be able to get away, I can’t say. We’re off +the track to anywhere. We see a ship once in a twelve-month or so.” +</p> + +<p> +He left me abruptly, and went up the beach past this group, and I think entered +the enclosure. The other two men were with Montgomery, erecting a pile of +smaller packages on a low-wheeled truck. The llama was still on the launch with +the rabbit hutches; the staghounds were still lashed to the thwarts. The pile +of things completed, all three men laid hold of the truck and began shoving the +ton-weight or so upon it after the puma. Presently Montgomery left them, and +coming back to me held out his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m glad,” said he, “for my own part. That captain was +a silly ass. He’d have made things lively for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was you,” said I, “that saved me again.” +</p> + +<p> +“That depends. You’ll find this island an infernally rum place, I +promise you. I’d watch my goings carefully, if I were you. +<i>He</i>—” He hesitated, and seemed to alter his mind about what +was on his lips. “I wish you’d help me with these rabbits,” +he said. +</p> + +<p> +His procedure with the rabbits was singular. I waded in with him, and helped +him lug one of the hutches ashore. No sooner was that done than he opened the +door of it, and tilting the thing on one end turned its living contents out on +the ground. They fell in a struggling heap one on the top of the other. He +clapped his hands, and forthwith they went off with that hopping run of theirs, +fifteen or twenty of them I should think, up the beach. +</p> + +<p> +“Increase and multiply, my friends,” said Montgomery. +“Replenish the island. Hitherto we’ve had a certain lack of meat +here.” +</p> + +<p> +As I watched them disappearing, the white-haired man returned with a +brandy-flask and some biscuits. “Something to go on with, +Prendick,” said he, in a far more familiar tone than before. I made no +ado, but set to work on the biscuits at once, while the white-haired man helped +Montgomery to release about a score more of the rabbits. Three big hutches, +however, went up to the house with the puma. The brandy I did not touch, for I +have been an abstainer from my birth. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap07"></a>VII.<br> +THE LOCKED DOOR.</h2> + +<p> +The reader will perhaps understand that at first everything was so strange +about me, and my position was the outcome of such unexpected adventures, that I +had no discernment of the relative strangeness of this or that thing. I +followed the llama up the beach, and was overtaken by Montgomery, who asked me +not to enter the stone enclosure. I noticed then that the puma in its cage and +the pile of packages had been placed outside the entrance to this quadrangle. +</p> + +<p> +I turned and saw that the launch had now been unloaded, run out again, and was +being beached, and the white-haired man was walking towards us. He addressed +Montgomery. +</p> + +<p> +“And now comes the problem of this uninvited guest. What are we to do +with him?” +</p> + +<p> +“He knows something of science,” said Montgomery. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m itching to get to work again—with this new stuff,” +said the white-haired man, nodding towards the enclosure. His eyes grew +brighter. +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay you are,” said Montgomery, in anything but a cordial +tone. +</p> + +<p> +“We can’t send him over there, and we can’t spare the time to +build him a new shanty; and we certainly can’t take him into our +confidence just yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m in your hands,” said I. I had no idea of what he meant +by “over there.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been thinking of the same things,” Montgomery answered. +“There’s my room with the outer door—” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s it,” said the elder man, promptly, looking at +Montgomery; and all three of us went towards the enclosure. “I’m +sorry to make a mystery, Mr. Prendick; but you’ll remember you’re +uninvited. Our little establishment here contains a secret or so, is a kind of +Blue-Beard’s chamber, in fact. Nothing very dreadful, really, to a sane +man; but just now, as we don’t know you—” +</p> + +<p> +“Decidedly,” said I, “I should be a fool to take offence at +any want of confidence.” +</p> + +<p> +He twisted his heavy mouth into a faint smile—he was one of those +saturnine people who smile with the corners of the mouth down,—and bowed +his acknowledgment of my complaisance. The main entrance to the enclosure was +passed; it was a heavy wooden gate, framed in iron and locked, with the cargo +of the launch piled outside it, and at the corner we came to a small doorway I +had not previously observed. The white-haired man produced a bundle of keys +from the pocket of his greasy blue jacket, opened this door, and entered. His +keys, and the elaborate locking-up of the place even while it was still under +his eye, struck me as peculiar. I followed him, and found myself in a small +apartment, plainly but not uncomfortably furnished and with its inner door, +which was slightly ajar, opening into a paved courtyard. This inner door +Montgomery at once closed. A hammock was slung across the darker corner of the +room, and a small unglazed window defended by an iron bar looked out towards +the sea. +</p> + +<p> +This the white-haired man told me was to be my apartment; and the inner door, +which “for fear of accidents,” he said, he would lock on the other +side, was my limit inward. He called my attention to a convenient deck-chair +before the window, and to an array of old books, chiefly, I found, surgical +works and editions of the Latin and Greek classics (languages I cannot read +with any comfort), on a shelf near the hammock. He left the room by the outer +door, as if to avoid opening the inner one again. +</p> + +<p> +“We usually have our meals in here,” said Montgomery, and then, as +if in doubt, went out after the other. “Moreau!” I heard him call, +and for the moment I do not think I noticed. Then as I handled the books on the +shelf it came up in consciousness: Where had I heard the name of Moreau before? +I sat down before the window, took out the biscuits that still remained to me, +and ate them with an excellent appetite. Moreau! +</p> + +<p> +Through the window I saw one of those unaccountable men in white, lugging a +packing-case along the beach. Presently the window-frame hid him. Then I heard +a key inserted and turned in the lock behind me. After a little while I heard +through the locked door the noise of the staghounds, that had now been brought +up from the beach. They were not barking, but sniffing and growling in a +curious fashion. I could hear the rapid patter of their feet, and +Montgomery’s voice soothing them. +</p> + +<p> +I was very much impressed by the elaborate secrecy of these two men regarding +the contents of the place, and for some time I was thinking of that and of the +unaccountable familiarity of the name of Moreau; but so odd is the human memory +that I could not then recall that well-known name in its proper connection. +From that my thoughts went to the indefinable queerness of the deformed man on +the beach. I never saw such a gait, such odd motions as he pulled at the box. I +recalled that none of these men had spoken to me, though most of them I had +found looking at me at one time or another in a peculiarly furtive manner, +quite unlike the frank stare of your unsophisticated savage. Indeed, they had +all seemed remarkably taciturn, and when they did speak, endowed with very +uncanny voices. What was wrong with them? Then I recalled the eyes of +Montgomery’s ungainly attendant. +</p> + +<p> +Just as I was thinking of him he came in. He was now dressed in white, and +carried a little tray with some coffee and boiled vegetables thereon. I could +hardly repress a shuddering recoil as he came, bending amiably, and placed the +tray before me on the table. Then astonishment paralysed me. Under his stringy +black locks I saw his ear; it jumped upon me suddenly close to my face. The man +had pointed ears, covered with a fine brown fur! +</p> + +<p> +“Your breakfast, sair,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +I stared at his face without attempting to answer him. He turned and went +towards the door, regarding me oddly over his shoulder. I followed him out with +my eyes; and as I did so, by some odd trick of unconscious cerebration, there +came surging into my head the phrase, “The Moreau +Hollows”—was it? “The Moreau—” Ah! It sent my +memory back ten years. “The Moreau Horrors!” The phrase drifted +loose in my mind for a moment, and then I saw it in red lettering on a little +buff-coloured pamphlet, to read which made one shiver and creep. Then I +remembered distinctly all about it. That long-forgotten pamphlet came back with +startling vividness to my mind. I had been a mere lad then, and Moreau was, I +suppose, about fifty,—a prominent and masterful physiologist, well-known +in scientific circles for his extraordinary imagination and his brutal +directness in discussion. +</p> + +<p> +Was this the same Moreau? He had published some very astonishing facts in +connection with the transfusion of blood, and in addition was known to be doing +valuable work on morbid growths. Then suddenly his career was closed. He had to +leave England. A journalist obtained access to his laboratory in the capacity +of laboratory-assistant, with the deliberate intention of making sensational +exposures; and by the help of a shocking accident (if it was an accident), his +gruesome pamphlet became notorious. On the day of its publication a wretched +dog, flayed and otherwise mutilated, escaped from Moreau’s house. It was +in the silly season, and a prominent editor, a cousin of the temporary +laboratory-assistant, appealed to the conscience of the nation. It was not the +first time that conscience has turned against the methods of research. The +doctor was simply howled out of the country. It may be that he deserved to be; +but I still think that the tepid support of his fellow-investigators and his +desertion by the great body of scientific workers was a shameful thing. Yet +some of his experiments, by the journalist’s account, were wantonly +cruel. He might perhaps have purchased his social peace by abandoning his +investigations; but he apparently preferred the latter, as most men would who +have once fallen under the overmastering spell of research. He was unmarried, +and had indeed nothing but his own interest to consider. +</p> + +<p> +I felt convinced that this must be the same man. Everything pointed to it. It +dawned upon me to what end the puma and the other animals—which had now +been brought with other luggage into the enclosure behind the house—were +destined; and a curious faint odour, the halitus of something familiar, an +odour that had been in the background of my consciousness hitherto, suddenly +came forward into the forefront of my thoughts. It was the antiseptic odour of +the dissecting-room. I heard the puma growling through the wall, and one of the +dogs yelped as though it had been struck. +</p> + +<p> +Yet surely, and especially to another scientific man, there was nothing so +horrible in vivisection as to account for this secrecy; and by some odd leap in +my thoughts the pointed ears and luminous eyes of Montgomery’s attendant +came back again before me with the sharpest definition. I stared before me out +at the green sea, frothing under a freshening breeze, and let these and other +strange memories of the last few days chase one another through my mind. +</p> + +<p> +What could it all mean? A locked enclosure on a lonely island, a notorious +vivisector, and these crippled and distorted men? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap08"></a>VIII.<br> +THE CRYING OF THE PUMA.</h2> + +<p> +Montgomery interrupted my tangle of mystification and suspicion about one +o’clock, and his grotesque attendant followed him with a tray bearing +bread, some herbs and other eatables, a flask of whiskey, a jug of water, and +three glasses and knives. I glanced askance at this strange creature, and found +him watching me with his queer, restless eyes. Montgomery said he would lunch +with me, but that Moreau was too preoccupied with some work to come. +</p> + +<p> +“Moreau!” said I. “I know that name.” +</p> + +<p> +“The devil you do!” said he. “What an ass I was to mention it +to you! I might have thought. Anyhow, it will give you an inkling of +our—mysteries. Whiskey?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, thanks; I’m an abstainer.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I’d been. But it’s no use locking the door after the +steed is stolen. It was that infernal stuff which led to my coming +here,—that, and a foggy night. I thought myself in luck at the time, when +Moreau offered to get me off. It’s queer—” +</p> + +<p> +“Montgomery,” said I, suddenly, as the outer door closed, +“why has your man pointed ears?” +</p> + +<p> +“Damn!” he said, over his first mouthful of food. He stared at me +for a moment, and then repeated, “Pointed ears?” +</p> + +<p> +“Little points to them,” said I, as calmly as possible, with a +catch in my breath; “and a fine black fur at the edges?” +</p> + +<p> +He helped himself to whiskey and water with great deliberation. “I was +under the impression—that his hair covered his ears.” +</p> + +<p> +“I saw them as he stooped by me to put that coffee you sent to me on the +table. And his eyes shine in the dark.” +</p> + +<p> +By this time Montgomery had recovered from the surprise of my question. +“I always thought,” he said deliberately, with a certain +accentuation of his flavouring of lisp, “that there <i>was</i> something +the matter with his ears, from the way he covered them. What were they +like?” +</p> + +<p> +I was persuaded from his manner that this ignorance was a pretence. Still, I +could hardly tell the man that I thought him a liar. “Pointed,” I +said; “rather small and furry,—distinctly furry. But the whole man +is one of the strangest beings I ever set eyes on.” +</p> + +<p> +A sharp, hoarse cry of animal pain came from the enclosure behind us. Its depth +and volume testified to the puma. I saw Montgomery wince. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Where did you pick up the creature?” +</p> + +<p> +“San Francisco. He’s an ugly brute, I admit. Half-witted, you know. +Can’t remember where he came from. But I’m used to him, you know. +We both are. How does he strike you?” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s unnatural,” I said. “There’s something +about him—don’t think me fanciful, but it gives me a nasty little +sensation, a tightening of my muscles, when he comes near me. It’s a +touch—of the diabolical, in fact.” +</p> + +<p> +Montgomery had stopped eating while I told him this. “Rum!” he +said. “<i>I</i> can’t see it.” He resumed his meal. “I +had no idea of it,” he said, and masticated. “The crew of the +schooner must have felt it the same. Made a dead set at the poor devil. You saw +the captain?” +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly the puma howled again, this time more painfully. Montgomery swore +under his breath. I had half a mind to attack him about the men on the beach. +Then the poor brute within gave vent to a series of short, sharp cries. +</p> + +<p> +“Your men on the beach,” said I; “what race are they?” +</p> + +<p> +“Excellent fellows, aren’t they?” said he, absentmindedly, +knitting his brows as the animal yelled out sharply. +</p> + +<p> +I said no more. There was another outcry worse than the former. He looked at me +with his dull grey eyes, and then took some more whiskey. He tried to draw me +into a discussion about alcohol, professing to have saved my life with it. He +seemed anxious to lay stress on the fact that I owed my life to him. I answered +him distractedly. +</p> + +<p> +Presently our meal came to an end; the misshapen monster with the pointed ears +cleared the remains away, and Montgomery left me alone in the room again. All +the time he had been in a state of ill-concealed irritation at the noise of the +vivisected puma. He had spoken of his odd want of nerve, and left me to the +obvious application. +</p> + +<p> +I found myself that the cries were singularly irritating, and they grew in +depth and intensity as the afternoon wore on. They were painful at first, but +their constant resurgence at last altogether upset my balance. I flung aside a +crib of Horace I had been reading, and began to clench my fists, to bite my +lips, and to pace the room. Presently I got to stopping my ears with my +fingers. +</p> + +<p> +The emotional appeal of those yells grew upon me steadily, grew at last to such +an exquisite expression of suffering that I could stand it in that confined +room no longer. I stepped out of the door into the slumberous heat of the late +afternoon, and walking past the main entrance—locked again, I +noticed—turned the corner of the wall. +</p> + +<p> +The crying sounded even louder out of doors. It was as if all the pain in the +world had found a voice. Yet had I known such pain was in the next room, and +had it been dumb, I believe—I have thought since—I could have stood +it well enough. It is when suffering finds a voice and sets our nerves +quivering that this pity comes troubling us. But in spite of the brilliant +sunlight and the green fans of the trees waving in the soothing sea-breeze, the +world was a confusion, blurred with drifting black and red phantasms, until I +was out of earshot of the house in the chequered wall. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap09"></a>IX.<br> +THE THING IN THE FOREST.</h2> + +<p> +I strode through the undergrowth that clothed the ridge behind the house, +scarcely heeding whither I went; passed on through the shadow of a thick +cluster of straight-stemmed trees beyond it, and so presently found myself some +way on the other side of the ridge, and descending towards a streamlet that ran +through a narrow valley. I paused and listened. The distance I had come, or the +intervening masses of thicket, deadened any sound that might be coming from the +enclosure. The air was still. Then with a rustle a rabbit emerged, and went +scampering up the slope before me. I hesitated, and sat down in the edge of the +shade. +</p> + +<p> +The place was a pleasant one. The rivulet was hidden by the luxuriant +vegetation of the banks save at one point, where I caught a triangular patch of +its glittering water. On the farther side I saw through a bluish haze a tangle +of trees and creepers, and above these again the luminous blue of the sky. Here +and there a splash of white or crimson marked the blooming of some trailing +epiphyte. I let my eyes wander over this scene for a while, and then began to +turn over in my mind again the strange peculiarities of Montgomery’s man. +But it was too hot to think elaborately, and presently I fell into a tranquil +state midway between dozing and waking. +</p> + +<p> +From this I was aroused, after I know not how long, by a rustling amidst the +greenery on the other side of the stream. For a moment I could see nothing but +the waving summits of the ferns and reeds. Then suddenly upon the bank of the +stream appeared something—at first I could not distinguish what it was. +It bowed its round head to the water, and began to drink. Then I saw it was a +man, going on all-fours like a beast. He was clothed in bluish cloth, and was +of a copper-coloured hue, with black hair. It seemed that grotesque ugliness +was an invariable character of these islanders. I could hear the suck of the +water at his lips as he drank. +</p> + +<p> +I leant forward to see him better, and a piece of lava, detached by my hand, +went pattering down the slope. He looked up guiltily, and his eyes met mine. +Forthwith he scrambled to his feet, and stood wiping his clumsy hand across his +mouth and regarding me. His legs were scarcely half the length of his body. So, +staring one another out of countenance, we remained for perhaps the space of a +minute. Then, stopping to look back once or twice, he slunk off among the +bushes to the right of me, and I heard the swish of the fronds grow faint in +the distance and die away. Long after he had disappeared, I remained sitting up +staring in the direction of his retreat. My drowsy tranquillity had gone. +</p> + +<p> +I was startled by a noise behind me, and turning suddenly saw the flapping +white tail of a rabbit vanishing up the slope. I jumped to my feet. The +apparition of this grotesque, half-bestial creature had suddenly populated the +stillness of the afternoon for me. I looked around me rather nervously, and +regretted that I was unarmed. Then I thought that the man I had just seen had +been clothed in bluish cloth, had not been naked as a savage would have been; +and I tried to persuade myself from that fact that he was after all probably a +peaceful character, that the dull ferocity of his countenance belied him. +</p> + +<p> +Yet I was greatly disturbed at the apparition. I walked to the left along the +slope, turning my head about and peering this way and that among the straight +stems of the trees. Why should a man go on all-fours and drink with his lips? +Presently I heard an animal wailing again, and taking it to be the puma, I +turned about and walked in a direction diametrically opposite to the sound. +This led me down to the stream, across which I stepped and pushed my way up +through the undergrowth beyond. +</p> + +<p> +I was startled by a great patch of vivid scarlet on the ground, and going up to +it found it to be a peculiar fungus, branched and corrugated like a foliaceous +lichen, but deliquescing into slime at the touch; and then in the shadow of +some luxuriant ferns I came upon an unpleasant thing,—the dead body of a +rabbit covered with shining flies, but still warm and with the head torn off. I +stopped aghast at the sight of the scattered blood. Here at least was one +visitor to the island disposed of! There were no traces of other violence about +it. It looked as though it had been suddenly snatched up and killed; and as I +stared at the little furry body came the difficulty of how the thing had been +done. The vague dread that had been in my mind since I had seen the inhuman +face of the man at the stream grew distincter as I stood there. I began to +realise the hardihood of my expedition among these unknown people. The thicket +about me became altered to my imagination. Every shadow became something more +than a shadow,—became an ambush; every rustle became a threat. Invisible +things seemed watching me. I resolved to go back to the enclosure on the beach. +I suddenly turned away and thrust myself violently, possibly even frantically, +through the bushes, anxious to get a clear space about me again. +</p> + +<p> +I stopped just in time to prevent myself emerging upon an open space. It was a +kind of glade in the forest, made by a fall; seedlings were already starting up +to struggle for the vacant space; and beyond, the dense growth of stems and +twining vines and splashes of fungus and flowers closed in again. Before me, +squatting together upon the fungoid ruins of a huge fallen tree and still +unaware of my approach, were three grotesque human figures. One was evidently a +female; the other two were men. They were naked, save for swathings of scarlet +cloth about the middle; and their skins were of a dull pinkish-drab colour, +such as I had seen in no savages before. They had fat, heavy, chinless faces, +retreating foreheads, and a scant bristly hair upon their heads. I never saw +such bestial-looking creatures. +</p> + +<p> +They were talking, or at least one of the men was talking to the other two, and +all three had been too closely interested to heed the rustling of my approach. +They swayed their heads and shoulders from side to side. The speaker’s +words came thick and sloppy, and though I could hear them distinctly I could +not distinguish what he said. He seemed to me to be reciting some complicated +gibberish. Presently his articulation became shriller, and spreading his hands +he rose to his feet. At that the others began to gibber in unison, also rising +to their feet, spreading their hands and swaying their bodies in rhythm with +their chant. I noticed then the abnormal shortness of their legs, and their +lank, clumsy feet. All three began slowly to circle round, raising and stamping +their feet and waving their arms; a kind of tune crept into their rhythmic +recitation, and a refrain,—“Aloola,” or +“Balloola,” it sounded like. Their eyes began to sparkle, and their +ugly faces to brighten, with an expression of strange pleasure. Saliva dripped +from their lipless mouths. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly, as I watched their grotesque and unaccountable gestures, I perceived +clearly for the first time what it was that had offended me, what had given me +the two inconsistent and conflicting impressions of utter strangeness and yet +of the strangest familiarity. The three creatures engaged in this mysterious +rite were human in shape, and yet human beings with the strangest air about +them of some familiar animal. Each of these creatures, despite its human form, +its rag of clothing, and the rough humanity of its bodily form, had woven into +it—into its movements, into the expression of its countenance, into its +whole presence—some now irresistible suggestion of a hog, a swinish +taint, the unmistakable mark of the beast. +</p> + +<p> +I stood overcome by this amazing realisation and then the most horrible +questionings came rushing into my mind. They began leaping in the air, first +one and then the other, whooping and grunting. Then one slipped, and for a +moment was on all-fours,—to recover, indeed, forthwith. But that +transitory gleam of the true animalism of these monsters was enough. +</p> + +<p> +I turned as noiselessly as possible, and becoming every now and then rigid with +the fear of being discovered, as a branch cracked or a leaf rustled, I pushed +back into the bushes. It was long before I grew bolder, and dared to move +freely. My only idea for the moment was to get away from these foul beings, and +I scarcely noticed that I had emerged upon a faint pathway amidst the trees. +Then suddenly traversing a little glade, I saw with an unpleasant start two +clumsy legs among the trees, walking with noiseless footsteps parallel with my +course, and perhaps thirty yards away from me. The head and upper part of the +body were hidden by a tangle of creeper. I stopped abruptly, hoping the +creature did not see me. The feet stopped as I did. So nervous was I that I +controlled an impulse to headlong flight with the utmost difficulty. Then +looking hard, I distinguished through the interlacing network the head and body +of the brute I had seen drinking. He moved his head. There was an emerald flash +in his eyes as he glanced at me from the shadow of the trees, a half-luminous +colour that vanished as he turned his head again. He was motionless for a +moment, and then with a noiseless tread began running through the green +confusion. In another moment he had vanished behind some bushes. I could not +see him, but I felt that he had stopped and was watching me again. +</p> + +<p> +What on earth was he,—man or beast? What did he want with me? I had no +weapon, not even a stick. Flight would be madness. At any rate the Thing, +whatever it was, lacked the courage to attack me. Setting my teeth hard, I +walked straight towards him. I was anxious not to show the fear that seemed +chilling my backbone. I pushed through a tangle of tall white-flowered bushes, +and saw him twenty paces beyond, looking over his shoulder at me and +hesitating. I advanced a step or two, looking steadfastly into his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Who are you?” said I. +</p> + +<p> +He tried to meet my gaze. “No!” he said suddenly, and turning went +bounding away from me through the undergrowth. Then he turned and stared at me +again. His eyes shone brightly out of the dusk under the trees. +</p> + +<p> +My heart was in my mouth; but I felt my only chance was bluff, and walked +steadily towards him. He turned again, and vanished into the dusk. Once more I +thought I caught the glint of his eyes, and that was all. +</p> + +<p> +For the first time I realised how the lateness of the hour might affect me. The +sun had set some minutes since, the swift dusk of the tropics was already +fading out of the eastern sky, and a pioneer moth fluttered silently by my +head. Unless I would spend the night among the unknown dangers of the +mysterious forest, I must hasten back to the enclosure. The thought of a return +to that pain-haunted refuge was extremely disagreeable, but still more so was +the idea of being overtaken in the open by darkness and all that darkness might +conceal. I gave one more look into the blue shadows that had swallowed up this +odd creature, and then retraced my way down the slope towards the stream, going +as I judged in the direction from which I had come. +</p> + +<p> +I walked eagerly, my mind confused with many things, and presently found myself +in a level place among scattered trees. The colourless clearness that comes +after the sunset flush was darkling; the blue sky above grew momentarily +deeper, and the little stars one by one pierced the attenuated light; the +interspaces of the trees, the gaps in the further vegetation, that had been +hazy blue in the daylight, grew black and mysterious. I pushed on. The colour +vanished from the world. The tree-tops rose against the luminous blue sky in +inky silhouette, and all below that outline melted into one formless blackness. +Presently the trees grew thinner, and the shrubby undergrowth more abundant. +Then there was a desolate space covered with a white sand, and then another +expanse of tangled bushes. I did not remember crossing the sand-opening before. +I began to be tormented by a faint rustling upon my right hand. I thought at +first it was fancy, for whenever I stopped there was silence, save for the +evening breeze in the tree-tops. Then when I turned to hurry on again there was +an echo to my footsteps. +</p> + +<p> +I turned away from the thickets, keeping to the more open ground, and +endeavouring by sudden turns now and then to surprise something in the act of +creeping upon me. I saw nothing, and nevertheless my sense of another presence +grew steadily. I increased my pace, and after some time came to a slight ridge, +crossed it, and turned sharply, regarding it steadfastly from the further side. +It came out black and clear-cut against the darkling sky; and presently a +shapeless lump heaved up momentarily against the sky-line and vanished again. I +felt assured now that my tawny-faced antagonist was stalking me once more; and +coupled with that was another unpleasant realisation, that I had lost my way. +</p> + +<p> +For a time I hurried on hopelessly perplexed, and pursued by that stealthy +approach. Whatever it was, the Thing either lacked the courage to attack me, or +it was waiting to take me at some disadvantage. I kept studiously to the open. +At times I would turn and listen; and presently I had half persuaded myself +that my pursuer had abandoned the chase, or was a mere creation of my +disordered imagination. Then I heard the sound of the sea. I quickened my +footsteps almost into a run, and immediately there was a stumble in my rear. +</p> + +<p> +I turned suddenly, and stared at the uncertain trees behind me. One black +shadow seemed to leap into another. I listened, rigid, and heard nothing but +the creep of the blood in my ears. I thought that my nerves were unstrung, and +that my imagination was tricking me, and turned resolutely towards the sound of +the sea again. +</p> + +<p> +In a minute or so the trees grew thinner, and I emerged upon a bare, low +headland running out into the sombre water. The night was calm and clear, and +the reflection of the growing multitude of the stars shivered in the tranquil +heaving of the sea. Some way out, the wash upon an irregular band of reef shone +with a pallid light of its own. Westward I saw the zodiacal light mingling with +the yellow brilliance of the evening star. The coast fell away from me to the +east, and westward it was hidden by the shoulder of the cape. Then I recalled +the fact that Moreau’s beach lay to the west. +</p> + +<p> +A twig snapped behind me, and there was a rustle. I turned, and stood facing +the dark trees. I could see nothing—or else I could see too much. Every +dark form in the dimness had its ominous quality, its peculiar suggestion of +alert watchfulness. So I stood for perhaps a minute, and then, with an eye to +the trees still, turned westward to cross the headland; and as I moved, one +among the lurking shadows moved to follow me. +</p> + +<p> +My heart beat quickly. Presently the broad sweep of a bay to the westward +became visible, and I halted again. The noiseless shadow halted a dozen yards +from me. A little point of light shone on the further bend of the curve, and +the grey sweep of the sandy beach lay faint under the starlight. Perhaps two +miles away was that little point of light. To get to the beach I should have to +go through the trees where the shadows lurked, and down a bushy slope. +</p> + +<p> +I could see the Thing rather more distinctly now. It was no animal, for it +stood erect. At that I opened my mouth to speak, and found a hoarse phlegm +choked my voice. I tried again, and shouted, “Who is there?” There +was no answer. I advanced a step. The Thing did not move, only gathered itself +together. My foot struck a stone. That gave me an idea. Without taking my eyes +off the black form before me, I stooped and picked up this lump of rock; but at +my motion the Thing turned abruptly as a dog might have done, and slunk +obliquely into the further darkness. Then I recalled a schoolboy expedient +against big dogs, and twisted the rock into my handkerchief, and gave this a +turn round my wrist. I heard a movement further off among the shadows, as if +the Thing was in retreat. Then suddenly my tense excitement gave way; I broke +into a profuse perspiration and fell a-trembling, with my adversary routed and +this weapon in my hand. +</p> + +<p> +It was some time before I could summon resolution to go down through the trees +and bushes upon the flank of the headland to the beach. At last I did it at a +run; and as I emerged from the thicket upon the sand, I heard some other body +come crashing after me. At that I completely lost my head with fear, and began +running along the sand. Forthwith there came the swift patter of soft feet in +pursuit. I gave a wild cry, and redoubled my pace. Some dim, black things about +three or four times the size of rabbits went running or hopping up from the +beach towards the bushes as I passed. +</p> + +<p> +So long as I live, I shall remember the terror of that chase. I ran near the +water’s edge, and heard every now and then the splash of the feet that +gained upon me. Far away, hopelessly far, was the yellow light. All the night +about us was black and still. Splash, splash, came the pursuing feet, nearer +and nearer. I felt my breath going, for I was quite out of training; it whooped +as I drew it, and I felt a pain like a knife at my side. I perceived the Thing +would come up with me long before I reached the enclosure, and, desperate and +sobbing for my breath, I wheeled round upon it and struck at it as it came up +to me,—struck with all my strength. The stone came out of the sling of +the handkerchief as I did so. As I turned, the Thing, which had been running on +all-fours, rose to its feet, and the missile fell fair on its left temple. The +skull rang loud, and the animal-man blundered into me, thrust me back with its +hands, and went staggering past me to fall headlong upon the sand with its face +in the water; and there it lay still. +</p> + +<p> +I could not bring myself to approach that black heap. I left it there, with the +water rippling round it, under the still stars, and giving it a wide berth +pursued my way towards the yellow glow of the house; and presently, with a +positive effect of relief, came the pitiful moaning of the puma, the sound that +had originally driven me out to explore this mysterious island. At that, though +I was faint and horribly fatigued, I gathered together all my strength, and +began running again towards the light. I thought I heard a voice calling me. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap10"></a>X.<br> +THE CRYING OF THE MAN.</h2> + +<p> +As I drew near the house I saw that the light shone from the open door of my +room; and then I heard coming from out of the darkness at the side of that +orange oblong of light, the voice of Montgomery shouting, +“Prendick!” I continued running. Presently I heard him again. I +replied by a feeble “Hullo!” and in another moment had staggered up +to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Where have you been?” said he, holding me at arm’s length, +so that the light from the door fell on my face. “We have both been so +busy that we forgot you until about half an hour ago.” He led me into the +room and sat me down in the deck chair. For awhile I was blinded by the light. +“We did not think you would start to explore this island of ours without +telling us,” he said; and then, “I was +afraid—But—what—Hullo!” +</p> + +<p> +My last remaining strength slipped from me, and my head fell forward on my +chest. I think he found a certain satisfaction in giving me brandy. +</p> + +<p> +“For God’s sake,” said I, “fasten that door.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve been meeting some of our curiosities, eh?” said he. +</p> + +<p> +He locked the door and turned to me again. He asked me no questions, but gave +me some more brandy and water and pressed me to eat. I was in a state of +collapse. He said something vague about his forgetting to warn me, and asked me +briefly when I left the house and what I had seen. +</p> + +<p> +I answered him as briefly, in fragmentary sentences. “Tell me what it all +means,” said I, in a state bordering on hysterics. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s nothing so very dreadful,” said he. “But I think +you have had about enough for one day.” The puma suddenly gave a sharp +yell of pain. At that he swore under his breath. “I’m +damned,” said he, “if this place is not as bad as Gower Street, +with its cats.” +</p> + +<p> +“Montgomery,” said I, “what was that thing that came after +me? Was it a beast or was it a man?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you don’t sleep to-night,” he said, “you’ll +be off your head to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +I stood up in front of him. “What was that thing that came after +me?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +He looked me squarely in the eyes, and twisted his mouth askew. His eyes, which +had seemed animated a minute before, went dull. “From your +account,” said he, “I’m thinking it was a bogle.” +</p> + +<p> +I felt a gust of intense irritation, which passed as quickly as it came. I +flung myself into the chair again, and pressed my hands on my forehead. The +puma began once more. +</p> + +<p> +Montgomery came round behind me and put his hand on my shoulder. “Look +here, Prendick,” he said, “I had no business to let you drift out +into this silly island of ours. But it’s not so bad as you feel, man. +Your nerves are worked to rags. Let me give you something that will make you +sleep. <i>That</i>—will keep on for hours yet. You must simply get to +sleep, or I won’t answer for it.” +</p> + +<p> +I did not reply. I bowed forward, and covered my face with my hands. Presently +he returned with a small measure containing a dark liquid. This he gave me. I +took it unresistingly, and he helped me into the hammock. +</p> + +<p> +When I awoke, it was broad day. For a little while I lay flat, staring at the +roof above me. The rafters, I observed, were made out of the timbers of a ship. +Then I turned my head, and saw a meal prepared for me on the table. I perceived +that I was hungry, and prepared to clamber out of the hammock, which, very +politely anticipating my intention, twisted round and deposited me upon +all-fours on the floor. +</p> + +<p> +I got up and sat down before the food. I had a heavy feeling in my head, and +only the vaguest memory at first of the things that had happened over night. +The morning breeze blew very pleasantly through the unglazed window, and that +and the food contributed to the sense of animal comfort which I experienced. +Presently the door behind me—the door inward towards the yard of the +enclosure—opened. I turned and saw Montgomery’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said he. “I’m frightfully busy.” And +he shut the door. +</p> + +<p> +Afterwards I discovered that he forgot to re-lock it. Then I recalled the +expression of his face the previous night, and with that the memory of all I +had experienced reconstructed itself before me. Even as that fear came back to +me came a cry from within; but this time it was not the cry of a puma. I put +down the mouthful that hesitated upon my lips, and listened. Silence, save for +the whisper of the morning breeze. I began to think my ears had deceived me. +</p> + +<p> +After a long pause I resumed my meal, but with my ears still vigilant. +Presently I heard something else, very faint and low. I sat as if frozen in my +attitude. Though it was faint and low, it moved me more profoundly than all +that I had hitherto heard of the abominations behind the wall. There was no +mistake this time in the quality of the dim, broken sounds; no doubt at all of +their source. For it was groaning, broken by sobs and gasps of anguish. It was +no brute this time; it was a human being in torment! +</p> + +<p> +As I realised this I rose, and in three steps had crossed the room, seized the +handle of the door into the yard, and flung it open before me. +</p> + +<p> +“Prendick, man! Stop!” cried Montgomery, intervening. +</p> + +<p> +A startled deerhound yelped and snarled. There was blood, I saw, in the +sink,—brown, and some scarlet—and I smelt the peculiar smell of +carbolic acid. Then through an open doorway beyond, in the dim light of the +shadow, I saw something bound painfully upon a framework, scarred, red, and +bandaged; and then blotting this out appeared the face of old Moreau, white and +terrible. In a moment he had gripped me by the shoulder with a hand that was +smeared red, had twisted me off my feet, and flung me headlong back into my own +room. He lifted me as though I was a little child. I fell at full length upon +the floor, and the door slammed and shut out the passionate intensity of his +face. Then I heard the key turn in the lock, and Montgomery’s voice in +expostulation. +</p> + +<p> +“Ruin the work of a lifetime,” I heard Moreau say. +</p> + +<p> +“He does not understand,” said Montgomery. and other things that +were inaudible. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t spare the time yet,” said Moreau. +</p> + +<p> +The rest I did not hear. I picked myself up and stood trembling, my mind a +chaos of the most horrible misgivings. Could it be possible, I thought, that +such a thing as the vivisection of men was carried on here? The question shot +like lightning across a tumultuous sky; and suddenly the clouded horror of my +mind condensed into a vivid realisation of my own danger. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap11"></a>XI.<br> +THE HUNTING OF THE MAN.</h2> + +<p> +It came before my mind with an unreasonable hope of escape that the outer door +of my room was still open to me. I was convinced now, absolutely assured, that +Moreau had been vivisecting a human being. All the time since I had heard his +name, I had been trying to link in my mind in some way the grotesque animalism +of the islanders with his abominations; and now I thought I saw it all. The +memory of his work on the transfusion of blood recurred to me. These creatures +I had seen were the victims of some hideous experiment. These sickening +scoundrels had merely intended to keep me back, to fool me with their display +of confidence, and presently to fall upon me with a fate more horrible than +death,—with torture; and after torture the most hideous degradation it is +possible to conceive,—to send me off a lost soul, a beast, to the rest of +their Comus rout. +</p> + +<p> +I looked round for some weapon. Nothing. Then with an inspiration I turned over +the deck chair, put my foot on the side of it, and tore away the side rail. It +happened that a nail came away with the wood, and projecting, gave a touch of +danger to an otherwise petty weapon. I heard a step outside, and incontinently +flung open the door and found Montgomery within a yard of it. He meant to lock +the outer door! I raised this nailed stick of mine and cut at his face; but he +sprang back. I hesitated a moment, then turned and fled, round the corner of +the house. “Prendick, man!” I heard his astonished cry, +“don’t be a silly ass, man!” +</p> + +<p> +Another minute, thought I, and he would have had me locked in, and as ready as +a hospital rabbit for my fate. He emerged behind the corner, for I heard him +shout, “Prendick!” Then he began to run after me, shouting things +as he ran. This time running blindly, I went northeastward in a direction at +right angles to my previous expedition. Once, as I went running headlong up the +beach, I glanced over my shoulder and saw his attendant with him. I ran +furiously up the slope, over it, then turning eastward along a rocky valley +fringed on either side with jungle I ran for perhaps a mile altogether, my +chest straining, my heart beating in my ears; and then hearing nothing of +Montgomery or his man, and feeling upon the verge of exhaustion, I doubled +sharply back towards the beach as I judged, and lay down in the shelter of a +canebrake. There I remained for a long time, too fearful to move, and indeed +too fearful even to plan a course of action. The wild scene about me lay +sleeping silently under the sun, and the only sound near me was the thin hum of +some small gnats that had discovered me. Presently I became aware of a drowsy +breathing sound, the soughing of the sea upon the beach. +</p> + +<p> +After about an hour I heard Montgomery shouting my name, far away to the north. +That set me thinking of my plan of action. As I interpreted it then, this +island was inhabited only by these two vivisectors and their animalised +victims. Some of these no doubt they could press into their service against me +if need arose. I knew both Moreau and Montgomery carried revolvers; and, save +for a feeble bar of deal spiked with a small nail, the merest mockery of a +mace, I was unarmed. +</p> + +<p> +So I lay still there, until I began to think of food and drink; and at that +thought the real hopelessness of my position came home to me. I knew no way of +getting anything to eat. I was too ignorant of botany to discover any resort of +root or fruit that might lie about me; I had no means of trapping the few +rabbits upon the island. It grew blanker the more I turned the prospect over. +At last in the desperation of my position, my mind turned to the animal men I +had encountered. I tried to find some hope in what I remembered of them. In +turn I recalled each one I had seen, and tried to draw some augury of +assistance from my memory. +</p> + +<p> +Then suddenly I heard a staghound bay, and at that realised a new danger. I +took little time to think, or they would have caught me then, but snatching up +my nailed stick, rushed headlong from my hiding-place towards the sound of the +sea. I remember a growth of thorny plants, with spines that stabbed like +pen-knives. I emerged bleeding and with torn clothes upon the lip of a long +creek opening northward. I went straight into the water without a +minute’s hesitation, wading up the creek, and presently finding myself +kneedeep in a little stream. I scrambled out at last on the westward bank, and +with my heart beating loudly in my ears, crept into a tangle of ferns to await +the issue. I heard the dog (there was only one) draw nearer, and yelp when it +came to the thorns. Then I heard no more, and presently began to think I had +escaped. +</p> + +<p> +The minutes passed; the silence lengthened out, and at last after an hour of +security my courage began to return to me. By this time I was no longer very +much terrified or very miserable. I had, as it were, passed the limit of terror +and despair. I felt now that my life was practically lost, and that persuasion +made me capable of daring anything. I had even a certain wish to encounter +Moreau face to face; and as I had waded into the water, I remembered that if I +were too hard pressed at least one path of escape from torment still lay open +to me,—they could not very well prevent my drowning myself. I had half a +mind to drown myself then; but an odd wish to see the whole adventure out, a +queer, impersonal, spectacular interest in myself, restrained me. I stretched +my limbs, sore and painful from the pricks of the spiny plants, and stared +around me at the trees; and, so suddenly that it seemed to jump out of the +green tracery about it, my eyes lit upon a black face watching me. I saw that +it was the simian creature who had met the launch upon the beach. He was +clinging to the oblique stem of a palm-tree. I gripped my stick, and stood up +facing him. He began chattering. “You, you, you,” was all I could +distinguish at first. Suddenly he dropped from the tree, and in another moment +was holding the fronds apart and staring curiously at me. +</p> + +<p> +I did not feel the same repugnance towards this creature which I had +experienced in my encounters with the other Beast Men. “You,” he +said, “in the boat.” He was a man, then,—at least as much of +a man as Montgomery’s attendant,—for he could talk. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” I said, “I came in the boat. From the ship.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” he said, and his bright, restless eyes travelled over me, to +my hands, to the stick I carried, to my feet, to the tattered places in my +coat, and the cuts and scratches I had received from the thorns. He seemed +puzzled at something. His eyes came back to my hands. He held his own hand out +and counted his digits slowly, “One, two, three, four, +five—eigh?” +</p> + +<p> +I did not grasp his meaning then; afterwards I was to find that a great +proportion of these Beast People had malformed hands, lacking sometimes even +three digits. But guessing this was in some way a greeting, I did the same +thing by way of reply. He grinned with immense satisfaction. Then his swift +roving glance went round again; he made a swift movement—and vanished. +The fern fronds he had stood between came swishing together. +</p> + +<p> +I pushed out of the brake after him, and was astonished to find him swinging +cheerfully by one lank arm from a rope of creepers that looped down from the +foliage overhead. His back was to me. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo!” said I. +</p> + +<p> +He came down with a twisting jump, and stood facing me. +</p> + +<p> +“I say,” said I, “where can I get something to eat?” +</p> + +<p> +“Eat!” he said. “Eat Man’s food, now.” And his +eye went back to the swing of ropes. “At the huts.” +</p> + +<p> +“But where are the huts?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m new, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +At that he swung round, and set off at a quick walk. All his motions were +curiously rapid. “Come along,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +I went with him to see the adventure out. I guessed the huts were some rough +shelter where he and some more of these Beast People lived. I might perhaps +find them friendly, find some handle in their minds to take hold of. I did not +know how far they had forgotten their human heritage. +</p> + +<p> +My ape-like companion trotted along by my side, with his hands hanging down and +his jaw thrust forward. I wondered what memory he might have in him. “How +long have you been on this island?” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“How long?” he asked; and after having the question repeated, he +held up three fingers. +</p> + +<p> +The creature was little better than an idiot. I tried to make out what he meant +by that, and it seems I bored him. After another question or two he suddenly +left my side and went leaping at some fruit that hung from a tree. He pulled +down a handful of prickly husks and went on eating the contents. I noted this +with satisfaction, for here at least was a hint for feeding. I tried him with +some other questions, but his chattering, prompt responses were as often as not +quite at cross purposes with my question. Some few were appropriate, others +quite parrot-like. +</p> + +<p> +I was so intent upon these peculiarities that I scarcely noticed the path we +followed. Presently we came to trees, all charred and brown, and so to a bare +place covered with a yellow-white incrustation, across which a drifting smoke, +pungent in whiffs to nose and eyes, went drifting. On our right, over a +shoulder of bare rock, I saw the level blue of the sea. The path coiled down +abruptly into a narrow ravine between two tumbled and knotty masses of blackish +scoriae. Into this we plunged. +</p> + +<p> +It was extremely dark, this passage, after the blinding sunlight reflected from +the sulphurous ground. Its walls grew steep, and approached each other. +Blotches of green and crimson drifted across my eyes. My conductor stopped +suddenly. “Home!” said he, and I stood in a floor of a chasm that +was at first absolutely dark to me. I heard some strange noises, and thrust the +knuckles of my left hand into my eyes. I became aware of a disagreeable odor, +like that of a monkey’s cage ill-cleaned. Beyond, the rock opened again +upon a gradual slope of sunlit greenery, and on either hand the light smote +down through narrow ways into the central gloom. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap12"></a>XII.<br> +THE SAYERS OF THE LAW.</h2> + +<p> +Then something cold touched my hand. I started violently, and saw close to me a +dim pinkish thing, looking more like a flayed child than anything else in the +world. The creature had exactly the mild but repulsive features of a sloth, the +same low forehead and slow gestures. +</p> + +<p> +As the first shock of the change of light passed, I saw about me more +distinctly. The little sloth-like creature was standing and staring at me. My +conductor had vanished. The place was a narrow passage between high walls of +lava, a crack in the knotted rock, and on either side interwoven heaps of +sea-mat, palm-fans, and reeds leaning against the rock formed rough and +impenetrably dark dens. The winding way up the ravine between these was +scarcely three yards wide, and was disfigured by lumps of decaying fruit-pulp +and other refuse, which accounted for the disagreeable stench of the place. +</p> + +<p> +The little pink sloth-creature was still blinking at me when my Ape-man +reappeared at the aperture of the nearest of these dens, and beckoned me in. As +he did so a slouching monster wriggled out of one of the places, further up +this strange street, and stood up in featureless silhouette against the bright +green beyond, staring at me. I hesitated, having half a mind to bolt the way I +had come; and then, determined to go through with the adventure, I gripped my +nailed stick about the middle and crawled into the little evil-smelling lean-to +after my conductor. +</p> + +<p> +It was a semi-circular space, shaped like the half of a bee-hive; and against +the rocky wall that formed the inner side of it was a pile of variegated +fruits, cocoa-nuts among others. Some rough vessels of lava and wood stood +about the floor, and one on a rough stool. There was no fire. In the darkest +corner of the hut sat a shapeless mass of darkness that grunted +“Hey!” as I came in, and my Ape-man stood in the dim light of the +doorway and held out a split cocoa-nut to me as I crawled into the other corner +and squatted down. I took it, and began gnawing it, as serenely as possible, in +spite of a certain trepidation and the nearly intolerable closeness of the den. +The little pink sloth-creature stood in the aperture of the hut, and something +else with a drab face and bright eyes came staring over its shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“Hey!” came out of the lump of mystery opposite. “It is a +man.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a man,” gabbled my conductor, “a man, a man, a +five-man, like me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shut up!” said the voice from the dark, and grunted. I gnawed my +cocoa-nut amid an impressive stillness. +</p> + +<p> +I peered hard into the blackness, but could distinguish nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a man,” the voice repeated. “He comes to live with +us?” +</p> + +<p> +It was a thick voice, with something in it—a kind of whistling +overtone—that struck me as peculiar; but the English accent was strangely +good. +</p> + +<p> +The Ape-man looked at me as though he expected something. I perceived the pause +was interrogative. “He comes to live with you,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a man. He must learn the Law.” +</p> + +<p> +I began to distinguish now a deeper blackness in the black, a vague outline of +a hunched-up figure. Then I noticed the opening of the place was darkened by +two more black heads. My hand tightened on my stick. +</p> + +<p> +The thing in the dark repeated in a louder tone, “Say the words.” I +had missed its last remark. “Not to go on all-fours; that is the +Law,” it repeated in a kind of sing-song. +</p> + +<p> +I was puzzled. +</p> + +<p> +“Say the words,” said the Ape-man, repeating, and the figures in +the doorway echoed this, with a threat in the tone of their voices. +</p> + +<p> +I realised that I had to repeat this idiotic formula; and then began the +insanest ceremony. The voice in the dark began intoning a mad litany, line by +line, and I and the rest to repeat it. As they did so, they swayed from side to +side in the oddest way, and beat their hands upon their knees; and I followed +their example. I could have imagined I was already dead and in another world. +That dark hut, these grotesque dim figures, just flecked here and there by a +glimmer of light, and all of them swaying in unison and chanting, +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Not to go on all-fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?<br> +“Not to suck up Drink; that is the Law. Are we not Men?<br> +“Not to eat Fish or Flesh; that is the Law. Are we not Men?<br> +“Not to claw the Bark of Trees; <i>that</i> is the Law. Are we not Men?<br> +“Not to chase other Men; <i>that</i> is the Law. Are we not Men?” +</p> + +<p> +And so from the prohibition of these acts of folly, on to the prohibition of +what I thought then were the maddest, most impossible, and most indecent things +one could well imagine. A kind of rhythmic fervour fell on all of us; we +gabbled and swayed faster and faster, repeating this amazing Law. Superficially +the contagion of these brutes was upon me, but deep down within me the laughter +and disgust struggled together. We ran through a long list of prohibitions, and +then the chant swung round to a new formula. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“<i>His</i> is the House of Pain.<br> +“<i>His</i> is the Hand that makes.<br> +“<i>His</i> is the Hand that wounds.<br> +“<i>His</i> is the Hand that heals.” +</p> + +<p> +And so on for another long series, mostly quite incomprehensible gibberish to +me about <i>Him</i>, whoever he might be. I could have fancied it was a dream, +but never before have I heard chanting in a dream. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>His</i> is the lightning flash,” we sang. “<i>His</i> is +the deep, salt sea.” +</p> + +<p> +A horrible fancy came into my head that Moreau, after animalising these men, +had infected their dwarfed brains with a kind of deification of himself. +However, I was too keenly aware of white teeth and strong claws about me to +stop my chanting on that account. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“<i>His</i> are the stars in the sky.” +</p> + +<p> +At last that song ended. I saw the Ape-man’s face shining with +perspiration; and my eyes being now accustomed to the darkness, I saw more +distinctly the figure in the corner from which the voice came. It was the size +of a man, but it seemed covered with a dull grey hair almost like a +Skye-terrier. What was it? What were they all? Imagine yourself surrounded by +all the most horrible cripples and maniacs it is possible to conceive, and you +may understand a little of my feelings with these grotesque caricatures of +humanity about me. +</p> + +<p> +“He is a five-man, a five-man, a five-man—like me,” said the +Ape-man. +</p> + +<p> +I held out my hands. The grey creature in the corner leant forward. +</p> + +<p> +“Not to run on all-fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?” he +said. +</p> + +<p> +He put out a strangely distorted talon and gripped my fingers. The thing was +almost like the hoof of a deer produced into claws. I could have yelled with +surprise and pain. His face came forward and peered at my nails, came forward +into the light of the opening of the hut and I saw with a quivering disgust +that it was like the face of neither man nor beast, but a mere shock of grey +hair, with three shadowy over-archings to mark the eyes and mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“He has little nails,” said this grisly creature in his hairy +beard. “It is well.” +</p> + +<p> +He threw my hand down, and instinctively I gripped my stick. +</p> + +<p> +“Eat roots and herbs; it is His will,” said the Ape-man. +</p> + +<p> +“I am the Sayer of the Law,” said the grey figure. “Here come +all that be new to learn the Law. I sit in the darkness and say the Law.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is even so,” said one of the beasts in the doorway. +</p> + +<p> +“Evil are the punishments of those who break the Law. None escape.” +</p> + +<p> +“None escape,” said the Beast Folk, glancing furtively at one +another. +</p> + +<p> +“None, none,” said the Ape-man,—“none escape. See! I +did a little thing, a wrong thing, once. I jabbered, jabbered, stopped talking. +None could understand. I am burnt, branded in the hand. He is great. He is +good!” +</p> + +<p> +“None escape,” said the grey creature in the corner. +</p> + +<p> +“None escape,” said the Beast People, looking askance at one +another. +</p> + +<p> +“For every one the want that is bad,” said the grey Sayer of the +Law. “What you will want we do not know; we shall know. Some want to +follow things that move, to watch and slink and wait and spring; to kill and +bite, bite deep and rich, sucking the blood. It is bad. ‘Not to chase +other Men; that is the Law. Are we not Men? Not to eat Flesh or Fish; that is +the Law. Are we not Men?’” +</p> + +<p> +“None escape,” said a dappled brute standing in the doorway. +</p> + +<p> +“For every one the want is bad,” said the grey Sayer of the Law. +“Some want to go tearing with teeth and hands into the roots of things, +snuffing into the earth. It is bad.” +</p> + +<p> +“None escape,” said the men in the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Some go clawing trees; some go scratching at the graves of the dead; +some go fighting with foreheads or feet or claws; some bite suddenly, none +giving occasion; some love uncleanness.” +</p> + +<p> +“None escape,” said the Ape-man, scratching his calf. +</p> + +<p> +“None escape,” said the little pink sloth-creature. +</p> + +<p> +“Punishment is sharp and sure. Therefore learn the Law. Say the +words.” +</p> + +<p> +And incontinently he began again the strange litany of the Law, and again I and +all these creatures began singing and swaying. My head reeled with this +jabbering and the close stench of the place; but I kept on, trusting to find +presently some chance of a new development. +</p> + +<p> +“Not to go on all-fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?” +</p> + +<p> +We were making such a noise that I noticed nothing of a tumult outside, until +some one, who I think was one of the two Swine Men I had seen, thrust his head +over the little pink sloth-creature and shouted something excitedly, something +that I did not catch. Incontinently those at the opening of the hut vanished; +my Ape-man rushed out; the thing that had sat in the dark followed him (I only +observed that it was big and clumsy, and covered with silvery hair), and I was +left alone. Then before I reached the aperture I heard the yelp of a staghound. +</p> + +<p> +In another moment I was standing outside the hovel, my chair-rail in my hand, +every muscle of me quivering. Before me were the clumsy backs of perhaps a +score of these Beast People, their misshapen heads half hidden by their +shoulder-blades. They were gesticulating excitedly. Other half-animal faces +glared interrogation out of the hovels. Looking in the direction in which they +faced, I saw coming through the haze under the trees beyond the end of the +passage of dens the dark figure and awful white face of Moreau. He was holding +the leaping staghound back, and close behind him came Montgomery revolver in +hand. +</p> + +<p> +For a moment I stood horror-struck. I turned and saw the passage behind me +blocked by another heavy brute, with a huge grey face and twinkling little +eyes, advancing towards me. I looked round and saw to the right of me and a +half-dozen yards in front of me a narrow gap in the wall of rock through which +a ray of light slanted into the shadows. +</p> + +<p> +“Stop!” cried Moreau as I strode towards this, and then, +“Hold him!” +</p> + +<p> +At that, first one face turned towards me and then others. Their bestial minds +were happily slow. I dashed my shoulder into a clumsy monster who was turning +to see what Moreau meant, and flung him forward into another. I felt his hands +fly round, clutching at me and missing me. The little pink sloth-creature +dashed at me, and I gashed down its ugly face with the nail in my stick and in +another minute was scrambling up a steep side pathway, a kind of sloping +chimney, out of the ravine. I heard a howl behind me, and cries of “Catch +him!” “Hold him!” and the grey-faced creature appeared behind +me and jammed his huge bulk into the cleft. “Go on! go on!” they +howled. I clambered up the narrow cleft in the rock and came out upon the +sulphur on the westward side of the village of the Beast Men. +</p> + +<p> +That gap was altogether fortunate for me, for the narrow chimney, slanting +obliquely upward, must have impeded the nearer pursuers. I ran over the white +space and down a steep slope, through a scattered growth of trees, and came to +a low-lying stretch of tall reeds, through which I pushed into a dark, thick +undergrowth that was black and succulent under foot. As I plunged into the +reeds, my foremost pursuers emerged from the gap. I broke my way through this +undergrowth for some minutes. The air behind me and about me was soon full of +threatening cries. I heard the tumult of my pursuers in the gap up the slope, +then the crashing of the reeds, and every now and then the crackling crash of a +branch. Some of the creatures roared like excited beasts of prey. The staghound +yelped to the left. I heard Moreau and Montgomery shouting in the same +direction. I turned sharply to the right. It seemed to me even then that I +heard Montgomery shouting for me to run for my life. +</p> + +<p> +Presently the ground gave rich and oozy under my feet; but I was desperate and +went headlong into it, struggled through kneedeep, and so came to a winding +path among tall canes. The noise of my pursuers passed away to my left. In one +place three strange, pink, hopping animals, about the size of cats, bolted +before my footsteps. This pathway ran up hill, across another open space +covered with white incrustation, and plunged into a canebrake again. Then +suddenly it turned parallel with the edge of a steep-walled gap, which came +without warning, like the ha-ha of an English park,—turned with an +unexpected abruptness. I was still running with all my might, and I never saw +this drop until I was flying headlong through the air. +</p> + +<p> +I fell on my forearms and head, among thorns, and rose with a torn ear and +bleeding face. I had fallen into a precipitous ravine, rocky and thorny, full +of a hazy mist which drifted about me in wisps, and with a narrow streamlet +from which this mist came meandering down the centre. I was astonished at this +thin fog in the full blaze of daylight; but I had no time to stand wondering +then. I turned to my right, down-stream, hoping to come to the sea in that +direction, and so have my way open to drown myself. It was only later I found +that I had dropped my nailed stick in my fall. +</p> + +<p> +Presently the ravine grew narrower for a space, and carelessly I stepped into +the stream. I jumped out again pretty quickly, for the water was almost +boiling. I noticed too there was a thin sulphurous scum drifting upon its +coiling water. Almost immediately came a turn in the ravine, and the indistinct +blue horizon. The nearer sea was flashing the sun from a myriad facets. I saw +my death before me; but I was hot and panting, with the warm blood oozing out +on my face and running pleasantly through my veins. I felt more than a touch of +exultation too, at having distanced my pursuers. It was not in me then to go +out and drown myself yet. I stared back the way I had come. +</p> + +<p> +I listened. Save for the hum of the gnats and the chirp of some small insects +that hopped among the thorns, the air was absolutely still. Then came the yelp +of a dog, very faint, and a chattering and gibbering, the snap of a whip, and +voices. They grew louder, then fainter again. The noise receded up the stream +and faded away. For a while the chase was over; but I knew now how much hope of +help for me lay in the Beast People. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap13"></a>XIII.<br> +A PARLEY.</h2> + +<p> +I turned again and went on down towards the sea. I found the hot stream +broadened out to a shallow, weedy sand, in which an abundance of crabs and +long-bodied, many-legged creatures started from my footfall. I walked to the +very edge of the salt water, and then I felt I was safe. I turned and stared, +arms akimbo, at the thick green behind me, into which the steamy ravine cut +like a smoking gash. But, as I say, I was too full of excitement and (a true +saying, though those who have never known danger may doubt it) too desperate to +die. +</p> + +<p> +Then it came into my head that there was one chance before me yet. While Moreau +and Montgomery and their bestial rabble chased me through the island, might I +not go round the beach until I came to their enclosure,—make a flank +march upon them, in fact, and then with a rock lugged out of their +loosely-built wall, perhaps, smash in the lock of the smaller door and see what +I could find (knife, pistol, or what not) to fight them with when they +returned? It was at any rate something to try. +</p> + +<p> +So I turned to the westward and walked along by the water’s edge. The +setting sun flashed his blinding heat into my eyes. The slight Pacific tide was +running in with a gentle ripple. Presently the shore fell away southward, and +the sun came round upon my right hand. Then suddenly, far in front of me, I saw +first one and then several figures emerging from the bushes,—Moreau, with +his grey staghound, then Montgomery, and two others. At that I stopped. +</p> + +<p> +They saw me, and began gesticulating and advancing. I stood watching them +approach. The two Beast Men came running forward to cut me off from the +undergrowth, inland. Montgomery came, running also, but straight towards me. +Moreau followed slower with the dog. +</p> + +<p> +At last I roused myself from my inaction, and turning seaward walked straight +into the water. The water was very shallow at first. I was thirty yards out +before the waves reached to my waist. Dimly I could see the intertidal +creatures darting away from my feet. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you doing, man?” cried Montgomery. +</p> + +<p> +I turned, standing waist deep, and stared at them. Montgomery stood panting at +the margin of the water. His face was bright-red with exertion, his long flaxen +hair blown about his head, and his dropping nether lip showed his irregular +teeth. Moreau was just coming up, his face pale and firm, and the dog at his +hand barked at me. Both men had heavy whips. Farther up the beach stared the +Beast Men. +</p> + +<p> +“What am I doing? I am going to drown myself,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +Montgomery and Moreau looked at each other. “Why?” asked Moreau. +</p> + +<p> +“Because that is better than being tortured by you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I told you so,” said Montgomery, and Moreau said something in a +low tone. +</p> + +<p> +“What makes you think I shall torture you?” asked Moreau. +</p> + +<p> +“What I saw,” I said. “And those—yonder.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hush!” said Moreau, and held up his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“I will not,” said I. “They were men: what are they now? I at +least will not be like them.” +</p> + +<p> +I looked past my interlocutors. Up the beach were M’ling, +Montgomery’s attendant, and one of the white-swathed brutes from the +boat. Farther up, in the shadow of the trees, I saw my little Ape-man, and +behind him some other dim figures. +</p> + +<p> +“Who are these creatures?” said I, pointing to them and raising my +voice more and more that it might reach them. “They were men, men like +yourselves, whom you have infected with some bestial taint,—men whom you +have enslaved, and whom you still fear. +</p> + +<p> +“You who listen,” I cried, pointing now to Moreau and shouting past +him to the Beast Men,—“You who listen! Do you not see these men +still fear you, go in dread of you? Why, then, do you fear them? You are +many—” +</p> + +<p> +“For God’s sake,” cried Montgomery, “stop that, +Prendick!” +</p> + +<p> +“Prendick!” cried Moreau. +</p> + +<p> +They both shouted together, as if to drown my voice; and behind them lowered +the staring faces of the Beast Men, wondering, their deformed hands hanging +down, their shoulders hunched up. They seemed, as I fancied, to be trying to +understand me, to remember, I thought, something of their human past. +</p> + +<p> +I went on shouting, I scarcely remember what,—that Moreau and Montgomery +could be killed, that they were not to be feared: that was the burden of what I +put into the heads of the Beast People. I saw the green-eyed man in the dark +rags, who had met me on the evening of my arrival, come out from among the +trees, and others followed him, to hear me better. At last for want of breath I +paused. +</p> + +<p> +“Listen to me for a moment,” said the steady voice of Moreau; +“and then say what you will.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” said I. +</p> + +<p> +He coughed, thought, then shouted: “Latin, Prendick! bad Latin, schoolboy +Latin; but try and understand. <i>Hi non sunt homines; sunt animalia qui nos +habemus</i>—vivisected. A humanising process. I will explain. Come +ashore.” +</p> + +<p> +I laughed. “A pretty story,” said I. “They talk, build +houses. They were men. It’s likely I’ll come ashore.” +</p> + +<p> +“The water just beyond where you stand is deep—and full of +sharks.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s my way,” said I. “Short and sharp. +Presently.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait a minute.” He took something out of his pocket that flashed +back the sun, and dropped the object at his feet. “That’s a loaded +revolver,” said he. “Montgomery here will do the same. Now we are +going up the beach until you are satisfied the distance is safe. Then come and +take the revolvers.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not I! You have a third between you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want you to think over things, Prendick. In the first place, I never +asked you to come upon this island. If we vivisected men, we should import men, +not beasts. In the next, we had you drugged last night, had we wanted to work +you any mischief; and in the next, now your first panic is over and you can +think a little, is Montgomery here quite up to the character you give him? We +have chased you for your good. Because this island is full of—inimical +phenomena. Besides, why should we want to shoot you when you have just offered +to drown yourself?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you set—your people onto me when I was in the hut?” +</p> + +<p> +“We felt sure of catching you, and bringing you out of danger. Afterwards +we drew away from the scent, for your good.” +</p> + +<p> +I mused. It seemed just possible. Then I remembered something again. “But +I saw,” said I, “in the enclosure—” +</p> + +<p> +“That was the puma.” +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, Prendick,” said Montgomery, “you’re a silly +ass! Come out of the water and take these revolvers, and talk. We can’t +do anything more than we could do now.” +</p> + +<p> +I will confess that then, and indeed always, I distrusted and dreaded Moreau; +but Montgomery was a man I felt I understood. +</p> + +<p> +“Go up the beach,” said I, after thinking, and added, +“holding your hands up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t do that,” said Montgomery, with an explanatory nod +over his shoulder. “Undignified.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go up to the trees, then,” said I, “as you please.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a damned silly ceremony,” said Montgomery. +</p> + +<p> +Both turned and faced the six or seven grotesque creatures, who stood there in +the sunlight, solid, casting shadows, moving, and yet so incredibly unreal. +Montgomery cracked his whip at them, and forthwith they all turned and fled +helter-skelter into the trees; and when Montgomery and Moreau were at a +distance I judged sufficient, I waded ashore, and picked up and examined the +revolvers. To satisfy myself against the subtlest trickery, I discharged one at +a round lump of lava, and had the satisfaction of seeing the stone pulverised +and the beach splashed with lead. Still I hesitated for a moment. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll take the risk,” said I, at last; and with a revolver in +each hand I walked up the beach towards them. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s better,” said Moreau, without affectation. “As +it is, you have wasted the best part of my day with your confounded +imagination.” And with a touch of contempt which humiliated me, he and +Montgomery turned and went on in silence before me. +</p> + +<p> +The knot of Beast Men, still wondering, stood back among the trees. I passed +them as serenely as possible. One started to follow me, but retreated again +when Montgomery cracked his whip. The rest stood silent—watching. They +may once have been animals; but I never before saw an animal trying to think. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap14"></a>XIV.<br> +DOCTOR MOREAU EXPLAINS.</h2> + +<p> +“And now, Prendick, I will explain,” said Doctor Moreau, so soon as +we had eaten and drunk. “I must confess that you are the most dictatorial +guest I ever entertained. I warn you that this is the last I shall do to oblige +you. The next thing you threaten to commit suicide about, I shan’t +do,—even at some personal inconvenience.” +</p> + +<p> +He sat in my deck chair, a cigar half consumed in his white, dexterous-looking +fingers. The light of the swinging lamp fell on his white hair; he stared +through the little window out at the starlight. I sat as far away from him as +possible, the table between us and the revolvers to hand. Montgomery was not +present. I did not care to be with the two of them in such a little room. +</p> + +<p> +“You admit that the vivisected human being, as you called it, is, after +all, only the puma?” said Moreau. He had made me visit that horror in the +inner room, to assure myself of its inhumanity. +</p> + +<p> +“It is the puma,” I said, “still alive, but so cut and +mutilated as I pray I may never see living flesh again. Of all +vile—” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind that,” said Moreau; “at least, spare me those +youthful horrors. Montgomery used to be just the same. You admit that it is the +puma. Now be quiet, while I reel off my physiological lecture to you.” +</p> + +<p> +And forthwith, beginning in the tone of a man supremely bored, but presently +warming a little, he explained his work to me. He was very simple and +convincing. Now and then there was a touch of sarcasm in his voice. Presently I +found myself hot with shame at our mutual positions. +</p> + +<p> +The creatures I had seen were not men, had never been men. They were animals, +humanised animals,—triumphs of vivisection. +</p> + +<p> +“You forget all that a skilled vivisector can do with living +things,” said Moreau. “For my own part, I’m puzzled why the +things I have done here have not been done before. Small efforts, of course, +have been made,—amputation, tongue-cutting, excisions. Of course you know +a squint may be induced or cured by surgery? Then in the case of excisions you +have all kinds of secondary changes, pigmentary disturbances, modifications of +the passions, alterations in the secretion of fatty tissue. I have no doubt you +have heard of these things?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” said I. “But these foul creatures of +yours—” +</p> + +<p> +“All in good time,” said he, waving his hand at me; “I am +only beginning. Those are trivial cases of alteration. Surgery can do better +things than that. There is building up as well as breaking down and changing. +You have heard, perhaps, of a common surgical operation resorted to in cases +where the nose has been destroyed: a flap of skin is cut from the forehead, +turned down on the nose, and heals in the new position. This is a kind of +grafting in a new position of part of an animal upon itself. Grafting of +freshly obtained material from another animal is also possible,—the case +of teeth, for example. The grafting of skin and bone is done to facilitate +healing: the surgeon places in the middle of the wound pieces of skin snipped +from another animal, or fragments of bone from a victim freshly killed. +Hunter’s cock-spur—possibly you have heard of that—flourished +on the bull’s neck; and the rhinoceros rats of the Algerian zouaves are +also to be thought of,—monsters manufactured by transferring a slip from +the tail of an ordinary rat to its snout, and allowing it to heal in that +position.” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsters manufactured!” said I. “Then you mean to tell +me—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. These creatures you have seen are animals carven and wrought into +new shapes. To that, to the study of the plasticity of living forms, my life +has been devoted. I have studied for years, gaining in knowledge as I go. I see +you look horrified, and yet I am telling you nothing new. It all lay in the +surface of practical anatomy years ago, but no one had the temerity to touch +it. It is not simply the outward form of an animal which I can change. The +physiology, the chemical rhythm of the creature, may also be made to undergo an +enduring modification,—of which vaccination and other methods of +inoculation with living or dead matter are examples that will, no doubt, be +familiar to you. A similar operation is the transfusion of blood,—with +which subject, indeed, I began. These are all familiar cases. Less so, and +probably far more extensive, were the operations of those mediaeval +practitioners who made dwarfs and beggar-cripples, show-monsters,—some +vestiges of whose art still remain in the preliminary manipulation of the young +mountebank or contortionist. Victor Hugo gives an account of them in +‘L’Homme qui Rit.’—But perhaps my meaning grows plain +now. You begin to see that it is a possible thing to transplant tissue from one +part of an animal to another, or from one animal to another; to alter its +chemical reactions and methods of growth; to modify the articulations of its +limbs; and, indeed, to change it in its most intimate structure. +</p> + +<p> +“And yet this extraordinary branch of knowledge has never been sought as +an end, and systematically, by modern investigators until I took it up! Some +such things have been hit upon in the last resort of surgery; most of the +kindred evidence that will recur to your mind has been demonstrated as it were +by accident,—by tyrants, by criminals, by the breeders of horses and +dogs, by all kinds of untrained clumsy-handed men working for their own +immediate ends. I was the first man to take up this question armed with +antiseptic surgery, and with a really scientific knowledge of the laws of +growth. Yet one would imagine it must have been practised in secret before. +Such creatures as the Siamese Twins—And in the vaults of the Inquisition. +No doubt their chief aim was artistic torture, but some at least of the +inquisitors must have had a touch of scientific curiosity.” +</p> + +<p> +“But,” said I, “these things—these animals talk!” +</p> + +<p> +He said that was so, and proceeded to point out that the possibility of +vivisection does not stop at a mere physical metamorphosis. A pig may be +educated. The mental structure is even less determinate than the bodily. In our +growing science of hypnotism we find the promise of a possibility of +superseding old inherent instincts by new suggestions, grafting upon or +replacing the inherited fixed ideas. Very much indeed of what we call moral +education, he said, is such an artificial modification and perversion of +instinct; pugnacity is trained into courageous self-sacrifice, and suppressed +sexuality into religious emotion. And the great difference between man and +monkey is in the larynx, he continued,—in the incapacity to frame +delicately different sound-symbols by which thought could be sustained. In this +I failed to agree with him, but with a certain incivility he declined to notice +my objection. He repeated that the thing was so, and continued his account of +his work. +</p> + +<p> +I asked him why he had taken the human form as a model. There seemed to me +then, and there still seems to me now, a strange wickedness for that choice. +</p> + +<p> +He confessed that he had chosen that form by chance. “I might just as +well have worked to form sheep into llamas and llamas into sheep. I suppose +there is something in the human form that appeals to the artistic turn of mind +more powerfully than any animal shape can. But I’ve not confined myself +to man-making. Once or twice—” He was silent, for a minute perhaps. +“These years! How they have slipped by! And here I have wasted a day +saving your life, and am now wasting an hour explaining myself!” +</p> + +<p> +“But,” said I, “I still do not understand. Where is your +justification for inflicting all this pain? The only thing that could excuse +vivisection to me would be some application—” +</p> + +<p> +“Precisely,” said he. “But, you see, I am differently +constituted. We are on different platforms. You are a materialist.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am <i>not</i> a materialist,” I began hotly. +</p> + +<p> +“In my view—in my view. For it is just this question of pain that +parts us. So long as visible or audible pain turns you sick; so long as your +own pains drive you; so long as pain underlies your propositions about +sin,—so long, I tell you, you are an animal, thinking a little less +obscurely what an animal feels. This pain—” +</p> + +<p> +I gave an impatient shrug at such sophistry. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but it is such a little thing! A mind truly opened to what science +has to teach must see that it is a little thing. It may be that save in this +little planet, this speck of cosmic dust, invisible long before the nearest +star could be attained—it may be, I say, that nowhere else does this +thing called pain occur. But the laws we feel our way towards—Why, even +on this earth, even among living things, what pain is there?” +</p> + +<p> +As he spoke he drew a little penknife from his pocket, opened the smaller +blade, and moved his chair so that I could see his thigh. Then, choosing the +place deliberately, he drove the blade into his leg and withdrew it. +</p> + +<p> +“No doubt,” he said, “you have seen that before. It does not +hurt a pin-prick. But what does it show? The capacity for pain is not needed in +the muscle, and it is not placed there,—is but little needed in the skin, +and only here and there over the thigh is a spot capable of feeling pain. Pain +is simply our intrinsic medical adviser to warn us and stimulate us. Not all +living flesh is painful; nor is all nerve, not even all sensory nerve. +There’s no taint of pain, real pain, in the sensations of the optic +nerve. If you wound the optic nerve, you merely see flashes of +light,—just as disease of the auditory nerve merely means a humming in +our ears. Plants do not feel pain, nor the lower animals; it’s possible +that such animals as the starfish and crayfish do not feel pain at all. Then +with men, the more intelligent they become, the more intelligently they will +see after their own welfare, and the less they will need the goad to keep them +out of danger. I never yet heard of a useless thing that was not ground out of +existence by evolution sooner or later. Did you? And pain gets needless. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I am a religious man, Prendick, as every sane man must be. It may +be, I fancy, that I have seen more of the ways of this world’s Maker than +you,—for I have sought his laws, in <i>my</i> way, all my life, while +you, I understand, have been collecting butterflies. And I tell you, pleasure +and pain have nothing to do with heaven or hell. Pleasure and pain—bah! +What is your theologian’s ecstasy but Mahomet’s houri in the dark? +This store which men and women set on pleasure and pain, Prendick, is the mark +of the beast upon them,—the mark of the beast from which they came! Pain, +pain and pleasure, they are for us only so long as we wriggle in the dust. +</p> + +<p> +“You see, I went on with this research just the way it led me. That is +the only way I ever heard of true research going. I asked a question, devised +some method of obtaining an answer, and got a fresh question. Was this possible +or that possible? You cannot imagine what this means to an investigator, what +an intellectual passion grows upon him! You cannot imagine the strange, +colourless delight of these intellectual desires! The thing before you is no +longer an animal, a fellow-creature, but a problem! Sympathetic pain,—all +I know of it I remember as a thing I used to suffer from years ago. I +wanted—it was the one thing I wanted—to find out the extreme limit +of plasticity in a living shape.” +</p> + +<p> +“But,” said I, “the thing is an abomination—” +</p> + +<p> +“To this day I have never troubled about the ethics of the matter,” +he continued. “The study of Nature makes a man at last as remorseless as +Nature. I have gone on, not heeding anything but the question I was pursuing; +and the material has—dripped into the huts yonder. It is nearly eleven +years since we came here, I and Montgomery and six Kanakas. I remember the +green stillness of the island and the empty ocean about us, as though it was +yesterday. The place seemed waiting for me. +</p> + +<p> +“The stores were landed and the house was built. The Kanakas founded some +huts near the ravine. I went to work here upon what I had brought with me. +There were some disagreeable things happened at first. I began with a sheep, +and killed it after a day and a half by a slip of the scalpel. I took another +sheep, and made a thing of pain and fear and left it bound up to heal. It +looked quite human to me when I had finished it; but when I went to it I was +discontented with it. It remembered me, and was terrified beyond imagination; +and it had no more than the wits of a sheep. The more I looked at it the +clumsier it seemed, until at last I put the monster out of its misery. These +animals without courage, these fear-haunted, pain-driven things, without a +spark of pugnacious energy to face torment,—they are no good for +man-making. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I took a gorilla I had; and upon that, working with infinite care +and mastering difficulty after difficulty, I made my first man. All the week, +night and day, I moulded him. With him it was chiefly the brain that needed +moulding; much had to be added, much changed. I thought him a fair specimen of +the negroid type when I had finished him, and he lay bandaged, bound, and +motionless before me. It was only when his life was assured that I left him and +came into this room again, and found Montgomery much as you are. He had heard +some of the cries as the thing grew human,—cries like those that +disturbed <i>you</i> so. I didn’t take him completely into my confidence +at first. And the Kanakas too, had realised something of it. They were scared +out of their wits by the sight of me. I got Montgomery over to me—in a +way; but I and he had the hardest job to prevent the Kanakas deserting. Finally +they did; and so we lost the yacht. I spent many days educating the +brute,—altogether I had him for three or four months. I taught him the +rudiments of English; gave him ideas of counting; even made the thing read the +alphabet. But at that he was slow, though I’ve met with idiots slower. He +began with a clean sheet, mentally; had no memories left in his mind of what he +had been. When his scars were quite healed, and he was no longer anything but +painful and stiff, and able to converse a little, I took him yonder and +introduced him to the Kanakas as an interesting stowaway. +</p> + +<p> +“They were horribly afraid of him at first, somehow,—which offended +me rather, for I was conceited about him; but his ways seemed so mild, and he +was so abject, that after a time they received him and took his education in +hand. He was quick to learn, very imitative and adaptive, and built himself a +hovel rather better, it seemed to me, than their own shanties. There was one +among the boys a bit of a missionary, and he taught the thing to read, or at +least to pick out letters, and gave him some rudimentary ideas of morality; but +it seems the beast’s habits were not all that is desirable. +</p> + +<p> +“I rested from work for some days after this, and was in a mind to write +an account of the whole affair to wake up English physiology. Then I came upon +the creature squatting up in a tree and gibbering at two of the Kanakas who had +been teasing him. I threatened him, told him the inhumanity of such a +proceeding, aroused his sense of shame, and came home resolved to do better +before I took my work back to England. I have been doing better. But somehow +the things drift back again: the stubborn beast-flesh grows day by day back +again. But I mean to do better things still. I mean to conquer that. This +puma— +</p> + +<p> +“But that’s the story. All the Kanaka boys are dead now; one fell +overboard of the launch, and one died of a wounded heel that he poisoned in +some way with plant-juice. Three went away in the yacht, and I suppose and hope +were drowned. The other one—was killed. Well, I have replaced them. +Montgomery went on much as you are disposed to do at first, and then—” +</p> + +<p> +“What became of the other one?” said I, sharply,—“the +other Kanaka who was killed?” +</p> + +<p> +“The fact is, after I had made a number of human creatures I made a +Thing—” He hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“It was killed.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand,” said I; “do you mean to +say—” +</p> + +<p> +“It killed the Kanaka—yes. It killed several other things that it +caught. We chased it for a couple of days. It only got loose by +accident—I never meant it to get away. It wasn’t finished. It was +purely an experiment. It was a limbless thing, with a horrible face, that +writhed along the ground in a serpentine fashion. It was immensely strong, and +in infuriating pain. It lurked in the woods for some days, until we hunted it; +and then it wriggled into the northern part of the island, and we divided the +party to close in upon it. Montgomery insisted upon coming with me. The man had +a rifle; and when his body was found, one of the barrels was curved into the +shape of an S and very nearly bitten through. Montgomery shot the thing. After +that I stuck to the ideal of humanity—except for little things.” +</p> + +<p> +He became silent. I sat in silence watching his face. +</p> + +<p> +“So for twenty years altogether—counting nine years in +England—I have been going on; and there is still something in everything +I do that defeats me, makes me dissatisfied, challenges me to further effort. +Sometimes I rise above my level, sometimes I fall below it; but always I fall +short of the things I dream. The human shape I can get now, almost with ease, +so that it is lithe and graceful, or thick and strong; but often there is +trouble with the hands and the claws,—painful things, that I dare not +shape too freely. But it is in the subtle grafting and reshaping one must needs +do to the brain that my trouble lies. The intelligence is often oddly low, with +unaccountable blank ends, unexpected gaps. And least satisfactory of all is +something that I cannot touch, somewhere—I cannot determine +where—in the seat of the emotions. Cravings, instincts, desires that harm +humanity, a strange hidden reservoir to burst forth suddenly and inundate the +whole being of the creature with anger, hate, or fear. These creatures of mine +seemed strange and uncanny to you so soon as you began to observe them; but to +me, just after I make them, they seem to be indisputably human beings. +It’s afterwards, as I observe them, that the persuasion fades. First one +animal trait, then another, creeps to the surface and stares out at me. But I +will conquer yet! Each time I dip a living creature into the bath of burning +pain, I say, ‘This time I will burn out all the animal; this time I will +make a rational creature of my own!’ After all, what is ten years? Men +have been a hundred thousand in the making.” He thought darkly. +“But I am drawing near the fastness. This puma of mine—” +After a silence, “And they revert. As soon as my hand is taken from them +the beast begins to creep back, begins to assert itself again.” Another +long silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you take the things you make into those dens?” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“They go. I turn them out when I begin to feel the beast in them, and +presently they wander there. They all dread this house and me. There is a kind +of travesty of humanity over there. Montgomery knows about it, for he +interferes in their affairs. He has trained one or two of them to our service. +He’s ashamed of it, but I believe he half likes some of those beasts. +It’s his business, not mine. They only sicken me with a sense of failure. +I take no interest in them. I fancy they follow in the lines the Kanaka +missionary marked out, and have a kind of mockery of a rational life, poor +beasts! There’s something they call the Law. Sing hymns about ‘all +thine.’ They build themselves their dens, gather fruit, and pull +herbs—marry even. But I can see through it all, see into their very +souls, and see there nothing but the souls of beasts, beasts that perish, anger +and the lusts to live and gratify themselves.—Yet they’re odd; +complex, like everything else alive. There is a kind of upward striving in +them, part vanity, part waste sexual emotion, part waste curiosity. It only +mocks me. I have some hope of this puma. I have worked hard at her head and +brain— +</p> + +<p> +“And now,” said he, standing up after a long gap of silence, during +which we had each pursued our own thoughts, “what do you think? Are you +in fear of me still?” +</p> + +<p> +I looked at him, and saw but a white-faced, white-haired man, with calm eyes. +Save for his serenity, the touch almost of beauty that resulted from his set +tranquillity and his magnificent build, he might have passed muster among a +hundred other comfortable old gentlemen. Then I shivered. By way of answer to +his second question, I handed him a revolver with either hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Keep them,” he said, and snatched at a yawn. He stood up, stared +at me for a moment, and smiled. “You have had two eventful days,” +said he. “I should advise some sleep. I’m glad it’s all +clear. Good-night.” He thought me over for a moment, then went out by the +inner door. +</p> + +<p> +I immediately turned the key in the outer one. I sat down again; sat for a time +in a kind of stagnant mood, so weary, emotionally, mentally, and physically, +that I could not think beyond the point at which he had left me. The black +window stared at me like an eye. At last with an effort I put out the light and +got into the hammock. Very soon I was asleep. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap15"></a>XV.<br> +CONCERNING THE BEAST FOLK.</h2> + +<p> +I woke early. Moreau’s explanation stood before my mind, clear and +definite, from the moment of my awakening. I got out of the hammock and went to +the door to assure myself that the key was turned. Then I tried the window-bar, +and found it firmly fixed. That these man-like creatures were in truth only +bestial monsters, mere grotesque travesties of men, filled me with a vague +uncertainty of their possibilities which was far worse than any definite fear. +</p> + +<p> +A tapping came at the door, and I heard the glutinous accents of M’ling +speaking. I pocketed one of the revolvers (keeping one hand upon it), and +opened to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-morning, sair,” he said, bringing in, in addition to the +customary herb-breakfast, an ill-cooked rabbit. Montgomery followed him. His +roving eye caught the position of my arm and he smiled askew. +</p> + +<p> +The puma was resting to heal that day; but Moreau, who was singularly solitary +in his habits, did not join us. I talked with Montgomery to clear my ideas of +the way in which the Beast Folk lived. In particular, I was urgent to know how +these inhuman monsters were kept from falling upon Moreau and Montgomery and +from rending one another. He explained to me that the comparative safety of +Moreau and himself was due to the limited mental scope of these monsters. In +spite of their increased intelligence and the tendency of their animal +instincts to reawaken, they had certain fixed ideas implanted by Moreau in +their minds, which absolutely bounded their imaginations. They were really +hypnotised; had been told that certain things were impossible, and that certain +things were not to be done, and these prohibitions were woven into the texture +of their minds beyond any possibility of disobedience or dispute. +</p> + +<p> +Certain matters, however, in which old instinct was at war with Moreau’s +convenience, were in a less stable condition. A series of propositions called +the Law (I had already heard them recited) battled in their minds with the +deep-seated, ever-rebellious cravings of their animal natures. This Law they +were ever repeating, I found, and ever breaking. Both Montgomery and Moreau +displayed particular solicitude to keep them ignorant of the taste of blood; +they feared the inevitable suggestions of that flavour. Montgomery told me that +the Law, especially among the feline Beast People, became oddly weakened about +nightfall; that then the animal was at its strongest; that a spirit of +adventure sprang up in them at the dusk, when they would dare things they never +seemed to dream about by day. To that I owed my stalking by the Leopard-man, on +the night of my arrival. But during these earlier days of my stay they broke +the Law only furtively and after dark; in the daylight there was a general +atmosphere of respect for its multifarious prohibitions. +</p> + +<p> +And here perhaps I may give a few general facts about the island and the Beast +People. The island, which was of irregular outline and lay low upon the wide +sea, had a total area, I suppose, of seven or eight square miles.<a href="#fn2" id="fnref2"><sup>[2]</sup></a> +It was volcanic in origin, and was now fringed on three sides by coral reefs; +some fumaroles to the northward, and a hot spring, were the only vestiges of +the forces that had long since originated it. Now and then a faint quiver of +earthquake would be sensible, and sometimes the ascent of the spire of smoke +would be rendered tumultuous by gusts of steam; but that was all. The +population of the island, Montgomery informed me, now numbered rather more than +sixty of these strange creations of Moreau’s art, not counting the +smaller monstrosities which lived in the undergrowth and were without human +form. Altogether he had made nearly a hundred and twenty; but many had died, +and others—like the writhing Footless Thing of which he had told +me—had come by violent ends. In answer to my question, Montgomery said +that they actually bore offspring, but that these generally died. When they +lived, Moreau took them and stamped the human form upon them. There was no +evidence of the inheritance of their acquired human characteristics. The +females were less numerous than the males, and liable to much furtive +persecution in spite of the monogamy the Law enjoined. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a id="fn2"></a> <a href="#fnref2">[2]</a>This description corresponds in +every respect to Noble’s Isle.—C. E. P. +</p> + +<p> +It would be impossible for me to describe these Beast People in detail; my eye +has had no training in details, and unhappily I cannot sketch. Most striking, +perhaps, in their general appearance was the disproportion between the legs of +these creatures and the length of their bodies; and yet—so relative is +our idea of grace—my eye became habituated to their forms, and at last I +even fell in with their persuasion that my own long thighs were ungainly. +Another point was the forward carriage of the head and the clumsy and inhuman +curvature of the spine. Even the Ape-man lacked that inward sinuous curve of +the back which makes the human figure so graceful. Most had their shoulders +hunched clumsily, and their short forearms hung weakly at their sides. Few of +them were conspicuously hairy, at least until the end of my time upon the +island. +</p> + +<p> +The next most obvious deformity was in their faces, almost all of which were +prognathous, malformed about the ears, with large and protuberant noses, very +furry or very bristly hair, and often strangely-coloured or strangely-placed +eyes. None could laugh, though the Ape-man had a chattering titter. Beyond +these general characters their heads had little in common; each preserved the +quality of its particular species: the human mark distorted but did not hide +the leopard, the ox, or the sow, or other animal or animals, from which the +creature had been moulded. The voices, too, varied exceedingly. The hands were +always malformed; and though some surprised me by their unexpected human +appearance, almost all were deficient in the number of the digits, clumsy about +the finger-nails, and lacking any tactile sensibility. +</p> + +<p> +The two most formidable Animal Men were my Leopard-man and a creature made of +hyena and swine. Larger than these were the three bull-creatures who pulled in +the boat. Then came the silvery-hairy-man, who was also the Sayer of the Law, +M’ling, and a satyr-like creature of ape and goat. There were three +Swine-men and a Swine-woman, a mare-rhinoceros-creature, and several other +females whose sources I did not ascertain. There were several wolf-creatures, a +bear-bull, and a Saint-Bernard-man. I have already described the Ape-man, and +there was a particularly hateful (and evil-smelling) old woman made of vixen +and bear, whom I hated from the beginning. She was said to be a passionate +votary of the Law. Smaller creatures were certain dappled youths and my little +sloth-creature. But enough of this catalogue. +</p> + +<p> +At first I had a shivering horror of the brutes, felt all too keenly that they +were still brutes; but insensibly I became a little habituated to the idea of +them, and moreover I was affected by Montgomery’s attitude towards them. +He had been with them so long that he had come to regard them as almost normal +human beings. His London days seemed a glorious, impossible past to him. Only +once in a year or so did he go to Africa to deal with Moreau’s agent, a +trader in animals there. He hardly met the finest type of mankind in that +seafaring village of Spanish mongrels. The men aboard-ship, he told me, seemed +at first just as strange to him as the Beast Men seemed to +me,—unnaturally long in the leg, flat in the face, prominent in the +forehead, suspicious, dangerous, and cold-hearted. In fact, he did not like +men: his heart had warmed to me, he thought, because he had saved my life. I +fancied even then that he had a sneaking kindness for some of these +metamorphosed brutes, a vicious sympathy with some of their ways, but that he +attempted to veil it from me at first. +</p> + +<p> +M’ling, the black-faced man, Montgomery’s attendant, the first of +the Beast Folk I had encountered, did not live with the others across the +island, but in a small kennel at the back of the enclosure. The creature was +scarcely so intelligent as the Ape-man, but far more docile, and the most +human-looking of all the Beast Folk; and Montgomery had trained it to prepare +food, and indeed to discharge all the trivial domestic offices that were +required. It was a complex trophy of Moreau’s horrible skill,—a +bear, tainted with dog and ox, and one of the most elaborately made of all his +creatures. It treated Montgomery with a strange tenderness and devotion. +Sometimes he would notice it, pat it, call it half-mocking, half-jocular names, +and so make it caper with extraordinary delight; sometimes he would ill-treat +it, especially after he had been at the whiskey, kicking it, beating it, +pelting it with stones or lighted fusees. But whether he treated it well or +ill, it loved nothing so much as to be near him. +</p> + +<p> +I say I became habituated to the Beast People, that a thousand things which had +seemed unnatural and repulsive speedily became natural and ordinary to me. I +suppose everything in existence takes its colour from the average hue of our +surroundings. Montgomery and Moreau were too peculiar and individual to keep my +general impressions of humanity well defined. I would see one of the clumsy +bovine-creatures who worked the launch treading heavily through the +undergrowth, and find myself asking, trying hard to recall, how he differed +from some really human yokel trudging home from his mechanical labours; or I +would meet the Fox-bear woman’s vulpine, shifty face, strangely human in +its speculative cunning, and even imagine I had met it before in some city +byway. +</p> + +<p> +Yet every now and then the beast would flash out upon me beyond doubt or +denial. An ugly-looking man, a hunch-backed human savage to all appearance, +squatting in the aperture of one of the dens, would stretch his arms and yawn, +showing with startling suddenness scissor-edged incisors and sabre-like +canines, keen and brilliant as knives. Or in some narrow pathway, glancing with +a transitory daring into the eyes of some lithe, white-swathed female figure, I +would suddenly see (with a spasmodic revulsion) that she had slit-like pupils, +or glancing down note the curving nail with which she held her shapeless wrap +about her. It is a curious thing, by the bye, for which I am quite unable to +account, that these weird creatures—the females, I mean—had in the +earlier days of my stay an instinctive sense of their own repulsive clumsiness, +and displayed in consequence a more than human regard for the decency and +decorum of extensive costume. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap16"></a>XVI.<br> +HOW THE BEAST FOLK TASTE BLOOD.</h2> + +<p> +My inexperience as a writer betrays me, and I wander from the thread of my +story. +</p> + +<p> +After I had breakfasted with Montgomery, he took me across the island to see +the fumarole and the source of the hot spring into whose scalding waters I had +blundered on the previous day. Both of us carried whips and loaded revolvers. +While going through a leafy jungle on our road thither, we heard a rabbit +squealing. We stopped and listened, but we heard no more; and presently we went +on our way, and the incident dropped out of our minds. Montgomery called my +attention to certain little pink animals with long hind-legs, that went leaping +through the undergrowth. He told me they were creatures made of the offspring +of the Beast People, that Moreau had invented. He had fancied they might serve +for meat, but a rabbit-like habit of devouring their young had defeated this +intention. I had already encountered some of these creatures,—once during +my moonlight flight from the Leopard-man, and once during my pursuit by Moreau +on the previous day. By chance, one hopping to avoid us leapt into the hole +caused by the uprooting of a wind-blown tree; before it could extricate itself +we managed to catch it. It spat like a cat, scratched and kicked vigorously +with its hind-legs, and made an attempt to bite; but its teeth were too feeble +to inflict more than a painless pinch. It seemed to me rather a pretty little +creature; and as Montgomery stated that it never destroyed the turf by +burrowing, and was very cleanly in its habits, I should imagine it might prove +a convenient substitute for the common rabbit in gentlemen’s parks. +</p> + +<p> +We also saw on our way the trunk of a tree barked in long strips and splintered +deeply. Montgomery called my attention to this. “Not to claw bark of +trees, <i>that</i> is the Law,” he said. “Much some of them care +for it!” It was after this, I think, that we met the Satyr and the +Ape-man. The Satyr was a gleam of classical memory on the part of +Moreau,—his face ovine in expression, like the coarser Hebrew type; his +voice a harsh bleat, his nether extremities Satanic. He was gnawing the husk of +a pod-like fruit as he passed us. Both of them saluted Montgomery. +</p> + +<p> +“Hail,” said they, “to the Other with the Whip!” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a Third with a Whip now,” said Montgomery. “So +you’d better mind!” +</p> + +<p> +“Was he not made?” said the Ape-man. “He said—he said +he was made.” +</p> + +<p> +The Satyr-man looked curiously at me. “The Third with the Whip, he that +walks weeping into the sea, has a thin white face.” +</p> + +<p> +“He has a thin long whip,” said Montgomery. +</p> + +<p> +“Yesterday he bled and wept,” said the Satyr. “You never +bleed nor weep. The Master does not bleed or weep.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ollendorffian beggar!” said Montgomery, “you’ll bleed +and weep if you don’t look out!” +</p> + +<p> +“He has five fingers, he is a five-man like me,” said the Ape-man. +</p> + +<p> +“Come along, Prendick,” said Montgomery, taking my arm; and I went +on with him. +</p> + +<p> +The Satyr and the Ape-man stood watching us and making other remarks to each +other. +</p> + +<p> +“He says nothing,” said the Satyr. “Men have voices.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yesterday he asked me of things to eat,” said the Ape-man. +“He did not know.” +</p> + +<p> +Then they spoke inaudible things, and I heard the Satyr laughing. +</p> + +<p> +It was on our way back that we came upon the dead rabbit. The red body of the +wretched little beast was rent to pieces, many of the ribs stripped white, and +the backbone indisputably gnawed. +</p> + +<p> +At that Montgomery stopped. “Good God!” said he, stooping down, and +picking up some of the crushed vertebrae to examine them more closely. +“Good God!” he repeated, “what can this mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Some carnivore of yours has remembered its old habits,” I said +after a pause. “This backbone has been bitten through.” +</p> + +<p> +He stood staring, with his face white and his lip pulled askew. “I +don’t like this,” he said slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“I saw something of the same kind,” said I, “the first day I +came here.” +</p> + +<p> +“The devil you did! What was it?” +</p> + +<p> +“A rabbit with its head twisted off.” +</p> + +<p> +“The day you came here?” +</p> + +<p> +“The day I came here. In the undergrowth at the back of the enclosure, +when I went out in the evening. The head was completely wrung off.” +</p> + +<p> +He gave a long, low whistle. +</p> + +<p> +“And what is more, I have an idea which of your brutes did the thing. +It’s only a suspicion, you know. Before I came on the rabbit I saw one of +your monsters drinking in the stream.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sucking his drink?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Not to suck your drink; that is the Law.’ Much the brutes +care for the Law, eh? when Moreau’s not about!” +</p> + +<p> +“It was the brute who chased me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” said Montgomery; “it’s just the way with +carnivores. After a kill, they drink. It’s the taste of blood, you +know.—What was the brute like?” he continued. “Would you know +him again?” He glanced about us, standing astride over the mess of dead +rabbit, his eyes roving among the shadows and screens of greenery, the +lurking-places and ambuscades of the forest that bounded us in. “The +taste of blood,” he said again. +</p> + +<p> +He took out his revolver, examined the cartridges in it and replaced it. Then +he began to pull at his dropping lip. +</p> + +<p> +“I think I should know the brute again,” I said. “I stunned +him. He ought to have a handsome bruise on the forehead of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“But then we have to <i>prove</i> that he killed the rabbit,” said +Montgomery. “I wish I’d never brought the things here.” +</p> + +<p> +I should have gone on, but he stayed there thinking over the mangled rabbit in +a puzzle-headed way. As it was, I went to such a distance that the +rabbit’s remains were hidden. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on!” I said. +</p> + +<p> +Presently he woke up and came towards me. “You see,” he said, +almost in a whisper, “they are all supposed to have a fixed idea against +eating anything that runs on land. If some brute has by any accident tasted +blood—” +</p> + +<p> +We went on some way in silence. “I wonder what can have happened,” +he said to himself. Then, after a pause again: “I did a foolish thing the +other day. That servant of mine—I showed him how to skin and cook a +rabbit. It’s odd—I saw him licking his hands—It never +occurred to me.” +</p> + +<p> +Then: “We must put a stop to this. I must tell Moreau.” +</p> + +<p> +He could think of nothing else on our homeward journey. +</p> + +<p> +Moreau took the matter even more seriously than Montgomery, and I need scarcely +say that I was affected by their evident consternation. +</p> + +<p> +“We must make an example,” said Moreau. “I’ve no doubt +in my own mind that the Leopard-man was the sinner. But how can we prove it? I +wish, Montgomery, you had kept your taste for meat in hand, and gone without +these exciting novelties. We may find ourselves in a mess yet, through +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was a silly ass,” said Montgomery. “But the thing’s +done now; and you said I might have them, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“We must see to the thing at once,” said Moreau. “I suppose +if anything should turn up, M’ling can take care of himself?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not so sure of M’ling,” said Montgomery. “I +think I ought to know him.” +</p> + +<p> +In the afternoon, Moreau, Montgomery, myself, and M’ling went across the +island to the huts in the ravine. We three were armed; M’ling carried the +little hatchet he used in chopping firewood, and some coils of wire. Moreau had +a huge cowherd’s horn slung over his shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“You will see a gathering of the Beast People,” said Montgomery. +“It is a pretty sight!” +</p> + +<p> +Moreau said not a word on the way, but the expression of his heavy, +white-fringed face was grimly set. +</p> + +<p> +We crossed the ravine down which smoked the stream of hot water, and followed +the winding pathway through the canebrakes until we reached a wide area covered +over with a thick, powdery yellow substance which I believe was sulphur. Above +the shoulder of a weedy bank the sea glittered. We came to a kind of shallow +natural amphitheatre, and here the four of us halted. Then Moreau sounded the +horn, and broke the sleeping stillness of the tropical afternoon. He must have +had strong lungs. The hooting note rose and rose amidst its echoes, to at last +an ear-penetrating intensity. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said Moreau, letting the curved instrument fall to his side +again. +</p> + +<p> +Immediately there was a crashing through the yellow canes, and a sound of +voices from the dense green jungle that marked the morass through which I had +run on the previous day. Then at three or four points on the edge of the +sulphurous area appeared the grotesque forms of the Beast People hurrying +towards us. I could not help a creeping horror, as I perceived first one and +then another trot out from the trees or reeds and come shambling along over the +hot dust. But Moreau and Montgomery stood calmly enough; and, perforce, I stuck +beside them. +</p> + +<p> +First to arrive was the Satyr, strangely unreal for all that he cast a shadow +and tossed the dust with his hoofs. After him from the brake came a monstrous +lout, a thing of horse and rhinoceros, chewing a straw as it came; then +appeared the Swine-woman and two Wolf-women; then the Fox-bear witch, with her +red eyes in her peaked red face, and then others,—all hurrying eagerly. +As they came forward they began to cringe towards Moreau and chant, quite +regardless of one another, fragments of the latter half of the litany of the +Law,—“His is the Hand that wounds; His is the Hand that +heals,” and so forth. As soon as they had approached within a distance of +perhaps thirty yards they halted, and bowing on knees and elbows began flinging +the white dust upon their heads. +</p> + +<p> +Imagine the scene if you can! We three blue-clad men, with our misshapen +black-faced attendant, standing in a wide expanse of sunlit yellow dust under +the blazing blue sky, and surrounded by this circle of crouching and +gesticulating monstrosities,—some almost human save in their subtle +expression and gestures, some like cripples, some so strangely distorted as to +resemble nothing but the denizens of our wildest dreams; and, beyond, the reedy +lines of a canebrake in one direction, a dense tangle of palm-trees on the +other, separating us from the ravine with the huts, and to the north the hazy +horizon of the Pacific Ocean. +</p> + +<p> +“Sixty-two, sixty-three,” counted Moreau. “There are four +more.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not see the Leopard-man,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +Presently Moreau sounded the great horn again, and at the sound of it all the +Beast People writhed and grovelled in the dust. Then, slinking out of the +canebrake, stooping near the ground and trying to join the dust-throwing circle +behind Moreau’s back, came the Leopard-man. The last of the Beast People +to arrive was the little Ape-man. The earlier animals, hot and weary with their +grovelling, shot vicious glances at him. +</p> + +<p> +“Cease!” said Moreau, in his firm, loud voice; and the Beast People +sat back upon their hams and rested from their worshipping. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is the Sayer of the Law?” said Moreau, and the hairy-grey +monster bowed his face in the dust. +</p> + +<p> +“Say the words!” said Moreau. +</p> + +<p> +Forthwith all in the kneeling assembly, swaying from side to side and dashing +up the sulphur with their hands,—first the right hand and a puff of dust, +and then the left,—began once more to chant their strange litany. When +they reached, “Not to eat Flesh or Fish, that is the Law,” Moreau +held up his lank white hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Stop!” he cried, and there fell absolute silence upon them all. +</p> + +<p> +I think they all knew and dreaded what was coming. I looked round at their +strange faces. When I saw their wincing attitudes and the furtive dread in +their bright eyes, I wondered that I had ever believed them to be men. +</p> + +<p> +“That Law has been broken!” said Moreau. +</p> + +<p> +“None escape,” from the faceless creature with the silvery hair. +“None escape,” repeated the kneeling circle of Beast People. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is he?” cried Moreau, and looked round at their faces, +cracking his whip. I fancied the Hyena-swine looked dejected, so too did the +Leopard-man. Moreau stopped, facing this creature, who cringed towards him with +the memory and dread of infinite torment. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is he?” repeated Moreau, in a voice of thunder. +</p> + +<p> +“Evil is he who breaks the Law,” chanted the Sayer of the Law. +</p> + +<p> +Moreau looked into the eyes of the Leopard-man, and seemed to be dragging the +very soul out of the creature. +</p> + +<p> +“Who breaks the Law—” said Moreau, taking his eyes off his +victim, and turning towards us (it seemed to me there was a touch of exultation +in his voice). +</p> + +<p> +“Goes back to the House of Pain,” they all +clamoured,—“goes back to the House of Pain, O Master!” +</p> + +<p> +“Back to the House of Pain,—back to the House of Pain,” +gabbled the Ape-man, as though the idea was sweet to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you hear?” said Moreau, turning back to the criminal, “my +friend—Hullo!” +</p> + +<p> +For the Leopard-man, released from Moreau’s eye, had risen straight from +his knees, and now, with eyes aflame and his huge feline tusks flashing out +from under his curling lips, leapt towards his tormentor. I am convinced that +only the madness of unendurable fear could have prompted this attack. The whole +circle of threescore monsters seemed to rise about us. I drew my revolver. The +two figures collided. I saw Moreau reeling back from the Leopard-man’s +blow. There was a furious yelling and howling all about us. Every one was +moving rapidly. For a moment I thought it was a general revolt. The furious +face of the Leopard-man flashed by mine, with M’ling close in pursuit. I +saw the yellow eyes of the Hyena-swine blazing with excitement, his attitude as +if he were half resolved to attack me. The Satyr, too, glared at me over the +Hyena-swine’s hunched shoulders. I heard the crack of Moreau’s +pistol, and saw the pink flash dart across the tumult. The whole crowd seemed +to swing round in the direction of the glint of fire, and I too was swung round +by the magnetism of the movement. In another second I was running, one of a +tumultuous shouting crowd, in pursuit of the escaping Leopard-man. +</p> + +<p> +That is all I can tell definitely. I saw the Leopard-man strike Moreau, and +then everything spun about me until I was running headlong. M’ling was +ahead, close in pursuit of the fugitive. Behind, their tongues already lolling +out, ran the Wolf-women in great leaping strides. The Swine folk followed, +squealing with excitement, and the two Bull-men in their swathings of white. +Then came Moreau in a cluster of the Beast People, his wide-brimmed straw hat +blown off, his revolver in hand, and his lank white hair streaming out. The +Hyena-swine ran beside me, keeping pace with me and glancing furtively at me +out of his feline eyes, and the others came pattering and shouting behind us. +</p> + +<p> +The Leopard-man went bursting his way through the long canes, which sprang back +as he passed, and rattled in M’ling’s face. We others in the rear +found a trampled path for us when we reached the brake. The chase lay through +the brake for perhaps a quarter of a mile, and then plunged into a dense +thicket, which retarded our movements exceedingly, though we went through it in +a crowd together,—fronds flicking into our faces, ropy creepers catching +us under the chin or gripping our ankles, thorny plants hooking into and +tearing cloth and flesh together. +</p> + +<p> +“He has gone on all-fours through this,” panted Moreau, now just +ahead of me. +</p> + +<p> +“None escape,” said the Wolf-bear, laughing into my face with the +exultation of hunting. We burst out again among rocks, and saw the quarry ahead +running lightly on all-fours and snarling at us over his shoulder. At that the +Wolf Folk howled with delight. The Thing was still clothed, and at a distance +its face still seemed human; but the carriage of its four limbs was feline, and +the furtive droop of its shoulder was distinctly that of a hunted animal. It +leapt over some thorny yellow-flowering bushes, and was hidden. M’ling +was halfway across the space. +</p> + +<p> +Most of us now had lost the first speed of the chase, and had fallen into a +longer and steadier stride. I saw as we traversed the open that the pursuit was +now spreading from a column into a line. The Hyena-swine still ran close to me, +watching me as it ran, every now and then puckering its muzzle with a snarling +laugh. At the edge of the rocks the Leopard-man, realising that he was making +for the projecting cape upon which he had stalked me on the night of my +arrival, had doubled in the undergrowth; but Montgomery had seen the manoeuvre, +and turned him again. So, panting, tumbling against rocks, torn by brambles, +impeded by ferns and reeds, I helped to pursue the Leopard-man who had broken +the Law, and the Hyena-swine ran, laughing savagely, by my side. I staggered +on, my head reeling and my heart beating against my ribs, tired almost to +death, and yet not daring to lose sight of the chase lest I should be left +alone with this horrible companion. I staggered on in spite of infinite fatigue +and the dense heat of the tropical afternoon. +</p> + +<p> +At last the fury of the hunt slackened. We had pinned the wretched brute into a +corner of the island. Moreau, whip in hand, marshalled us all into an irregular +line, and we advanced now slowly, shouting to one another as we advanced and +tightening the cordon about our victim. He lurked noiseless and invisible in +the bushes through which I had run from him during that midnight pursuit. +</p> + +<p> +“Steady!” cried Moreau, “steady!” as the ends of the +line crept round the tangle of undergrowth and hemmed the brute in. +</p> + +<p> +“Ware a rush!” came the voice of Montgomery from beyond the +thicket. +</p> + +<p> +I was on the slope above the bushes; Montgomery and Moreau beat along the beach +beneath. Slowly we pushed in among the fretted network of branches and leaves. +The quarry was silent. +</p> + +<p> +“Back to the House of Pain, the House of Pain, the House of Pain!” +yelped the voice of the Ape-man, some twenty yards to the right. +</p> + +<p> +When I heard that, I forgave the poor wretch all the fear he had inspired in +me. I heard the twigs snap and the boughs swish aside before the heavy tread of +the Horse-rhinoceros upon my right. Then suddenly through a polygon of green, +in the half darkness under the luxuriant growth, I saw the creature we were +hunting. I halted. He was crouched together into the smallest possible compass, +his luminous green eyes turned over his shoulder regarding me. +</p> + +<p> +It may seem a strange contradiction in me,—I cannot explain the +fact,—but now, seeing the creature there in a perfectly animal attitude, +with the light gleaming in its eyes and its imperfectly human face distorted +with terror, I realised again the fact of its humanity. In another moment other +of its pursuers would see it, and it would be overpowered and captured, to +experience once more the horrible tortures of the enclosure. Abruptly I slipped +out my revolver, aimed between its terror-struck eyes, and fired. As I did so, +the Hyena-swine saw the Thing, and flung itself upon it with an eager cry, +thrusting thirsty teeth into its neck. All about me the green masses of the +thicket were swaying and cracking as the Beast People came rushing together. +One face and then another appeared. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t kill it, Prendick!” cried Moreau. “Don’t +kill it!” and I saw him stooping as he pushed through under the fronds of +the big ferns. +</p> + +<p> +In another moment he had beaten off the Hyena-swine with the handle of his +whip, and he and Montgomery were keeping away the excited carnivorous Beast +People, and particularly M’ling, from the still quivering body. The +hairy-grey Thing came sniffing at the corpse under my arm. The other animals, +in their animal ardour, jostled me to get a nearer view. +</p> + +<p> +“Confound you, Prendick!” said Moreau. “I wanted him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry,” said I, though I was not. “It was the +impulse of the moment.” I felt sick with exertion and excitement. +Turning, I pushed my way out of the crowding Beast People and went on alone up +the slope towards the higher part of the headland. Under the shouted directions +of Moreau I heard the three white-swathed Bull-men begin dragging the victim +down towards the water. +</p> + +<p> +It was easy now for me to be alone. The Beast People manifested a quite human +curiosity about the dead body, and followed it in a thick knot, sniffing and +growling at it as the Bull-men dragged it down the beach. I went to the +headland and watched the bull-men, black against the evening sky as they +carried the weighted dead body out to sea; and like a wave across my mind came +the realisation of the unspeakable aimlessness of things upon the island. Upon +the beach among the rocks beneath me were the Ape-man, the Hyena-swine, and +several other of the Beast People, standing about Montgomery and Moreau. They +were all still intensely excited, and all overflowing with noisy expressions of +their loyalty to the Law; yet I felt an absolute assurance in my own mind that +the Hyena-swine was implicated in the rabbit-killing. A strange persuasion came +upon me, that, save for the grossness of the line, the grotesqueness of the +forms, I had here before me the whole balance of human life in miniature, the +whole interplay of instinct, reason, and fate in its simplest form. The +Leopard-man had happened to go under: that was all the difference. Poor brute! +</p> + +<p> +Poor brutes! I began to see the viler aspect of Moreau’s cruelty. I had +not thought before of the pain and trouble that came to these poor victims +after they had passed from Moreau’s hands. I had shivered only at the +days of actual torment in the enclosure. But now that seemed to me the lesser +part. Before, they had been beasts, their instincts fitly adapted to their +surroundings, and happy as living things may be. Now they stumbled in the +shackles of humanity, lived in a fear that never died, fretted by a law they +could not understand; their mock-human existence, begun in an agony, was one +long internal struggle, one long dread of Moreau—and for what? It was the +wantonness of it that stirred me. +</p> + +<p> +Had Moreau had any intelligible object, I could have sympathised at least a +little with him. I am not so squeamish about pain as that. I could have +forgiven him a little even, had his motive been only hate. But he was so +irresponsible, so utterly careless! His curiosity, his mad, aimless +investigations, drove him on; and the Things were thrown out to live a year or +so, to struggle and blunder and suffer, and at last to die painfully. They were +wretched in themselves; the old animal hate moved them to trouble one another; +the Law held them back from a brief hot struggle and a decisive end to their +natural animosities. +</p> + +<p> +In those days my fear of the Beast People went the way of my personal fear for +Moreau. I fell indeed into a morbid state, deep and enduring, and alien to +fear, which has left permanent scars upon my mind. I must confess that I lost +faith in the sanity of the world when I saw it suffering the painful disorder +of this island. A blind Fate, a vast pitiless mechanism, seemed to cut and +shape the fabric of existence and I, Moreau (by his passion for research), +Montgomery (by his passion for drink), the Beast People with their instincts +and mental restrictions, were torn and crushed, ruthlessly, inevitably, amid +the infinite complexity of its incessant wheels. But this condition did not +come all at once: I think indeed that I anticipate a little in speaking of it +now. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap17"></a>XVII.<br> +A CATASTROPHE.</h2> + +<p> +Scarcely six weeks passed before I had lost every feeling but dislike and +abhorrence for this infamous experiment of Moreau’s. My one idea was to +get away from these horrible caricatures of my Maker’s image, back to the +sweet and wholesome intercourse of men. My fellow-creatures, from whom I was +thus separated, began to assume idyllic virtue and beauty in my memory. My +first friendship with Montgomery did not increase. His long separation from +humanity, his secret vice of drunkenness, his evident sympathy with the Beast +People, tainted him to me. Several times I let him go alone among them. I +avoided intercourse with them in every possible way. I spent an increasing +proportion of my time upon the beach, looking for some liberating sail that +never appeared,—until one day there fell upon us an appalling disaster, +which put an altogether different aspect upon my strange surroundings. +</p> + +<p> +It was about seven or eight weeks after my landing,—rather more, I think, +though I had not troubled to keep account of the time,—when this +catastrophe occurred. It happened in the early morning—I should think +about six. I had risen and breakfasted early, having been aroused by the noise +of three Beast Men carrying wood into the enclosure. +</p> + +<p> +After breakfast I went to the open gateway of the enclosure, and stood there +smoking a cigarette and enjoying the freshness of the early morning. Moreau +presently came round the corner of the enclosure and greeted me. He passed by +me, and I heard him behind me unlock and enter his laboratory. So indurated was +I at that time to the abomination of the place, that I heard without a touch of +emotion the puma victim begin another day of torture. It met its persecutor +with a shriek, almost exactly like that of an angry virago. +</p> + +<p> +Then suddenly something happened,—I do not know what, to this day. I +heard a short, sharp cry behind me, a fall, and turning saw an awful face +rushing upon me,—not human, not animal, but hellish, brown, seamed with +red branching scars, red drops starting out upon it, and the lidless eyes +ablaze. I threw up my arm to defend myself from the blow that flung me headlong +with a broken forearm; and the great monster, swathed in lint and with +red-stained bandages fluttering about it, leapt over me and passed. I rolled +over and over down the beach, tried to sit up, and collapsed upon my broken +arm. Then Moreau appeared, his massive white face all the more terrible for the +blood that trickled from his forehead. He carried a revolver in one hand. He +scarcely glanced at me, but rushed off at once in pursuit of the puma. +</p> + +<p> +I tried the other arm and sat up. The muffled figure in front ran in great +striding leaps along the beach, and Moreau followed her. She turned her head +and saw him, then doubling abruptly made for the bushes. She gained upon him at +every stride. I saw her plunge into them, and Moreau, running slantingly to +intercept her, fired and missed as she disappeared. Then he too vanished in the +green confusion. I stared after them, and then the pain in my arm flamed up, +and with a groan I staggered to my feet. Montgomery appeared in the doorway, +dressed, and with his revolver in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Great God, Prendick!” he said, not noticing that I was hurt, +“that brute’s loose! Tore the fetter out of the wall! Have you seen +them?” Then sharply, seeing I gripped my arm, “What’s the +matter?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was standing in the doorway,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +He came forward and took my arm. “Blood on the sleeve,” said he, +and rolled back the flannel. He pocketed his weapon, felt my arm about +painfully, and led me inside. “Your arm is broken,” he said, and +then, “Tell me exactly how it happened—what happened?” +</p> + +<p> +I told him what I had seen; told him in broken sentences, with gasps of pain +between them, and very dexterously and swiftly he bound my arm meanwhile. He +slung it from my shoulder, stood back and looked at me. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll do,” he said. “And now?” +</p> + +<p> +He thought. Then he went out and locked the gates of the enclosure. He was +absent some time. +</p> + +<p> +I was chiefly concerned about my arm. The incident seemed merely one more of +many horrible things. I sat down in the deck chair, and I must admit swore +heartily at the island. The first dull feeling of injury in my arm had already +given way to a burning pain when Montgomery reappeared. His face was rather +pale, and he showed more of his lower gums than ever. +</p> + +<p> +“I can neither see nor hear anything of him,” he said. +“I’ve been thinking he may want my help.” He stared at me +with his expressionless eyes. “That was a strong brute,” he said. +“It simply wrenched its fetter out of the wall.” He went to the +window, then to the door, and there turned to me. “I shall go after +him,” he said. “There’s another revolver I can leave with +you. To tell you the truth, I feel anxious somehow.” +</p> + +<p> +He obtained the weapon, and put it ready to my hand on the table; then went +out, leaving a restless contagion in the air. I did not sit long after he left, +but took the revolver in hand and went to the doorway. +</p> + +<p> +The morning was as still as death. Not a whisper of wind was stirring; the sea +was like polished glass, the sky empty, the beach desolate. In my half-excited, +half-feverish state, this stillness of things oppressed me. I tried to whistle, +and the tune died away. I swore again,—the second time that morning. Then +I went to the corner of the enclosure and stared inland at the green bush that +had swallowed up Moreau and Montgomery. When would they return, and how? Then +far away up the beach a little grey Beast Man appeared, ran down to the +water’s edge and began splashing about. I strolled back to the doorway, +then to the corner again, and so began pacing to and fro like a sentinel upon +duty. Once I was arrested by the distant voice of Montgomery bawling, +“Coo-ee—Moreau!” My arm became less painful, but very hot. I +got feverish and thirsty. My shadow grew shorter. I watched the distant figure +until it went away again. Would Moreau and Montgomery never return? Three +sea-birds began fighting for some stranded treasure. +</p> + +<p> +Then from far away behind the enclosure I heard a pistol-shot. A long silence, +and then came another. Then a yelling cry nearer, and another dismal gap of +silence. My unfortunate imagination set to work to torment me. Then suddenly a +shot close by. I went to the corner, startled, and saw Montgomery,—his +face scarlet, his hair disordered, and the knee of his trousers torn. His face +expressed profound consternation. Behind him slouched the Beast Man, +M’ling, and round M’ling’s jaws were some queer dark stains. +</p> + +<p> +“Has he come?” said Montgomery. +</p> + +<p> +“Moreau?” said I. “No.” +</p> + +<p> +“My God!” The man was panting, almost sobbing. “Go back +in,” he said, taking my arm. “They’re mad. They’re all +rushing about mad. What can have happened? I don’t know. I’ll tell +you, when my breath comes. Where’s some brandy?” +</p> + +<p> +Montgomery limped before me into the room and sat down in the deck chair. +M’ling flung himself down just outside the doorway and began panting like +a dog. I got Montgomery some brandy-and-water. He sat staring in front of him +at nothing, recovering his breath. After some minutes he began to tell me what +had happened. +</p> + +<p> +He had followed their track for some way. It was plain enough at first on +account of the crushed and broken bushes, white rags torn from the puma’s +bandages, and occasional smears of blood on the leaves of the shrubs and +undergrowth. He lost the track, however, on the stony ground beyond the stream +where I had seen the Beast Man drinking, and went wandering aimlessly westward +shouting Moreau’s name. Then M’ling had come to him carrying a +light hatchet. M’ling had seen nothing of the puma affair; had been +felling wood, and heard him calling. They went on shouting together. Two Beast +Men came crouching and peering at them through the undergrowth, with gestures +and a furtive carriage that alarmed Montgomery by their strangeness. He hailed +them, and they fled guiltily. He stopped shouting after that, and after +wandering some time farther in an undecided way, determined to visit the huts. +</p> + +<p> +He found the ravine deserted. +</p> + +<p> +Growing more alarmed every minute, he began to retrace his steps. Then it was +he encountered the two Swine-men I had seen dancing on the night of my arrival; +blood-stained they were about the mouth, and intensely excited. They came +crashing through the ferns, and stopped with fierce faces when they saw him. He +cracked his whip in some trepidation, and forthwith they rushed at him. Never +before had a Beast Man dared to do that. One he shot through the head; +M’ling flung himself upon the other, and the two rolled grappling. +M’ling got his brute under and with his teeth in its throat, and +Montgomery shot that too as it struggled in M’ling’s grip. He had +some difficulty in inducing M’ling to come on with him. Thence they had +hurried back to me. On the way, M’ling had suddenly rushed into a thicket +and driven out an under-sized Ocelot-man, also blood-stained, and lame through +a wound in the foot. This brute had run a little way and then turned savagely +at bay, and Montgomery—with a certain wantonness, I thought—had +shot him. +</p> + +<p> +“What does it all mean?” said I. +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head, and turned once more to the brandy. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap18"></a>XVIII.<br> +THE FINDING OF MOREAU.</h2> + +<p> +When I saw Montgomery swallow a third dose of brandy, I took it upon myself to +interfere. He was already more than half fuddled. I told him that some serious +thing must have happened to Moreau by this time, or he would have returned +before this, and that it behoved us to ascertain what that catastrophe was. +Montgomery raised some feeble objections, and at last agreed. We had some food, +and then all three of us started. +</p> + +<p> +It is possibly due to the tension of my mind, at the time, but even now that +start into the hot stillness of the tropical afternoon is a singularly vivid +impression. M’ling went first, his shoulder hunched, his strange black +head moving with quick starts as he peered first on this side of the way and +then on that. He was unarmed; his axe he had dropped when he encountered the +Swine-man. Teeth were <i>his</i> weapons, when it came to fighting. Montgomery +followed with stumbling footsteps, his hands in his pockets, his face downcast; +he was in a state of muddled sullenness with me on account of the brandy. My +left arm was in a sling (it was lucky it was my left), and I carried my +revolver in my right. Soon we traced a narrow path through the wild luxuriance +of the island, going northwestward; and presently M’ling stopped, and +became rigid with watchfulness. Montgomery almost staggered into him, and then +stopped too. Then, listening intently, we heard coming through the trees the +sound of voices and footsteps approaching us. +</p> + +<p> +“He is dead,” said a deep, vibrating voice. +</p> + +<p> +“He is not dead; he is not dead,” jabbered another. +</p> + +<p> +“We saw, we saw,” said several voices. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Hul</i>-lo!” suddenly shouted Montgomery, “Hullo, +there!” +</p> + +<p> +“Confound you!” said I, and gripped my pistol. +</p> + +<p> +There was a silence, then a crashing among the interlacing vegetation, first +here, then there, and then half-a-dozen faces appeared,—strange faces, +lit by a strange light. M’ling made a growling noise in his throat. I +recognised the Ape-man: I had indeed already identified his voice, and two of +the white-swathed brown-featured creatures I had seen in Montgomery’s +boat. With these were the two dappled brutes and that grey, horribly crooked +creature who said the Law, with grey hair streaming down its cheeks, heavy grey +eyebrows, and grey locks pouring off from a central parting upon its sloping +forehead,—a heavy, faceless thing, with strange red eyes, looking at us +curiously from amidst the green. +</p> + +<p> +For a space no one spoke. Then Montgomery hiccoughed, “Who—said he +was dead?” +</p> + +<p> +The Monkey-man looked guiltily at the hairy-grey Thing. “He is +dead,” said this monster. “They saw.” +</p> + +<p> +There was nothing threatening about this detachment, at any rate. They seemed +awestricken and puzzled. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is he?” said Montgomery. +</p> + +<p> +“Beyond,” and the grey creature pointed. +</p> + +<p> +“Is there a Law now?” asked the Monkey-man. “Is it still to +be this and that? Is he dead indeed?” +</p> + +<p> +“Is there a Law?” repeated the man in white. “Is there a Law, +thou Other with the Whip?” +</p> + +<p> +“He is dead,” said the hairy-grey Thing. And they all stood +watching us. +</p> + +<p> +“Prendick,” said Montgomery, turning his dull eyes to me. +“He’s dead, evidently.” +</p> + +<p> +I had been standing behind him during this colloquy. I began to see how things +lay with them. I suddenly stepped in front of Montgomery and lifted up my +voice:—“Children of the Law,” I said, “he is <i>not</i> +dead!” M’ling turned his sharp eyes on me. “He has changed +his shape; he has changed his body,” I went on. “For a time you +will not see him. He is—there,” I pointed upward, “where he +can watch you. You cannot see him, but he can see you. Fear the Law!” +</p> + +<p> +I looked at them squarely. They flinched. +</p> + +<p> +“He is great, he is good,” said the Ape-man, peering fearfully +upward among the dense trees. +</p> + +<p> +“And the other Thing?” I demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“The Thing that bled, and ran screaming and sobbing,—that is dead +too,” said the grey Thing, still regarding me. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s well,” grunted Montgomery. +</p> + +<p> +“The Other with the Whip—” began the grey Thing. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“Said he was dead.” +</p> + +<p> +But Montgomery was still sober enough to understand my motive in denying +Moreau’s death. “He is not dead,” he said slowly, “not +dead at all. No more dead than I am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Some,” said I, “have broken the Law: they will die. Some +have died. Show us now where his old body lies,—the body he cast away +because he had no more need of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is this way, Man who walked in the Sea,” said the grey Thing. +</p> + +<p> +And with these six creatures guiding us, we went through the tumult of ferns +and creepers and tree-stems towards the northwest. Then came a yelling, a +crashing among the branches, and a little pink homunculus rushed by us +shrieking. Immediately after appeared a monster in headlong pursuit, +blood-bedabbled, who was amongst us almost before he could stop his career. The +grey Thing leapt aside. M’ling, with a snarl, flew at it, and was struck +aside. Montgomery fired and missed, bowed his head, threw up his arm, and +turned to run. I fired, and the Thing still came on; fired again, point-blank, +into its ugly face. I saw its features vanish in a flash: its face was driven +in. Yet it passed me, gripped Montgomery, and holding him, fell headlong beside +him and pulled him sprawling upon itself in its death-agony. +</p> + +<p> +I found myself alone with M’ling, the dead brute, and the prostrate man. +Montgomery raised himself slowly and stared in a muddled way at the shattered +Beast Man beside him. It more than half sobered him. He scrambled to his feet. +Then I saw the grey Thing returning cautiously through the trees. +</p> + +<p> +“See,” said I, pointing to the dead brute, “is the Law not +alive? This came of breaking the Law.” +</p> + +<p> +He peered at the body. “He sends the Fire that kills,” said he, in +his deep voice, repeating part of the Ritual. The others gathered round and +stared for a space. +</p> + +<p> +At last we drew near the westward extremity of the island. We came upon the +gnawed and mutilated body of the puma, its shoulder-bone smashed by a bullet, +and perhaps twenty yards farther found at last what we sought. Moreau lay face +downward in a trampled space in a canebrake. One hand was almost severed at the +wrist and his silvery hair was dabbled in blood. His head had been battered in +by the fetters of the puma. The broken canes beneath him were smeared with +blood. His revolver we could not find. Montgomery turned him over. Resting at +intervals, and with the help of the seven Beast People (for he was a heavy +man), we carried Moreau back to the enclosure. The night was darkling. Twice we +heard unseen creatures howling and shrieking past our little band, and once the +little pink sloth-creature appeared and stared at us, and vanished again. But +we were not attacked again. At the gates of the enclosure our company of Beast +People left us, M’ling going with the rest. We locked ourselves in, and +then took Moreau’s mangled body into the yard and laid it upon a pile of +brushwood. Then we went into the laboratory and put an end to all we found +living there. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap19"></a>XIX.<br> +MONTGOMERY’S “BANK HOLIDAY.”</h2> + +<p> +When this was accomplished, and we had washed and eaten, Montgomery and I went +into my little room and seriously discussed our position for the first time. It +was then near midnight. He was almost sober, but greatly disturbed in his mind. +He had been strangely under the influence of Moreau’s personality: I do +not think it had ever occurred to him that Moreau could die. This disaster was +the sudden collapse of the habits that had become part of his nature in the ten +or more monotonous years he had spent on the island. He talked vaguely, +answered my questions crookedly, wandered into general questions. +</p> + +<p> +“This silly ass of a world,” he said; “what a muddle it all +is! I haven’t had any life. I wonder when it’s going to begin. +Sixteen years being bullied by nurses and schoolmasters at their own sweet +will; five in London grinding hard at medicine, bad food, shabby lodgings, +shabby clothes, shabby vice, a blunder,—<i>I</i> didn’t know any +better,—and hustled off to this beastly island. Ten years here! +What’s it all for, Prendick? Are we bubbles blown by a baby?” +</p> + +<p> +It was hard to deal with such ravings. “The thing we have to think of +now,” said I, “is how to get away from this island.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the good of getting away? I’m an outcast. Where am +<i>I</i> to join on? It’s all very well for <i>you</i>, Prendick. Poor +old Moreau! We can’t leave him here to have his bones picked. As it +is—And besides, what will become of the decent part of the Beast +Folk?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said I, “that will do to-morrow. I’ve been +thinking we might make the brushwood into a pyre and burn his body—and +those other things. Then what will happen with the Beast Folk?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> don’t know. I suppose those that were made of beasts of +prey will make silly asses of themselves sooner or later. We can’t +massacre the lot—can we? I suppose that’s what <i>your</i> humanity +would suggest? But they’ll change. They are sure to change.” +</p> + +<p> +He talked thus inconclusively until at last I felt my temper going. +</p> + +<p> +“Damnation!” he exclaimed at some petulance of mine; +“can’t you see I’m in a worse hole than you are?” And +he got up, and went for the brandy. “Drink!” he said returning, +“you logic-chopping, chalky-faced saint of an atheist, drink!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not I,” said I, and sat grimly watching his face under the yellow +paraffine flare, as he drank himself into a garrulous misery. +</p> + +<p> +I have a memory of infinite tedium. He wandered into a maudlin defence of the +Beast People and of M’ling. M’ling, he said, was the only thing +that had ever really cared for him. And suddenly an idea came to him. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m damned!” said he, staggering to his feet and clutching +the brandy bottle. +</p> + +<p> +By some flash of intuition I knew what it was he intended. “You +don’t give drink to that beast!” I said, rising and facing him. +</p> + +<p> +“Beast!” said he. “You’re the beast. He takes his +liquor like a Christian. Come out of the way, Prendick!” +</p> + +<p> +“For God’s sake,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“Get—out of the way!” he roared, and suddenly whipped out his +revolver. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” said I, and stood aside, half-minded to fall upon him +as he put his hand upon the latch, but deterred by the thought of my useless +arm. “You’ve made a beast of yourself,—to the beasts you may +go.” +</p> + +<p> +He flung the doorway open, and stood half facing me between the yellow +lamp-light and the pallid glare of the moon; his eye-sockets were blotches of +black under his stubbly eyebrows. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a solemn prig, Prendick, a silly ass! You’re always +fearing and fancying. We’re on the edge of things. I’m bound to cut +my throat to-morrow. I’m going to have a damned Bank Holiday +to-night.” He turned and went out into the moonlight. +“M’ling!” he cried; “M’ling, old friend!” +</p> + +<p> +Three dim creatures in the silvery light came along the edge of the wan +beach,—one a white-wrapped creature, the other two blotches of blackness +following it. They halted, staring. Then I saw M’ling’s hunched +shoulders as he came round the corner of the house. +</p> + +<p> +“Drink!” cried Montgomery, “drink, you brutes! Drink and be +men! Damme, I’m the cleverest. Moreau forgot this; this is the last +touch. Drink, I tell you!” And waving the bottle in his hand he started +off at a kind of quick trot to the westward, M’ling ranging himself +between him and the three dim creatures who followed. +</p> + +<p> +I went to the doorway. They were already indistinct in the mist of the +moonlight before Montgomery halted. I saw him administer a dose of the raw +brandy to M’ling, and saw the five figures melt into one vague patch. +</p> + +<p> +“Sing!” I heard Montgomery shout,—“sing all together, +‘Confound old Prendick!’ That’s right; now again, +‘Confound old Prendick!’” +</p> + +<p> +The black group broke up into five separate figures, and wound slowly away from +me along the band of shining beach. Each went howling at his own sweet will, +yelping insults at me, or giving whatever other vent this new inspiration of +brandy demanded. Presently I heard Montgomery’s voice shouting, +“Right turn!” and they passed with their shouts and howls into the +blackness of the landward trees. Slowly, very slowly, they receded into +silence. +</p> + +<p> +The peaceful splendour of the night healed again. The moon was now past the +meridian and travelling down the west. It was at its full, and very bright +riding through the empty blue sky. The shadow of the wall lay, a yard wide and +of inky blackness, at my feet. The eastward sea was a featureless grey, dark +and mysterious; and between the sea and the shadow the grey sands (of volcanic +glass and crystals) flashed and shone like a beach of diamonds. Behind me the +paraffine lamp flared hot and ruddy. +</p> + +<p> +Then I shut the door, locked it, and went into the enclosure where Moreau lay +beside his latest victims,—the staghounds and the llama and some other +wretched brutes,—with his massive face calm even after his terrible +death, and with the hard eyes open, staring at the dead white moon above. I sat +down upon the edge of the sink, and with my eyes upon that ghastly pile of +silvery light and ominous shadows began to turn over my plans. In the morning I +would gather some provisions in the dingey, and after setting fire to the pyre +before me, push out into the desolation of the high sea once more. I felt that +for Montgomery there was no help; that he was, in truth, half akin to these +Beast Folk, unfitted for human kindred. +</p> + +<p> +I do not know how long I sat there scheming. It must have been an hour or so. +Then my planning was interrupted by the return of Montgomery to my +neighbourhood. I heard a yelling from many throats, a tumult of exultant cries +passing down towards the beach, whooping and howling, and excited shrieks that +seemed to come to a stop near the water’s edge. The riot rose and fell; I +heard heavy blows and the splintering smash of wood, but it did not trouble me +then. A discordant chanting began. +</p> + +<p> +My thoughts went back to my means of escape. I got up, brought the lamp, and +went into a shed to look at some kegs I had seen there. Then I became +interested in the contents of some biscuit-tins, and opened one. I saw +something out of the tail of my eye,—a red figure,—and turned +sharply. +</p> + +<p> +Behind me lay the yard, vividly black-and-white in the moonlight, and the pile +of wood and faggots on which Moreau and his mutilated victims lay, one over +another. They seemed to be gripping one another in one last revengeful grapple. +His wounds gaped, black as night, and the blood that had dripped lay in black +patches upon the sand. Then I saw, without understanding, the cause of my +phantom,—a ruddy glow that came and danced and went upon the wall +opposite. I misinterpreted this, fancied it was a reflection of my flickering +lamp, and turned again to the stores in the shed. I went on rummaging among +them, as well as a one-armed man could, finding this convenient thing and that, +and putting them aside for to-morrow’s launch. My movements were slow, +and the time passed quickly. Insensibly the daylight crept upon me. +</p> + +<p> +The chanting died down, giving place to a clamour; then it began again, and +suddenly broke into a tumult. I heard cries of, “More! more!” a +sound like quarrelling, and a sudden wild shriek. The quality of the sounds +changed so greatly that it arrested my attention. I went out into the yard and +listened. Then cutting like a knife across the confusion came the crack of a +revolver. +</p> + +<p> +I rushed at once through my room to the little doorway. As I did so I heard +some of the packing-cases behind me go sliding down and smash together with a +clatter of glass on the floor of the shed. But I did not heed these. I flung +the door open and looked out. +</p> + +<p> +Up the beach by the boathouse a bonfire was burning, raining up sparks into the +indistinctness of the dawn. Around this struggled a mass of black figures. I +heard Montgomery call my name. I began to run at once towards this fire, +revolver in hand. I saw the pink tongue of Montgomery’s pistol lick out +once, close to the ground. He was down. I shouted with all my strength and +fired into the air. I heard some one cry, “The Master!” The knotted +black struggle broke into scattering units, the fire leapt and sank down. The +crowd of Beast People fled in sudden panic before me, up the beach. In my +excitement I fired at their retreating backs as they disappeared among the +bushes. Then I turned to the black heaps upon the ground. +</p> + +<p> +Montgomery lay on his back, with the hairy-grey Beast-man sprawling across his +body. The brute was dead, but still gripping Montgomery’s throat with its +curving claws. Near by lay M’ling on his face and quite still, his neck +bitten open and the upper part of the smashed brandy-bottle in his hand. Two +other figures lay near the fire,—the one motionless, the other groaning +fitfully, every now and then raising its head slowly, then dropping it again. +</p> + +<p> +I caught hold of the grey man and pulled him off Montgomery’s body; his +claws drew down the torn coat reluctantly as I dragged him away. Montgomery was +dark in the face and scarcely breathing. I splashed sea-water on his face and +pillowed his head on my rolled-up coat. M’ling was dead. The wounded +creature by the fire—it was a Wolf-brute with a bearded grey +face—lay, I found, with the fore part of its body upon the still glowing +timber. The wretched thing was injured so dreadfully that in mercy I blew its +brains out at once. The other brute was one of the Bull-men swathed in white. +He too was dead. The rest of the Beast People had vanished from the beach. +</p> + +<p> +I went to Montgomery again and knelt beside him, cursing my ignorance of +medicine. The fire beside me had sunk down, and only charred beams of timber +glowing at the central ends and mixed with a grey ash of brushwood remained. I +wondered casually where Montgomery had got his wood. Then I saw that the dawn +was upon us. The sky had grown brighter, the setting moon was becoming pale and +opaque in the luminous blue of the day. The sky to the eastward was rimmed with +red. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly I heard a thud and a hissing behind me, and, looking round, sprang to +my feet with a cry of horror. Against the warm dawn great tumultuous masses of +black smoke were boiling up out of the enclosure, and through their stormy +darkness shot flickering threads of blood-red flame. Then the thatched roof +caught. I saw the curving charge of the flames across the sloping straw. A +spurt of fire jetted from the window of my room. +</p> + +<p> +I knew at once what had happened. I remembered the crash I had heard. When I +had rushed out to Montgomery’s assistance, I had overturned the lamp. +</p> + +<p> +The hopelessness of saving any of the contents of the enclosure stared me in +the face. My mind came back to my plan of flight, and turning swiftly I looked +to see where the two boats lay upon the beach. They were gone! Two axes lay +upon the sands beside me; chips and splinters were scattered broadcast, and the +ashes of the bonfire were blackening and smoking under the dawn. Montgomery had +burnt the boats to revenge himself upon me and prevent our return to mankind! +</p> + +<p> +A sudden convulsion of rage shook me. I was almost moved to batter his foolish +head in, as he lay there helpless at my feet. Then suddenly his hand moved, so +feebly, so pitifully, that my wrath vanished. He groaned, and opened his eyes +for a minute. I knelt down beside him and raised his head. He opened his eyes +again, staring silently at the dawn, and then they met mine. The lids fell. +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry,” he said presently, with an effort. He seemed trying to +think. “The last,” he murmured, “the last of this silly +universe. What a mess—” +</p> + +<p> +I listened. His head fell helplessly to one side. I thought some drink might +revive him; but there was neither drink nor vessel in which to bring drink at +hand. He seemed suddenly heavier. My heart went cold. I bent down to his face, +put my hand through the rent in his blouse. He was dead; and even as he died a +line of white heat, the limb of the sun, rose eastward beyond the projection of +the bay, splashing its radiance across the sky and turning the dark sea into a +weltering tumult of dazzling light. It fell like a glory upon his +death-shrunken face. +</p> + +<p> +I let his head fall gently upon the rough pillow I had made for him, and stood +up. Before me was the glittering desolation of the sea, the awful solitude upon +which I had already suffered so much; behind me the island, hushed under the +dawn, its Beast People silent and unseen. The enclosure, with all its +provisions and ammunition, burnt noisily, with sudden gusts of flame, a fitful +crackling, and now and then a crash. The heavy smoke drove up the beach away +from me, rolling low over the distant tree-tops towards the huts in the ravine. +Beside me were the charred vestiges of the boats and these five dead bodies. +</p> + +<p> +Then out of the bushes came three Beast People, with hunched shoulders, +protruding heads, misshapen hands awkwardly held, and inquisitive, unfriendly +eyes, and advanced towards me with hesitating gestures. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap20"></a>XX.<br> +ALONE WITH THE BEAST FOLK.</h2> + +<p> +I faced these people, facing my fate in them, single-handed +now,—literally single-handed, for I had a broken arm. In my pocket was a +revolver with two empty chambers. Among the chips scattered about the beach lay +the two axes that had been used to chop up the boats. The tide was creeping in +behind me. There was nothing for it but courage. I looked squarely into the +faces of the advancing monsters. They avoided my eyes, and their quivering +nostrils investigated the bodies that lay beyond me on the beach. I took +half-a-dozen steps, picked up the blood-stained whip that lay beneath the body +of the Wolf-man, and cracked it. They stopped and stared at me. +</p> + +<p> +“Salute!” said I. “Bow down!” +</p> + +<p> +They hesitated. One bent his knees. I repeated my command, with my heart in my +mouth, and advanced upon them. One knelt, then the other two. +</p> + +<p> +I turned and walked towards the dead bodies, keeping my face towards the three +kneeling Beast Men, very much as an actor passing up the stage faces the +audience. +</p> + +<p> +“They broke the Law,” said I, putting my foot on the Sayer of the +Law. “They have been slain,—even the Sayer of the Law; even the +Other with the Whip. Great is the Law! Come and see.” +</p> + +<p> +“None escape,” said one of them, advancing and peering. +</p> + +<p> +“None escape,” said I. “Therefore hear and do as I +command.” They stood up, looking questioningly at one another. +</p> + +<p> +“Stand there,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +I picked up the hatchets and swung them by their heads from the sling of my +arm; turned Montgomery over; picked up his revolver still loaded in two +chambers, and bending down to rummage, found half-a-dozen cartridges in his +pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“Take him,” said I, standing up again and pointing with the whip; +“take him, and carry him out and cast him into the sea.” +</p> + +<p> +They came forward, evidently still afraid of Montgomery, but still more afraid +of my cracking red whip-lash; and after some fumbling and hesitation, some +whip-cracking and shouting, they lifted him gingerly, carried him down to the +beach, and went splashing into the dazzling welter of the sea. +</p> + +<p> +“On!” said I, “on! Carry him far.” +</p> + +<p> +They went in up to their armpits and stood regarding me. +</p> + +<p> +“Let go,” said I; and the body of Montgomery vanished with a +splash. Something seemed to tighten across my chest. +</p> + +<p> +“Good!” said I, with a break in my voice; and they came back, +hurrying and fearful, to the margin of the water, leaving long wakes of black +in the silver. At the water’s edge they stopped, turning and glaring into +the sea as though they presently expected Montgomery to arise therefrom and +exact vengeance. +</p> + +<p> +“Now these,” said I, pointing to the other bodies. +</p> + +<p> +They took care not to approach the place where they had thrown Montgomery into +the water, but instead, carried the four dead Beast People slantingly along the +beach for perhaps a hundred yards before they waded out and cast them away. +</p> + +<p> +As I watched them disposing of the mangled remains of M’ling, I heard a +light footfall behind me, and turning quickly saw the big Hyena-swine perhaps a +dozen yards away. His head was bent down, his bright eyes were fixed upon me, +his stumpy hands clenched and held close by his side. He stopped in this +crouching attitude when I turned, his eyes a little averted. +</p> + +<p> +For a moment we stood eye to eye. I dropped the whip and snatched at the pistol +in my pocket; for I meant to kill this brute, the most formidable of any left +now upon the island, at the first excuse. It may seem treacherous, but so I was +resolved. I was far more afraid of him than of any other two of the Beast Folk. +His continued life was I knew a threat against mine. +</p> + +<p> +I was perhaps a dozen seconds collecting myself. Then cried I, “Salute! +Bow down!” +</p> + +<p> +His teeth flashed upon me in a snarl. “Who are <i>you</i> that I +should—” +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps a little too spasmodically I drew my revolver, aimed quickly and fired. +I heard him yelp, saw him run sideways and turn, knew I had missed, and clicked +back the cock with my thumb for the next shot. But he was already running +headlong, jumping from side to side, and I dared not risk another miss. Every +now and then he looked back at me over his shoulder. He went slanting along the +beach, and vanished beneath the driving masses of dense smoke that were still +pouring out from the burning enclosure. For some time I stood staring after +him. I turned to my three obedient Beast Folk again and signalled them to drop +the body they still carried. Then I went back to the place by the fire where +the bodies had fallen and kicked the sand until all the brown blood-stains were +absorbed and hidden. +</p> + +<p> +I dismissed my three serfs with a wave of the hand, and went up the beach into +the thickets. I carried my pistol in my hand, my whip thrust with the hatchets +in the sling of my arm. I was anxious to be alone, to think out the position in +which I was now placed. A dreadful thing that I was only beginning to realise +was, that over all this island there was now no safe place where I could be +alone and secure to rest or sleep. I had recovered strength amazingly since my +landing, but I was still inclined to be nervous and to break down under any +great stress. I felt that I ought to cross the island and establish myself with +the Beast People, and make myself secure in their confidence. But my heart +failed me. I went back to the beach, and turning eastward past the burning +enclosure, made for a point where a shallow spit of coral sand ran out towards +the reef. Here I could sit down and think, my back to the sea and my face +against any surprise. And there I sat, chin on knees, the sun beating down upon +my head and unspeakable dread in my mind, plotting how I could live on against +the hour of my rescue (if ever rescue came). I tried to review the whole +situation as calmly as I could, but it was difficult to clear the thing of +emotion. +</p> + +<p> +I began turning over in my mind the reason of Montgomery’s despair. +“They will change,” he said; “they are sure to change.” +And Moreau, what was it that Moreau had said? “The stubborn beast-flesh +grows day by day back again.” Then I came round to the Hyena-swine. I +felt sure that if I did not kill that brute, he would kill me. The Sayer of the +Law was dead: worse luck. They knew now that we of the Whips could be killed +even as they themselves were killed. Were they peering at me already out of the +green masses of ferns and palms over yonder, watching until I came within their +spring? Were they plotting against me? What was the Hyena-swine telling them? +My imagination was running away with me into a morass of unsubstantial fears. +</p> + +<p> +My thoughts were disturbed by a crying of sea-birds hurrying towards some black +object that had been stranded by the waves on the beach near the enclosure. I +knew what that object was, but I had not the heart to go back and drive them +off. I began walking along the beach in the opposite direction, designing to +come round the eastward corner of the island and so approach the ravine of the +huts, without traversing the possible ambuscades of the thickets. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps half a mile along the beach I became aware of one of my three Beast +Folk advancing out of the landward bushes towards me. I was now so nervous with +my own imaginings that I immediately drew my revolver. Even the propitiatory +gestures of the creature failed to disarm me. He hesitated as he approached. +</p> + +<p> +“Go away!” cried I. +</p> + +<p> +There was something very suggestive of a dog in the cringing attitude of the +creature. It retreated a little way, very like a dog being sent home, and +stopped, looking at me imploringly with canine brown eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Go away,” said I. “Do not come near me.” +</p> + +<p> +“May I not come near you?” it said. +</p> + +<p> +“No; go away,” I insisted, and snapped my whip. Then putting my +whip in my teeth, I stooped for a stone, and with that threat drove the +creature away. +</p> + +<p> +So in solitude I came round by the ravine of the Beast People, and hiding among +the weeds and reeds that separated this crevice from the sea I watched such of +them as appeared, trying to judge from their gestures and appearance how the +death of Moreau and Montgomery and the destruction of the House of Pain had +affected them. I know now the folly of my cowardice. Had I kept my courage up +to the level of the dawn, had I not allowed it to ebb away in solitary thought, +I might have grasped the vacant sceptre of Moreau and ruled over the Beast +People. As it was I lost the opportunity, and sank to the position of a mere +leader among my fellows. +</p> + +<p> +Towards noon certain of them came and squatted basking in the hot sand. The +imperious voices of hunger and thirst prevailed over my dread. I came out of +the bushes, and, revolver in hand, walked down towards these seated figures. +One, a Wolf-woman, turned her head and stared at me, and then the others. None +attempted to rise or salute me. I felt too faint and weary to insist, and I let +the moment pass. +</p> + +<p> +“I want food,” said I, almost apologetically, and drawing near. +</p> + +<p> +“There is food in the huts,” said an Ox-boar-man, drowsily, and +looking away from me. +</p> + +<p> +I passed them, and went down into the shadow and odours of the almost deserted +ravine. In an empty hut I feasted on some specked and half-decayed fruit; and +then after I had propped some branches and sticks about the opening, and placed +myself with my face towards it and my hand upon my revolver, the exhaustion of +the last thirty hours claimed its own, and I fell into a light slumber, hoping +that the flimsy barricade I had erected would cause sufficient noise in its +removal to save me from surprise. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap21"></a>XXI.<br> +THE REVERSION OF THE BEAST FOLK.</h2> + +<p> +In this way I became one among the Beast People in the Island of Doctor Moreau. +When I awoke, it was dark about me. My arm ached in its bandages. I sat up, +wondering at first where I might be. I heard coarse voices talking outside. +Then I saw that my barricade had gone, and that the opening of the hut stood +clear. My revolver was still in my hand. +</p> + +<p> +I heard something breathing, saw something crouched together close beside me. I +held my breath, trying to see what it was. It began to move slowly, +interminably. Then something soft and warm and moist passed across my hand. All +my muscles contracted. I snatched my hand away. A cry of alarm began and was +stifled in my throat. Then I just realised what had happened sufficiently to +stay my fingers on the revolver. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is that?” I said in a hoarse whisper, the revolver still +pointed. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i>—Master.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who are <i>you?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“They say there is no Master now. But I know, I know. I carried the +bodies into the sea, O Walker in the Sea! the bodies of those you slew. I am +your slave, Master.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you the one I met on the beach?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“The same, Master.” +</p> + +<p> +The Thing was evidently faithful enough, for it might have fallen upon me as I +slept. “It is well,” I said, extending my hand for another licking +kiss. I began to realise what its presence meant, and the tide of my courage +flowed. “Where are the others?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“They are mad; they are fools,” said the Dog-man. “Even now +they talk together beyond there. They say, ‘The Master is dead. The Other +with the Whip is dead. That Other who walked in the Sea is as we are. We have +no Master, no Whips, no House of Pain, any more. There is an end. We love the +Law, and will keep it; but there is no Pain, no Master, no Whips for ever +again.’ So they say. But I know, Master, I know.” +</p> + +<p> +I felt in the darkness, and patted the Dog-man’s head. “It is +well,” I said again. +</p> + +<p> +“Presently you will slay them all,” said the Dog-man. +</p> + +<p> +“Presently,” I answered, “I will slay them all,—after +certain days and certain things have come to pass. Every one of them save those +you spare, every one of them shall be slain.” +</p> + +<p> +“What the Master wishes to kill, the Master kills,” said the +Dog-man with a certain satisfaction in his voice. +</p> + +<p> +“And that their sins may grow,” I said, “let them live in +their folly until their time is ripe. Let them not know that I am the +Master.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Master’s will is sweet,” said the Dog-man, with the +ready tact of his canine blood. +</p> + +<p> +“But one has sinned,” said I. “Him I will kill, whenever I +may meet him. When I say to you, ‘<i>That is he</i>,’ see that you +fall upon him. And now I will go to the men and women who are assembled +together.” +</p> + +<p> +For a moment the opening of the hut was blackened by the exit of the Dog-man. +Then I followed and stood up, almost in the exact spot where I had been when I +had heard Moreau and his staghound pursuing me. But now it was night, and all +the miasmatic ravine about me was black; and beyond, instead of a green, sunlit +slope, I saw a red fire, before which hunched, grotesque figures moved to and +fro. Farther were the thick trees, a bank of darkness, fringed above with the +black lace of the upper branches. The moon was just riding up on the edge of +the ravine, and like a bar across its face drove the spire of vapour that was +for ever streaming from the fumaroles of the island. +</p> + +<p> +“Walk by me,” said I, nerving myself; and side by side we walked +down the narrow way, taking little heed of the dim Things that peered at us out +of the huts. +</p> + +<p> +None about the fire attempted to salute me. Most of them disregarded me, +ostentatiously. I looked round for the Hyena-swine, but he was not there. +Altogether, perhaps twenty of the Beast Folk squatted, staring into the fire or +talking to one another. +</p> + +<p> +“He is dead, he is dead! the Master is dead!” said the voice of the +Ape-man to the right of me. “The House of Pain—there is no House of +Pain!” +</p> + +<p> +“He is not dead,” said I, in a loud voice. “Even now he +watches us!” +</p> + +<p> +This startled them. Twenty pairs of eyes regarded me. +</p> + +<p> +“The House of Pain is gone,” said I. “It will come again. The +Master you cannot see; yet even now he listens among you.” +</p> + +<p> +“True, true!” said the Dog-man. +</p> + +<p> +They were staggered at my assurance. An animal may be ferocious and cunning +enough, but it takes a real man to tell a lie. +</p> + +<p> +“The Man with the Bandaged Arm speaks a strange thing,” said one of +the Beast Folk. +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you it is so,” I said. “The Master and the House of +Pain will come again. Woe be to him who breaks the Law!” +</p> + +<p> +They looked curiously at one another. With an affectation of indifference I +began to chop idly at the ground in front of me with my hatchet. They looked, I +noticed, at the deep cuts I made in the turf. +</p> + +<p> +Then the Satyr raised a doubt. I answered him. Then one of the dappled things +objected, and an animated discussion sprang up round the fire. Every moment I +began to feel more convinced of my present security. I talked now without the +catching in my breath, due to the intensity of my excitement, that had troubled +me at first. In the course of about an hour I had really convinced several of +the Beast Folk of the truth of my assertions, and talked most of the others +into a dubious state. I kept a sharp eye for my enemy the Hyena-swine, but he +never appeared. Every now and then a suspicious movement would startle me, but +my confidence grew rapidly. Then as the moon crept down from the zenith, one by +one the listeners began to yawn (showing the oddest teeth in the light of the +sinking fire), and first one and then another retired towards the dens in the +ravine; and I, dreading the silence and darkness, went with them, knowing I was +safer with several of them than with one alone. +</p> + +<p> +In this manner began the longer part of my sojourn upon this Island of Doctor +Moreau. But from that night until the end came, there was but one thing +happened to tell save a series of innumerable small unpleasant details and the +fretting of an incessant uneasiness. So that I prefer to make no chronicle for +that gap of time, to tell only one cardinal incident of the ten months I spent +as an intimate of these half-humanised brutes. There is much that sticks in my +memory that I could write,—things that I would cheerfully give my right +hand to forget; but they do not help the telling of the story. +</p> + +<p> +In the retrospect it is strange to remember how soon I fell in with these +monsters’ ways, and gained my confidence again. I had my quarrels with +them of course, and could show some of their teeth-marks still; but they soon +gained a wholesome respect for my trick of throwing stones and for the bite of +my hatchet. And my Saint-Bernard-man’s loyalty was of infinite service to +me. I found their simple scale of honour was based mainly on the capacity for +inflicting trenchant wounds. Indeed, I may say—without vanity, I +hope—that I held something like pre-eminence among them. One or two, whom +in a rare access of high spirits I had scarred rather badly, bore me a grudge; +but it vented itself chiefly behind my back, and at a safe distance from my +missiles, in grimaces. +</p> + +<p> +The Hyena-swine avoided me, and I was always on the alert for him. My +inseparable Dog-man hated and dreaded him intensely. I really believe that was +at the root of the brute’s attachment to me. It was soon evident to me +that the former monster had tasted blood, and gone the way of the Leopard-man. +He formed a lair somewhere in the forest, and became solitary. Once I tried to +induce the Beast Folk to hunt him, but I lacked the authority to make them +co-operate for one end. Again and again I tried to approach his den and come +upon him unaware; but always he was too acute for me, and saw or winded me and +got away. He too made every forest pathway dangerous to me and my ally with his +lurking ambuscades. The Dog-man scarcely dared to leave my side. +</p> + +<p> +In the first month or so the Beast Folk, compared with their latter condition, +were human enough, and for one or two besides my canine friend I even conceived +a friendly tolerance. The little pink sloth-creature displayed an odd affection +for me, and took to following me about. The Monkey-man bored me, however; he +assumed, on the strength of his five digits, that he was my equal, and was for +ever jabbering at me,—jabbering the most arrant nonsense. One thing about +him entertained me a little: he had a fantastic trick of coining new words. He +had an idea, I believe, that to gabble about names that meant nothing was the +proper use of speech. He called it “Big Thinks” to distinguish it +from “Little Thinks,” the sane every-day interests of life. If ever +I made a remark he did not understand, he would praise it very much, ask me to +say it again, learn it by heart, and go off repeating it, with a word wrong +here or there, to all the milder of the Beast People. He thought nothing of +what was plain and comprehensible. I invented some very curious “Big +Thinks” for his especial use. I think now that he was the silliest +creature I ever met; he had developed in the most wonderful way the distinctive +silliness of man without losing one jot of the natural folly of a monkey. +</p> + +<p> +This, I say, was in the earlier weeks of my solitude among these brutes. During +that time they respected the usage established by the Law, and behaved with +general decorum. Once I found another rabbit torn to pieces,—by the +Hyena-swine, I am assured,—but that was all. It was about May when I +first distinctly perceived a growing difference in their speech and carriage, a +growing coarseness of articulation, a growing disinclination to talk. My +Monkey-man’s jabber multiplied in volume but grew less and less +comprehensible, more and more simian. Some of the others seemed altogether +slipping their hold upon speech, though they still understood what I said to +them at that time. (Can you imagine language, once clear-cut and exact, +softening and guttering, losing shape and import, becoming mere lumps of sound +again?) And they walked erect with an increasing difficulty. Though they +evidently felt ashamed of themselves, every now and then I would come upon one +or another running on toes and finger-tips, and quite unable to recover the +vertical attitude. They held things more clumsily; drinking by suction, feeding +by gnawing, grew commoner every day. I realised more keenly than ever what +Moreau had told me about the “stubborn beast-flesh.” They were +reverting, and reverting very rapidly. +</p> + +<p> +Some of them—the pioneers in this, I noticed with some surprise, were all +females—began to disregard the injunction of decency, deliberately for +the most part. Others even attempted public outrages upon the institution of +monogamy. The tradition of the Law was clearly losing its force. I cannot +pursue this disagreeable subject. +</p> + +<p> +My Dog-man imperceptibly slipped back to the dog again; day by day he became +dumb, quadrupedal, hairy. I scarcely noticed the transition from the companion +on my right hand to the lurching dog at my side. +</p> + +<p> +As the carelessness and disorganisation increased from day to day, the lane of +dwelling places, at no time very sweet, became so loathsome that I left it, and +going across the island made myself a hovel of boughs amid the black ruins of +Moreau’s enclosure. Some memory of pain, I found, still made that place +the safest from the Beast Folk. +</p> + +<p> +It would be impossible to detail every step of the lapsing of these +monsters,—to tell how, day by day, the human semblance left them; how +they gave up bandagings and wrappings, abandoned at last every stitch of +clothing; how the hair began to spread over the exposed limbs; how their +foreheads fell away and their faces projected; how the quasi-human intimacy I +had permitted myself with some of them in the first month of my loneliness +became a shuddering horror to recall. +</p> + +<p> +The change was slow and inevitable. For them and for me it came without any +definite shock. I still went among them in safety, because no jolt in the +downward glide had released the increasing charge of explosive animalism that +ousted the human day by day. But I began to fear that soon now that shock must +come. My Saint-Bernard-brute followed me to the enclosure every night, and his +vigilance enabled me to sleep at times in something like peace. The little pink +sloth-thing became shy and left me, to crawl back to its natural life once more +among the tree-branches. We were in just the state of equilibrium that would +remain in one of those “Happy Family” cages which animal-tamers +exhibit, if the tamer were to leave it for ever. +</p> + +<p> +Of course these creatures did not decline into such beasts as the reader has +seen in zoological gardens,—into ordinary bears, wolves, tigers, oxen, +swine, and apes. There was still something strange about each; in each Moreau +had blended this animal with that. One perhaps was ursine chiefly, another +feline chiefly, another bovine chiefly; but each was tainted with other +creatures,—a kind of generalised animalism appearing through the specific +dispositions. And the dwindling shreds of the humanity still startled me every +now and then,—a momentary recrudescence of speech perhaps, an unexpected +dexterity of the fore-feet, a pitiful attempt to walk erect. +</p> + +<p> +I too must have undergone strange changes. My clothes hung about me as yellow +rags, through whose rents showed the tanned skin. My hair grew long, and became +matted together. I am told that even now my eyes have a strange brightness, a +swift alertness of movement. +</p> + +<p> +At first I spent the daylight hours on the southward beach watching for a ship, +hoping and praying for a ship. I counted on the <i>Ipecacuanha</i> returning as +the year wore on; but she never came. Five times I saw sails, and thrice smoke; +but nothing ever touched the island. I always had a bonfire ready, but no doubt +the volcanic reputation of the island was taken to account for that. +</p> + +<p> +It was only about September or October that I began to think of making a raft. +By that time my arm had healed, and both my hands were at my service again. At +first, I found my helplessness appalling. I had never done any carpentry or +such-like work in my life, and I spent day after day in experimental chopping +and binding among the trees. I had no ropes, and could hit on nothing wherewith +to make ropes; none of the abundant creepers seemed limber or strong enough, +and with all my litter of scientific education I could not devise any way of +making them so. I spent more than a fortnight grubbing among the black ruins of +the enclosure and on the beach where the boats had been burnt, looking for +nails and other stray pieces of metal that might prove of service. Now and then +some Beast-creature would watch me, and go leaping off when I called to it. +There came a season of thunder-storms and heavy rain, which greatly retarded my +work; but at last the raft was completed. +</p> + +<p> +I was delighted with it. But with a certain lack of practical sense which has +always been my bane, I had made it a mile or more from the sea; and before I +had dragged it down to the beach the thing had fallen to pieces. Perhaps it is +as well that I was saved from launching it; but at the time my misery at my +failure was so acute that for some days I simply moped on the beach, and stared +at the water and thought of death. +</p> + +<p> +I did not, however, mean to die, and an incident occurred that warned me +unmistakably of the folly of letting the days pass so,—for each fresh day +was fraught with increasing danger from the Beast People. +</p> + +<p> +I was lying in the shade of the enclosure wall, staring out to sea, when I was +startled by something cold touching the skin of my heel, and starting round +found the little pink sloth-creature blinking into my face. He had long since +lost speech and active movement, and the lank hair of the little brute grew +thicker every day and his stumpy claws more askew. He made a moaning noise when +he saw he had attracted my attention, went a little way towards the bushes and +looked back at me. +</p> + +<p> +At first I did not understand, but presently it occurred to me that he wished +me to follow him; and this I did at last,—slowly, for the day was hot. +When we reached the trees he clambered into them, for he could travel better +among their swinging creepers than on the ground. And suddenly in a trampled +space I came upon a ghastly group. My Saint-Bernard-creature lay on the ground, +dead; and near his body crouched the Hyena-swine, gripping the quivering flesh +with its misshapen claws, gnawing at it, and snarling with delight. As I +approached, the monster lifted its glaring eyes to mine, its lips went +trembling back from its red-stained teeth, and it growled menacingly. It was +not afraid and not ashamed; the last vestige of the human taint had vanished. I +advanced a step farther, stopped, and pulled out my revolver. At last I had him +face to face. +</p> + +<p> +The brute made no sign of retreat; but its ears went back, its hair bristled, +and its body crouched together. I aimed between the eyes and fired. As I did +so, the Thing rose straight at me in a leap, and I was knocked over like a +ninepin. It clutched at me with its crippled hand, and struck me in the face. +Its spring carried it over me. I fell under the hind part of its body; but +luckily I had hit as I meant, and it had died even as it leapt. I crawled out +from under its unclean weight and stood up trembling, staring at its quivering +body. That danger at least was over; but this, I knew was only the first of the +series of relapses that must come. +</p> + +<p> +I burnt both of the bodies on a pyre of brushwood; but after that I saw that +unless I left the island my death was only a question of time. The Beast People +by that time had, with one or two exceptions, left the ravine and made +themselves lairs according to their taste among the thickets of the island. Few +prowled by day, most of them slept, and the island might have seemed deserted +to a new-comer; but at night the air was hideous with their calls and howling. +I had half a mind to make a massacre of them; to build traps, or fight them +with my knife. Had I possessed sufficient cartridges, I should not have +hesitated to begin the killing. There could now be scarcely a score left of the +dangerous carnivores; the braver of these were already dead. After the death of +this poor dog of mine, my last friend, I too adopted to some extent the +practice of slumbering in the daytime in order to be on my guard at night. I +rebuilt my den in the walls of the enclosure, with such a narrow opening that +anything attempting to enter must necessarily make a considerable noise. The +creatures had lost the art of fire too, and recovered their fear of it. I +turned once more, almost passionately now, to hammering together stakes and +branches to form a raft for my escape. +</p> + +<p> +I found a thousand difficulties. I am an extremely unhandy man (my schooling +was over before the days of Slöjd); but most of the requirements of a raft +I met at last in some clumsy, circuitous way or other, and this time I took +care of the strength. The only insurmountable obstacle was that I had no vessel +to contain the water I should need if I floated forth upon these untravelled +seas. I would have even tried pottery, but the island contained no clay. I used +to go moping about the island trying with all my might to solve this one last +difficulty. Sometimes I would give way to wild outbursts of rage, and hack and +splinter some unlucky tree in my intolerable vexation. But I could think of +nothing. +</p> + +<p> +And then came a day, a wonderful day, which I spent in ecstasy. I saw a sail to +the southwest, a small sail like that of a little schooner; and forthwith I lit +a great pile of brushwood, and stood by it in the heat of it, and the heat of +the midday sun, watching. All day I watched that sail, eating or drinking +nothing, so that my head reeled; and the Beasts came and glared at me, and +seemed to wonder, and went away. It was still distant when night came and +swallowed it up; and all night I toiled to keep my blaze bright and high, and +the eyes of the Beasts shone out of the darkness, marvelling. In the dawn the +sail was nearer, and I saw it was the dirty lug-sail of a small boat. But it +sailed strangely. My eyes were weary with watching, and I peered and could not +believe them. Two men were in the boat, sitting low down,—one by the +bows, the other at the rudder. The head was not kept to the wind; it yawed and +fell away. +</p> + +<p> +As the day grew brighter, I began waving the last rag of my jacket to them; but +they did not notice me, and sat still, facing each other. I went to the lowest +point of the low headland, and gesticulated and shouted. There was no response, +and the boat kept on her aimless course, making slowly, very slowly, for the +bay. Suddenly a great white bird flew up out of the boat, and neither of the +men stirred nor noticed it; it circled round, and then came sweeping overhead +with its strong wings outspread. +</p> + +<p> +Then I stopped shouting, and sat down on the headland and rested my chin on my +hands and stared. Slowly, slowly, the boat drove past towards the west. I would +have swum out to it, but something—a cold, vague fear—kept me back. +In the afternoon the tide stranded the boat, and left it a hundred yards or so +to the westward of the ruins of the enclosure. The men in it were dead, had +been dead so long that they fell to pieces when I tilted the boat on its side +and dragged them out. One had a shock of red hair, like the captain of the +<i>Ipecacuanha</i>, and a dirty white cap lay in the bottom of the boat. +</p> + +<p> +As I stood beside the boat, three of the Beasts came slinking out of the bushes +and sniffing towards me. One of my spasms of disgust came upon me. I thrust the +little boat down the beach and clambered on board her. Two of the brutes were +Wolf-beasts, and came forward with quivering nostrils and glittering eyes; the +third was the horrible nondescript of bear and bull. When I saw them +approaching those wretched remains, heard them snarling at one another and +caught the gleam of their teeth, a frantic horror succeeded my repulsion. I +turned my back upon them, struck the lug and began paddling out to sea. I could +not bring myself to look behind me. +</p> + +<p> +I lay, however, between the reef and the island that night, and the next +morning went round to the stream and filled the empty keg aboard with water. +Then, with such patience as I could command, I collected a quantity of fruit, +and waylaid and killed two rabbits with my last three cartridges. While I was +doing this I left the boat moored to an inward projection of the reef, for fear +of the Beast People. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap22"></a>XXII.<br> +THE MAN ALONE.</h2> + +<p> +In the evening I started, and drove out to sea before a gentle wind from the +southwest, slowly, steadily; and the island grew smaller and smaller, and the +lank spire of smoke dwindled to a finer and finer line against the hot sunset. +The ocean rose up around me, hiding that low, dark patch from my eyes. The +daylight, the trailing glory of the sun, went streaming out of the sky, was +drawn aside like some luminous curtain, and at last I looked into the blue gulf +of immensity which the sunshine hides, and saw the floating hosts of the stars. +The sea was silent, the sky was silent. I was alone with the night and silence. +</p> + +<p> +So I drifted for three days, eating and drinking sparingly, and meditating upon +all that had happened to me,—not desiring very greatly then to see men +again. One unclean rag was about me, my hair a black tangle: no doubt my +discoverers thought me a madman. +</p> + +<p> +It is strange, but I felt no desire to return to mankind. I was only glad to be +quit of the foulness of the Beast People. And on the third day I was picked up +by a brig from Apia to San Francisco. Neither the captain nor the mate would +believe my story, judging that solitude and danger had made me mad; and fearing +their opinion might be that of others, I refrained from telling my adventure +further, and professed to recall nothing that had happened to me between the +loss of the <i>Lady Vain</i> and the time when I was picked up again,—the +space of a year. +</p> + +<p> +I had to act with the utmost circumspection to save myself from the suspicion +of insanity. My memory of the Law, of the two dead sailors, of the ambuscades +of the darkness, of the body in the canebrake, haunted me; and, unnatural as it +seems, with my return to mankind came, instead of that confidence and sympathy +I had expected, a strange enhancement of the uncertainty and dread I had +experienced during my stay upon the island. No one would believe me; I was +almost as queer to men as I had been to the Beast People. I may have caught +something of the natural wildness of my companions. They say that terror is a +disease, and anyhow I can witness that for several years now a restless fear +has dwelt in my mind,—such a restless fear as a half-tamed lion cub may +feel. +</p> + +<p> +My trouble took the strangest form. I could not persuade myself that the men +and women I met were not also another Beast People, animals half wrought into +the outward image of human souls, and that they would presently begin to +revert,—to show first this bestial mark and then that. But I have +confided my case to a strangely able man,—a man who had known Moreau, and +seemed half to credit my story; a mental specialist,—and he has helped me +mightily, though I do not expect that the terror of that island will ever +altogether leave me. At most times it lies far in the back of my mind, a mere +distant cloud, a memory, and a faint distrust; but there are times when the +little cloud spreads until it obscures the whole sky. Then I look about me at +my fellow-men; and I go in fear. I see faces, keen and bright; others dull or +dangerous; others, unsteady, insincere,—none that have the calm authority +of a reasonable soul. I feel as though the animal was surging up through them; +that presently the degradation of the Islanders will be played over again on a +larger scale. I know this is an illusion; that these seeming men and women +about me are indeed men and women,—men and women for ever, perfectly +reasonable creatures, full of human desires and tender solicitude, emancipated +from instinct and the slaves of no fantastic Law,—beings altogether +different from the Beast Folk. Yet I shrink from them, from their curious +glances, their inquiries and assistance, and long to be away from them and +alone. For that reason I live near the broad free downland, and can escape +thither when this shadow is over my soul; and very sweet is the empty downland +then, under the wind-swept sky. +</p> + +<p> +When I lived in London the horror was well-nigh insupportable. I could not get +away from men: their voices came through windows; locked doors were flimsy +safeguards. I would go out into the streets to fight with my delusion, and +prowling women would mew after me; furtive, craving men glance jealously at me; +weary, pale workers go coughing by me with tired eyes and eager paces, like +wounded deer dripping blood; old people, bent and dull, pass murmuring to +themselves; and, all unheeding, a ragged tail of gibing children. Then I would +turn aside into some chapel,—and even there, such was my disturbance, it +seemed that the preacher gibbered “Big Thinks,” even as the Ape-man +had done; or into some library, and there the intent faces over the books +seemed but patient creatures waiting for prey. Particularly nauseous were the +blank, expressionless faces of people in trains and omnibuses; they seemed no +more my fellow-creatures than dead bodies would be, so that I did not dare to +travel unless I was assured of being alone. And even it seemed that I too was +not a reasonable creature, but only an animal tormented with some strange +disorder in its brain which sent it to wander alone, like a sheep stricken with +gid. +</p> + +<p> +This is a mood, however, that comes to me now, I thank God, more rarely. I have +withdrawn myself from the confusion of cities and multitudes, and spend my days +surrounded by wise books,—bright windows in this life of ours, lit by the +shining souls of men. I see few strangers, and have but a small household. My +days I devote to reading and to experiments in chemistry, and I spend many of +the clear nights in the study of astronomy. There is—though I do not know +how there is or why there is—a sense of infinite peace and protection in +the glittering hosts of heaven. There it must be, I think, in the vast and +eternal laws of matter, and not in the daily cares and sins and troubles of +men, that whatever is more than animal within us must find its solace and its +hope. I <i>hope</i>, or I could not live. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +And so, in hope and solitude, my story ends. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +E<small>DWARD</small> P<small>RENDICK</small>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p class="center"> +NOTE. +</p> + +<p> +The substance of the chapter entitled “Doctor Moreau +explains,” which contains the essential idea of the story, appeared as a +middle article in the <i>Saturday Review</i> in January, 1895. This is the only +portion of this story that has been previously published, and it has been +entirely recast to adapt it to the narrative form. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 159 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + |