The island of Doctor Moreau
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