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diff --git a/old/159.txt b/old/159.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c941bf2 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/159.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5334 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Island of Doctor Moreau, by H. G. Wells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Island of Doctor Moreau + +Author: H. G. Wells + +Release Date: October 14, 2004 [EBook #159] +[Last updated: May 26, 2012] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU *** + + + + +This etext was created by Judith Boss, of Omaha, Nebraska, from the +Garden City Publishing Company, 1896 edition, and first posted in +August, 1994. Minor corrections made by Andrew Sly in October, 2004. + + + + + + +THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU + +by +H. G. Wells + + + + + +Contents + + INTRODUCTION + I. IN THE DINGEY OF THE "LADY VAIN" + II. THE MAN WHO WAS GOING NOWHERE + III. THE STRANGE FACE + IV. AT THE SCHOONER'S RAIL + V. THE MAN WHO HAD NOWHERE TO GO + VI. THE EVIL-LOOKING BOATMEN + VII. THE LOCKED DOOR + VIII. THE CRYING OF THE PUMA + IX. THE THING IN THE FOREST + X. THE CRYING OF THE MAN + XI. THE HUNTING OF THE MAN + XII. THE SAYERS OF THE LAW + XIII. THE PARLEY + XIV. DOCTOR MOREAU EXPLAINS + XV. CONCERNING THE BEAST FOLK + XVI. HOW THE BEAST FOLK TASTE BLOOD + XVII. A CATASTROPHE +XVIII. THE FINDING OF MOREAU + XIX. MONTGOMERY'S BANK HOLIDAY + XX. ALONE WITH THE BEAST FOLK + XXI. THE REVERSION OF THE BEAST FOLK + XXII. THE MAN ALONE + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + +ON February the First 1887, the Lady Vain was lost by collision +with a derelict when about the latitude 1 degree S. and longitude +107 degrees W. + +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 Lady Vain at Callao, and who had been considered drowned, +was picked up in latitude 5 degrees 3' S. and longitude 101 degrees W. +in a small open boat of which the name was illegible, but which is +supposed to have belonged to the missing schooner Ipecacuanha. +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 Lady Vain. 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. + +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 H. M. S. Scorpion. 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 degrees S. and longitude 105 degrees 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 Ipecacuanha 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. + +CHARLES EDWARD PRENDICK. + +(The Story written by Edward Prendick.) + + + + +I. IN THE DINGEY OF THE "LADY VAIN." + + +I DO not propose to add anything to what has already been written +concerning the loss of the "Lady Vain." 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 "Myrtle," and the story of their terrible privations +has become quite as well known as the far more horrible "Medusa" case. +But I have to add to the published story of the "Lady Vain" +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. + +But in the first place I must state that there never were four men +in the dingey,--the number was three. Constans, who was "seen +by the captain to jump into the gig,"{1} 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. + +{1} Daily News, March 17, 1887. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +II. THE MAN WHO WAS GOING NOWHERE. + + +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?" + +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. + +"You were picked up in a boat, starving. The name on the boat +was the 'Lady Vain,' and there were spots of blood on the gunwale." + +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. + +"Have some of this," said he, and gave me a dose of some +scarlet stuff, iced. + +It tasted like blood, and made me feel stronger. + +"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. + +"What ship is this?" I said slowly, hoarse from my long silence. + +"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 'Ipecacuanha,' of all silly, infernal names; +though when there's much of a sea without any wind, she certainly +acts according." + +(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.) + +"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." + +I thought slowly. (I was distracted now by the yelping of a number +of dogs.) "Am I eligible for solid food?" I asked. + +"Thanks to me," he said. "Even now the mutton is boiling." + +"Yes," I said with assurance; "I could eat some mutton." + +"But," said he with a momentary hesitation, "you know I'm dying to hear +of how you came to be alone in that boat. Damn that howling!" +I thought I detected a certain suspicion in his eyes. + +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. + +"Well?" said he in the doorway. "You were just beginning to tell me." + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"Where?" said I. + +"It's an island, where I live. So far as I know, it hasn't got +a name." + +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. + + + + +III. THE STRANGE FACE. + + +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. + +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. + +"Confound you!" said Montgomery. "Why the devil don't you get +out of the way?" + +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." + +The black-faced man cowered. "They--won't have me forward." +He spoke slowly, with a queer, hoarse quality in his voice. + +"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. + +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 _had_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +"Is this an ocean menagerie?" said I. + +"Looks like it," said Montgomery. + +"What are these beasts for? Merchandise, curios? Does the captain +think he is going to sell them somewhere in the South Seas?" + +"It looks like it, doesn't it?" said Montgomery, and turned towards +the wake again. + +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. + +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. + +"Look here, Captain," said Montgomery, with his lisp a little accentuated, +gripping the elbows of the red-haired man, "this won't do!" + +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!" + +With a sudden movement he shook his arms free, and after two +ineffectual attempts stuck his freckled fists into his side pockets. + +"That man's a passenger," said Montgomery. "I'd advise you to keep +your hands off him." + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +For a minute, alcoholic fumes kept the captain speechless. +"Blasted Sawbones!" was all he considered necessary. + +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." + +Montgomery gave an ugly twist to his dropping lip. "He's always drunk. +Do you think that excuses his assaulting his passengers?" + +"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." + +"You agreed to take the beasts." + +"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?" + +"Your sailors began to haze the poor devil as soon as he came aboard." + +"That's just what he is--he's a devil! an ugly devil! My men +can't stand him. _I_ can't stand him. None of us can't stand him. +Nor _you_ either!" + +Montgomery turned away. "_You_ leave that man alone, anyhow," he said, +nodding his head as he spoke. + +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 you, to tell me what I'm 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--" + +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. + +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. + + + + +IV. AT THE SCHOONER'S RAIL. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"If I may say it," said I, after a time, "you have saved my life." + +"Chance," he answered. "Just chance." + +"I prefer to make my thanks to the accessible agent." + +"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!" + +This damped my mood a little. "At any rate," I began. + +"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." + +He stopped. "Yes?" said I. + +"That's all." + +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." + +"Whatever you tell me, you may rely upon my keeping to myself--if +that's it." + +He was on the point of beginning, and then shook his head, doubtfully. + +"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?" + +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. + +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. + +"I'm thinking of turning in, then," said he, "if you've had enough +of this." + +I answered him incongruously. We went below, and he wished me +good-night at the door of my cabin. + +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. + + + + +V. THE MAN WHO HAD NOWHERE TO GO. + + +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. + +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. + +The poor brute seemed horribly scared, and crouched in the bottom +of its little cage. + +"Overboard with 'em!" bawled the captain. "Overboard with 'em! +We'll have a clean ship soon of the whole bilin' of 'em." + +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. + +"Hullo!" said he, stupidly; and then with a light coming into his eyes, +"Why, it's Mister--Mister?" + +"Prendick," said I. + +"Prendick be damned!" said he. "Shut-up,--that's your name. +Mister Shut-up." + +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. + +"That way, Mister Blasted Shut-up! that way!" roared the captain. + +Montgomery and his companion turned as he spoke. + +"What do you mean?" I said. + +"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!" + +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. + +"Can't have you," said Montgomery's companion, concisely. + +"You can't have me!" said I, aghast. He had the squarest and most +resolute face I ever set eyes upon. + +"Look here," I began, turning to the captain. + +"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." + +"But, Montgomery," I appealed. + +He distorted his lower lip, and nodded his head hopelessly at +the grey-haired man beside him, to indicate his powerlessness to help me. + +"I'll see to _you_, presently," said the captain. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The dingey of the "Lady Vain" 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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +VI. THE EVIL-LOOKING BOATMEN. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Presently the white-haired man seemed to recollect my presence, +and came up to me. + +"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?" + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"I'm glad," said he, "for my own part. That captain was a silly ass. +He'd have made things lively for you." + +"It was you," said I, "that saved me again." + +"That depends. You'll find this island an infernally rum place, +I promise you. I'd watch my goings carefully, if I were you. +_He_--" 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. + +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. + +"Increase and multiply, my friends," said Montgomery. +"Replenish the island. Hitherto we've had a certain lack of meat here." + +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. + + + + +VII. THE LOCKED DOOR. + + +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. + +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. + +"And now comes the problem of this uninvited guest. What are we +to do with him?" + +"He knows something of science," said Montgomery. + +"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. + +"I daresay you are," said Montgomery, in anything but a cordial tone. + +"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." + +"I'm in your hands," said I. I had no idea of what he meant +by "over there." + +"I've been thinking of the same things," Montgomery answered. +"There's my room with the outer door--" + +"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--" + +"Decidedly," said I, "I should be a fool to take offence at any want +of confidence." + +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. + +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. + +"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! + +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. + +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. + +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! + +"Your breakfast, sair," he said. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +What could it all mean? A locked enclosure on a lonely island, +a notorious vivisector, and these crippled and distorted men? + + + + +VIII. THE CRYING OF THE PUMA. + + +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. + +"Moreau!" said I. "I know that name." + +"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?" + +"No, thanks; I'm an abstainer." + +"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--" + +"Montgomery," said I, suddenly, as the outer door closed, "why has +your man pointed ears?" + +"Damn!" he said, over his first mouthful of food. He stared at me +for a moment, and then repeated, "Pointed ears?" + +"Little points to them," said I, as calmly as possible, with a catch +in my breath; "and a fine black fur at the edges?" + +He helped himself to whiskey and water with great deliberation. +"I was under the impression--that his hair covered his ears." + +"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." + +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 _was_ something +the matter with his ears, from the way he covered them. +What were they like?" + +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." + +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. + +"Yes?" he said. + +"Where did you pick up the creature?" + +"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?" + +"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." + +Montgomery had stopped eating while I told him this. "Rum!" he said. +"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?" + +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. + +"Your men on the beach," said I; "what race are they?" + +"Excellent fellows, aren't they?" said he, absentmindedly, +knitting his brows as the animal yelled out sharply. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +IX. THE THING IN THE FOREST. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Who are you?" said I. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +X. THE CRYING OF THE MAN. + + +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. + +"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!" + +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. + +"For God's sake," said I, "fasten that door." + +"You've been meeting some of our curiosities, eh?" said he. + +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. + +I answered him as briefly, in fragmentary sentences. "Tell me +what it all means," said I, in a state bordering on hysterics. + +"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." + +"Montgomery," said I, "what was that thing that came after me? +Was it a beast or was it a man?" + +"If you don't sleep to-night," he said, "you'll be off your +head to-morrow." + +I stood up in front of him. "What was that thing that came after me?" +I asked. + +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." + +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. + +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. _That_--will keep +on for hours yet. You must simply get to sleep, or I won't answer +for it." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"All right," said he. "I'm frightfully busy." And he shut the door. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +"Prendick, man! Stop!" cried Montgomery, intervening. + +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. + +"Ruin the work of a lifetime," I heard Moreau say. + +"He does not understand," said Montgomery. and other things +that were inaudible. + +"I can't spare the time yet," said Moreau. + +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. + + + + +XI. THE HUNTING OF THE MAN. + + +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. + +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!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Yes," I said, "I came in the boat. From the ship." + +"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?" + +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. + +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. + +"Hullo!" said I. + +He came down with a twisting jump, and stood facing me. + +"I say," said I, "where can I get something to eat?" + +"Eat!" he said. "Eat Man's food, now." And his eye went back +to the swing of ropes. "At the huts." + +"But where are the huts?" + +"Oh!" + +"I'm new, you know." + +At that he swung round, and set off at a quick walk. +All his motions were curiously rapid. "Come along," said he. + +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. + +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. + +"How long?" he asked; and after having the question repeated, +he held up three fingers. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +XII. THE SAYERS OF THE LAW. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Hey!" came out of the lump of mystery opposite. "It is a man." + +"It is a man," gabbled my conductor, "a man, a man, a five-man, +like me." + +"Shut up!" said the voice from the dark, and grunted. +I gnawed my cocoa-nut amid an impressive stillness. + +I peered hard into the blackness, but could distinguish nothing. + +"It is a man," the voice repeated. "He comes to live with us?" + +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. + +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. + +"It is a man. He must learn the Law." + +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. + +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. + +I was puzzled. + +"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. + +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, + + "Not to go on all-fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men? + "Not to suck up Drink; that is the Law. Are we not Men? + "Not to eat Fish or Flesh; that is the Law. Are we not Men? + "Not to claw the Bark of Trees; that is the Law. Are we not Men? + "Not to chase other Men; that is the Law. Are we not Men?" + +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. + + "_His_ is the House of Pain. + "_His_ is the Hand that makes. + "_His_ is the Hand that wounds. + "_His_ is the Hand that heals." + +And so on for another long series, mostly quite incomprehensible +gibberish to me about _Him_, whoever he might be. I could have fancied +it was a dream, but never before have I heard chanting in a dream. + +"_His_ is the lightning flash," we sang. "_His_ is the deep, salt sea." + +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. + +"_His_ are the stars in the sky." + +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. + +"He is a five-man, a five-man, a five-man--like me," said the Ape-man. + +I held out my hands. The grey creature in the corner leant forward. + +"Not to run on all-fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?" +he said. + +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. + +"He has little nails," said this grisly creature in his hairy beard. +"It is well." + +He threw my hand down, and instinctively I gripped my stick. + +"Eat roots and herbs; it is His will," said the Ape-man. + +"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." + +"It is even so," said one of the beasts in the doorway. + +"Evil are the punishments of those who break the Law. +None escape." + +"None escape," said the Beast Folk, glancing furtively at one another. + +"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!" + +"None escape," said the grey creature in the corner. + +"None escape," said the Beast People, looking askance at one another. + +"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?'" + +"None escape," said a dappled brute standing in the doorway. + +"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." + +"None escape," said the men in the door. + +"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." + +"None escape," said the Ape-man, scratching his calf. + +"None escape," said the little pink sloth-creature. + +"Punishment is sharp and sure. Therefore learn the Law. +Say the words." + +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. + +"Not to go on all-fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Stop!" cried Moreau as I strode towards this, and then, "Hold him!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +XIII. A PARLEY. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"What are you doing, man?" cried Montgomery. + +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. + +"What am I doing? I am going to drown myself," said I. + +Montgomery and Moreau looked at each other. "Why?" asked Moreau. + +"Because that is better than being tortured by you." + +"I told you so," said Montgomery, and Moreau said something +in a low tone. + +"What makes you think I shall torture you?" asked Moreau. + +"What I saw," I said. "And those--yonder." + +"Hush!" said Moreau, and held up his hand. + +"I will not," said I. "They were men: what are they now? +I at least will not be like them." + +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. + +"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. + +"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--" + +"For God's sake," cried Montgomery, "stop that, Prendick!" + +"Prendick!" cried Moreau. + +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. + +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. + +"Listen to me for a moment," said the steady voice of Moreau; +"and then say what you will." + +"Well?" said I. + +He coughed, thought, then shouted: "Latin, Prendick! bad Latin, +schoolboy Latin; but try and understand. Hi non sunt homines; +sunt animalia qui nos habemus--vivisected. A humanising process. +I will explain. Come ashore." + +I laughed. "A pretty story," said I. "They talk, build houses. +They were men. It's likely I'll come ashore." + +"The water just beyond where you stand is deep--and full of sharks." + +"That's my way," said I. "Short and sharp. Presently." + +"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." + +"Not I! You have a third between you." + +"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?" + +"Why did you set--your people onto me when I was in the hut?" + +"We felt sure of catching you, and bringing you out of danger. +Afterwards we drew away from the scent, for your good." + +I mused. It seemed just possible. Then I remembered something again. +"But I saw," said I, "in the enclosure--" + +"That was the puma." + +"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." + +I will confess that then, and indeed always, I distrusted +and dreaded Moreau; but Montgomery was a man I felt I understood. + +"Go up the beach," said I, after thinking, and added, "holding your +hands up." + +"Can't do that," said Montgomery, with an explanatory nod over +his shoulder. "Undignified." + +"Go up to the trees, then," said I, "as you please." + +"It's a damned silly ceremony," said Montgomery. + +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. + +"I'll take the risk," said I, at last; and with a revolver in each +hand I walked up the beach towards them. + +"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. + +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. + + + + +XIV. DOCTOR MOREAU EXPLAINS. + + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +"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--" + +"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." + +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. + +The creatures I had seen were not men, had never been men. +They were animals, humanised animals,--triumphs of vivisection. + +"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?" + +"Of course," said I. "But these foul creatures of yours--" + +"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." + +"Monsters manufactured!" said I. "Then you mean to tell me--" + +"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. + +"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." + +"But," said I, "these things--these animals talk!" + +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. + +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. + +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!" + +"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--" + +"Precisely," said he. "But, you see, I am differently constituted. +We are on different platforms. You are a materialist." + +"I am _not_ a materialist," I began hotly. + +"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--" + +I gave an impatient shrug at such sophistry. + +"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?" + +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. + +"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. + +"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 _my_ 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. + +"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." + +"But," said I, "the thing is an abomination--" + +"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. + +"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. + +"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 _you_ 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. + +"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. + +"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-- + +"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-- + +"What became of the other one?" said I, sharply,--"the other Kanaka +who was killed?" + +"The fact is, after I had made a number of human creatures I made +a Thing--" He hesitated. + +"Yes?" said I. + +"It was killed." + +"I don't understand," said I; "do you mean to say--" + +"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." + +He became silent. I sat in silence watching his face. + +"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. + +"Then you take the things you make into those dens?" said I. + +"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-- + +"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?" + +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. + +"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. + +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. + + + + +XV. CONCERNING THE BEAST FOLK. + + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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.{2} 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. + + {2} This description corresponds in every respect to Noble's Isle. + -- C. E. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 Arica 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +XVI. HOW THE BEAST FOLK TASTE BLOOD. + + +MY inexperience as a writer betrays me, and I wander from the thread +of my story. + +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. + +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, _that_ 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. + +"Hail," said they, "to the Other with the Whip!" + +"There's a Third with a Whip now," said Montgomery. "So you'd +better mind!" + +"Was he not made?" said the Ape-man. "He said--he said he was made." + +The Satyr-man looked curiously at me. "The Third with the Whip, +he that walks weeping into the sea, has a thin white face." + +"He has a thin long whip," said Montgomery. + +"Yesterday he bled and wept," said the Satyr. "You never bleed nor weep. +The Master does not bleed or weep." + +"Ollendorffian beggar!" said Montgomery, "you'll bleed and weep +if you don't look out!" + +"He has five fingers, he is a five-man like me," said the Ape-man. + +"Come along, Prendick," said Montgomery, taking my arm; and I went +on with him. + +The Satyr and the Ape-man stood watching us and making other remarks +to each other. + +"He says nothing," said the Satyr. "Men have voices." + +"Yesterday he asked me of things to eat," said the Ape-man. "He +did not know." + +Then they spoke inaudible things, and I heard the Satyr laughing. + +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. + +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?" + +"Some carnivore of yours has remembered its old habits," +I said after a pause. "This backbone has been bitten through." + +He stood staring, with his face white and his lip pulled askew. +"I don't like this," he said slowly. + +"I saw something of the same kind," said I, "the first day I came here." + +"The devil you did! What was it?" + +"A rabbit with its head twisted off." + +"The day you came here?" + +"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." + +He gave a long, low whistle. + +"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." + +"Sucking his drink?" + +"Yes." + +"'Not to suck your drink; that is the Law.' Much the brutes care +for the Law, eh? when Moreau's not about!" + +"It was the brute who chased me." + +"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. + +He took out his revolver, examined the cartridges in it and replaced it. +Then he began to pull at his dropping lip. + +"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." + +"But then we have to _prove_ that he killed the rabbit," said +Montgomery. "I wish I'd never brought the things here." + +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. + +"Come on!" I said. + +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--" + +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." + +Then: "We must put a stop to this. I must tell Moreau." + +He could think of nothing else on our homeward journey. + +Moreau took the matter even more seriously than Montgomery, and I +need scarcely say that I was affected by their evident consternation. + +"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." + +"I was a silly ass," said Montgomery. "But the thing's done now; +and you said I might have them, you know." + +"We must see to the thing at once," said Moreau. "I suppose +if anything should turn up, M'ling can take care of himself?" + +"I'm not so sure of M'ling," said Montgomery. "I think I ought +to know him." + +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. + +"You will see a gathering of the Beast People," said Montgomery. +"It is a pretty sight!" + +Moreau said not a word on the way, but the expression of his heavy, +white-fringed face was grimly set. + +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. + +"Ah!" said Moreau, letting the curved instrument fall to his side again. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Sixty-two, sixty-three," counted Moreau. "There are four more." + +"I do not see the Leopard-man," said I. + +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. + +"Cease!" said Moreau, in his firm, loud voice; and the Beast People +sat back upon their hams and rested from their worshipping. + +"Where is the Sayer of the Law?" said Moreau, and the hairy-grey +monster bowed his face in the dust. + +"Say the words!" said Moreau. + +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. + +"Stop!" he cried, and there fell absolute silence upon them all. + +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. + +"That Law has been broken!" said Moreau. + +"None escape," from the faceless creature with the silvery hair. +"None escape," repeated the kneeling circle of Beast People. + +"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. + +"Who is he?" repeated Moreau, in a voice of thunder. + +"Evil is he who breaks the Law," chanted the Sayer of the Law. + +Moreau looked into the eyes of the Leopard-man, and seemed to be +dragging the very soul out of the creature. + +"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). + +"Goes back to the House of Pain," they all clamoured,--"goes back +to the House of Pain, O Master!" + +"Back to the House of Pain,--back to the House of Pain," +gabbled the Ape-man, as though the idea was sweet to him. + +"Do you hear?" said Moreau, turning back to the criminal, +"my friend--Hullo!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"He has gone on all-fours through this," panted Moreau, now just +ahead of me. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +"Steady!" cried Moreau, "steady!" as the ends of the line crept +round the tangle of undergrowth and hemmed the brute in. + +"Ware a rush!" came the voice of Montgomery from beyond the thicket. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"Confound you, Prendick!" said Moreau. "I wanted him." + +"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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +XVII. A CATASTROPHE. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"I was standing in the doorway," said I. + +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?" + +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. + +"You'll do," he said. "And now?" + +He thought. Then he went out and locked the gates of the enclosure. +He was absent some time. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Has he come?" said Montgomery. + +"Moreau?" said I. "No." + +"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?" + +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. + +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. + +He found the ravine deserted. + +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. + +"What does it all mean?" said I. + +He shook his head, and turned once more to the brandy. + + + + +XVIII. THE FINDING OF MOREAU. + + +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. + +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 _his_ 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. + +"He is dead," said a deep, vibrating voice. + +"He is not dead; he is not dead," jabbered another. + +"We saw, we saw," said several voices. + +"Hullo!" suddenly shouted Montgomery, "Hullo, there!" + +"Confound you!" said I, and gripped my pistol. + +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. + +For a space no one spoke. Then Montgomery hiccoughed, "Who--said +he was dead?" + +The Monkey-man looked guiltily at the hairy-grey Thing. "He is dead," +said this monster. "They saw." + +There was nothing threatening about this detachment, at any rate. +They seemed awestricken and puzzled. + +"Where is he?" said Montgomery. + +"Beyond," and the grey creature pointed. + +"Is there a Law now?" asked the Monkey-man. "Is it still to be this +and that? Is he dead indeed?" + +"Is there a Law?" repeated the man in white. "Is there a Law, +thou Other with the Whip?" + +"He is dead," said the hairy-grey Thing. And they all stood +watching us. + +"Prendick," said Montgomery, turning his dull eyes to me. +"He's dead, evidently." + +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 _not_ 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!" + +I looked at them squarely. They flinched. + +"He is great, he is good," said the Ape-man, peering fearfully +upward among the dense trees. + +"And the other Thing?" I demanded. + +"The Thing that bled, and ran screaming and sobbing,--that is dead too," +said the grey Thing, still regarding me. + +"That's well," grunted Montgomery. + +"The Other with the Whip--" began the grey Thing. + +"Well?" said I. + +"Said he was dead." + +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." + +"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." + +"It is this way, Man who walked in the Sea," said the grey Thing. + +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. + +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. + +"See," said I, pointing to the dead brute, "is the Law not alive? +This came of breaking the Law." + +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. + +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. + + + + +XIX. MONTGOMERY'S "BANK HOLIDAY." + + +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. + +"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 +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?" + +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." + +"What's the good of getting away? I'm an outcast. +Where am _I_ to join on? It's all very well for _you_, 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?" + +"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?" + +"_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 _your_ humanity would suggest? +But they'll change. They are sure to change." + +He talked thus inconclusively until at last I felt my temper going. + +"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!" + +"Not I," said I, and sat grimly watching his face under the yellow +paraffine flare, as he drank himself into a garrulous misery. + +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. + +"I'm damned!" said he, staggering to his feet and clutching +the brandy bottle. + +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. + +"Beast!" said he. "You're the beast. He takes his liquor +like a Christian. Come out of the way, Prendick!" + +"For God's sake," said I. + +"Get--out of the way!" he roared, and suddenly whipped out his revolver. + +"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." + +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. + +"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!" + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"Sing!" I heard Montgomery shout,--"sing all together, 'Confound +old Prendick!' That's right; now again, 'Confound old Prendick!'" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +"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--" + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +XX. ALONE WITH THE BEAST FOLK. + + +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. + +"Salute!" said I. "Bow down!" + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"None escape," said one of them, advancing and peering. + +"None escape," said I. "Therefore hear and do as I command." +They stood up, looking questioningly at one another. + +"Stand there," said I. + +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. + +"Take him," said I, standing up again and pointing with the whip; +"take him, and carry him out and cast him into the sea." + +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. + +"On!" said I, "on! Carry him far." + +They went in up to their armpits and stood regarding me. + +"Let go," said I; and the body of Montgomery vanished with a splash. +Something seemed to tighten across my chest. + +"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. + +"Now these," said I, pointing to the other bodies. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I was perhaps a dozen seconds collecting myself. Then cried I, "Salute! +Bow down!" + +His teeth flashed upon me in a snarl. "Who are _you_ that I should--" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Go away!" cried I. + +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. + +"Go away," said I. "Do not come near me." + +"May I not come near you?" it said. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +"I want food," said I, almost apologetically, and drawing near. + +"There is food in the huts," said an Ox-boar-man, drowsily, +and looking away from me. + +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. + + + + +XXI. THE REVERSION OF THE BEAST FOLK. + + +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. + +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. + +"Who is that?" I said in a hoarse whisper, the revolver still pointed. + +"I--Master." + +"Who are you?" + +"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." + +"Are you the one I met on the beach?" I asked. + +"The same, Master." + +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. + +"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." + +I felt in the darkness, and patted the Dog-man's head. "It is well," +I said again. + +"Presently you will slay them all," said the Dog-man. + +"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." + +"What the Master wishes to kill, the Master kills," said the Dog-man +with a certain satisfaction in his voice. + +"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." + +"The Master's will is sweet," said the Dog-man, with the ready tact +of his canine blood. + +"But one has sinned," said I. "Him I will kill, whenever I may meet him. +When I say to you, 'That is he,' see that you fall upon him. +And now I will go to the men and women who are assembled together." + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"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!" + +"He is not dead," said I, in a loud voice. "Even now he watches us!" + +This startled them. Twenty pairs of eyes regarded me. + +"The House of Pain is gone," said I. "It will come again. +The Master you cannot see; yet even now he listens among you." + +"True, true!" said the Dog-man. + +They were staggered at my assurance. An animal may be ferocious +and cunning enough, but it takes a real man to tell a lie. + +"The Man with the Bandaged Arm speaks a strange thing," +said one of the Beast Folk. + +"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!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 "Ipecacuanha" 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I found a thousand difficulties. I am an extremely unhandy man +(my schooling was over before the days of Slojd); 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 "Ipecacuanha," and +a dirty white cap lay in the bottom of the boat. + +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. + +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. + + + + +XXII. THE MAN ALONE. + + +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. + +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. + +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 "Lady Vain" and the time when I was picked up again,--the +space of a year. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 hope, +or I could not live. + +And so, in hope and solitude, my story ends. + +EDWARD PRENDICK. + + +NOTE. The substance of the chapter entitled "Doctor Moreau explains," +which contains the essential idea of the story, appeared as a middle +article in the "Saturday Review" 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. + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Island of Doctor Moreau, by H. G. Wells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU *** + +***** This file should be named 159.txt or 159.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/159/ + +This etext was created by Judith Boss, of Omaha, Nebraska, from the +Garden City Publishing Company, 1896 edition, and first posted in +August, 1994. 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