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21 - The Island of Dr Moreau - H G Wells · Adventure Books Library

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Twenty one, the reversion of the beast folk. In this way, I
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became one among the beast people in the island of Doctor Moreau. When I
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awoke, it was dark about me, my arm ached in its bandages.
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I sat up, wondering at first where I might be. I heard coarse
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voices talking outside. Then I saw that my barricade had gone, and that
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the opening of the hut stood clear. My revolver was still in my hand.
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I heard something breathing, saw something crouch together close beside me. I
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held my breath, trying to see what it was. It began to move
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slowly, interminably. Then something soft and warm and moist passed across my hand.
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All my muscles contracted. I snatched my hand away. A cry of
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alarm began and was stifled in my throat. Then I just realized what had
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happened sufficiently disday my fingers on the revolver. Who is that? I said,
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in a hoarse whisper. The revolver still pointed, A master. Who
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are you? They say there is no master now, But I know,
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I know. I carried the bodies into the sea, O walker in the
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sea, the bodies of those you slew I am your slave. Master.
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Are you the one I met on the beach? I asked the same master.
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The thing was evidently faithful enough for it might have fallen upon me as
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I slept. It is well, I said, extending my hand for another
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licking kiss. I began to realize what its presence meant, and the tide
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of my courage flowed. Where are the others, I asked? They are
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mad. They are fools, said the dog man. Even now they talk
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together beyond there they say, the master is dead. The other with the
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whip is dead. The other who walked in the sea is as we are.
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We have no master, no whips, no house of pain any more.
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There is an end. We love the law and will keep it.
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But there is no pain, no master, no whips for ever again,
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so they say. But I know, Master, I know, I felt
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in the darkness and patted the dark Man's head. It is well, I
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said again. Presently you will slay them all, said the dog man.
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Presently, I answered, I will slay them all. After certain days and
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certain things have come to pass. Every one of them, save those you
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spare, every one of them shall be slain. What the Master wishes to
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kill The master kills, said the dog man, with a certain satisfaction in
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his voice, and that their sins may grow. I said. Let them
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live in their folly until their time is ripe. Let them not know that
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I am the master. The master's will is sweet, said the dog man,
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with the ready tact of his canine blood. But one has sinned,
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said I him. I will kill whenever I may meet him. When I
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say to you, that is he, see that you fall upon him.
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And now I will go to the men and women who are assembled together for
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a moment. The opening of the hut was blackened by the exit of the
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dog man. Then I followed and stood up almost in the exact spot where
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I had been when I had heard Moreau and his stag hound pursuing me.
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But now it was night, and all the meres Mattic ravine about me was
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black, and beyond instead of a green, sunlit slope, I saw a
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red fire, before which hunched grotesque figures. Moved to and fro Farther were
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the thick trees, a bank of darkness fringed above with the black lace of
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the upper branches. The moon was just riding up on the edge of the
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ravine, and like a bar across its face drove the spire of vapor that
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was forever streaming from the fumeroles of the island. Walk by me, said
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I, nerving myself in. Side by side, we walked down the narrow
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way, taking little heed of the dim things that peered at us out of
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the huts. None about the fire attempted to salute me. Most of them
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disregarded me ostentatiously. I looked round for the hyena swine, but he was
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not there. Altogether, perhaps twenty of the beast folks squatted, staring into
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the fire or talking to one another. He is dead. He is dead.
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The Master is dead, said the voice of the ape man. To
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the right of me, the house of pain. There is no house of
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pain. He is not dead, said I, in a loud voice.
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Even now he watches us. This startled them. Twenty pairs of eyes regarded
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me. The house of pain is gone, said I. It will come
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again. The Master, you cannot see yet, even now he listens among
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you. True, true, said the dog man. They were staggered at
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my assurance. An animal may be ferocious and cunning enough, but it takes
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a real man to tell a lie. The man with the bandaged arms speaks
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a strange thing, said one of the beast folk. I tell you,
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it is so, I said the master, and the house of pain will
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come back again. Woe be to him who breaks the law. They looked
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curiously at one another, with an affectation of indifference. I began to chop
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idly at the ground in front of me with my hatchet. They looked.
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I noticed at the deep cuts I made in the turf. Then the satier
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raised a doubt, I answered him. Then one of the dapple things objected
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in an animated discussion sprang up round the fire. Every moment I began to
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feel more convinced of my present security. I talked now without the catching in
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my breath due to the intensity of my excitement that had troubled me at first.
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In the course of about an hour, I had really convinced several of
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the beast folk of the truth of my assertions, and talked most of the
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others into a dubious state. I kept a sharp eye for my enemy,
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the hyena swine, but he never appeared. Every now and then a suspicious
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movement would startle me, But my confidence grew rapidly. Then, as the
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moon crept down from the zenith. One by one, the listeners began to
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yawn, showing the oddest teeth in the light of the sinking fire, and
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first one and then another retired towards the dins in the ravine, and I,
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dreading the silence and darkness, went with them, knowing it was safer
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with several of them than with one alone. In this manner began the longer
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part of my sojourn upon the island of Doctor Moreau. But from that night
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until the end came, there was but one thing happened to tell, save
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a series of innumerable small, unpleasant details and the fretting of an incessant uneasiness.
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So that I prefer to make no chronicle for that gap of time,
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to tell only one cardinal incident. Of the ten months I spent as an
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intimate of these half humanized brutes, there is much that sticks in my memory
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that I could write, things that I would cheerfully give my right hand to
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forget, but they do not help the telling of the story. In the
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retrospect, it is strange to remember how soon I fell in with these monsters
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ways and gained my confidence again. I had my quarrels with them, of
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course, and could show some of their teeth marks still. But they soon
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gained a wholesome respect for my trick of throwing stones and for the bite of
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my hatchet, and my saint Bernard Man's loyalty was of infinite service to me.
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I found their simple scale of honor was based mainly on the capacity for
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inflicting trenchant wounds. Indeed, I may say without vanity, I hope that
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I held something like pre eminence among them, one or two whom, in
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a rare access of high spirits, I had scarred rather badly, bore me
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a grudge, but invented itself chiefly behind my back and at a safe distance
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from my missiles. In grimaces. The hyena swine avoided me, and I
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was always on the alert for him. My inseparable dog Man hated and dreaded
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him intensely. I really believed that was at the root of the brute's attachment
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to me. It was soon evident to me that the former monster had tasted
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blood and gone the way of the leopard man. He formed a lair somewhere
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in the forest and became solitary. Once I tried to induce the beast folk
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to hunt it, but I lacked the authority to make them co operate for
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one end. Again and again I tried to approach his den and come upon
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him unaware, but always he was too acute for me and saw or winded
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me and got away. He too, made every forest pathway dangerous to me
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and my ally with his lurking ambuscards. The dog man scarcely dared to leave
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my side. In the first month or so, the beast folk, compared
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with their latter condition, were human enough, and for one or two besides
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my canine friend, I even conceived a friendly tolerance. The little pink sloth
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creature displayed in odd affection for me and took to following me about. The
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monkey man bored me, however, he assumed, on the strength of his
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five digits that he was my equal, and was forever jabbering at me,
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jabbering the most errant nonsense. One thing about him entertained me a little.
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He had a fantastic trick of coining new words. He had an idea,
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I believe that to gabble about names that meant nothing was the proper use of
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speech. He called it big thinks to distinguish it from little thinks, the
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sane, every day interests of life. If ever I made a remark he
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did not understand, he would praise it very much, ask me to say
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it again, learn it by heart, and go off repeating it with a
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word wrong here or there, to all the milder of the beast people.
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He thought nothing of what was plain and comprehensible. I invented some very curious
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big thinks for his especial use. I think now he was the silliest creature
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I had ever met. He had developed, in the most wonderful way,
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the distinctive silliness of man, without losing one jot of the natural folly of
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a monkey. This, I say, was in the earlier weeks of my
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solitude among these brutes. During that time they respected the usage established by the
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law and behaved with general decorum. Once I found another rabbit torn to pieces
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by the hyena swine, I am assured. But that was all it was
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about May when I first distinctly perceived a growing difference in their speech and carriage,
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a growing coarseness of articulation, a growing disinclination to talk. My monkey
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man's jabber multiplied in volume, but grew less and less comprehensible, more and
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more simian. Some of the others seemed altogether slipping their hold upon speech,
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though they still understood what I said to them at that time. Can you
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imagine language, once clear cut and exact, softening and guttering, losing shape
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and import, becoming mere lumps of sound again? And they walked erect with
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an increasing difficulty, though they evidently felt ashamed of themselves. Every now and
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then I would come upon one or another, running on toes and fingertips,
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and quite unable to recover the vertical attitude. They held things more clumsily,
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Drinking by suction, feeding by gnawing, grew commoner. Every day. I
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realized, more keenly than ever what Moreau had told me about the stubborn beast
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flesh. They were reverting, and reverting very rapidly. Some of them,
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the pioneers in this I noticed with some surprise, were all females. Began
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to disregard the injunction of decency deliberately for the most part. Others even attempted
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public outrages upon the institution of monogamy. The tradition of the law was clearly
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losing its force. I cannot pursue this disagreeable subject. My dog man imperceptibly
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slipped back to the dog again. Day by day he became dumb, quadrupedal,
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hairy. I scarcely noticed the transition from the companion on my right hand
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to the lurching dog at my side. As the carelessness and disorganization increased from
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day to day, the lane of dwelling places, at no time very sweet,
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became so loathsome that I left it, and, going across the island,
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made myself a hovel of boughs amid the black ruins of morose enclosure.
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Some memory of pain I found still made that place the safest from the beast
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folk. It would be impossible to detail every step of the lapsing of these
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monsters, to tell how, day by day the human semblance left them,
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how they gave up bandagings and wrappings, abandoned at last every stitch of clothing,
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How the hair began to spread over the exposed limbs, how their foreheads
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fell away and their faces projected, How the quasi human intimacy I had permitted
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myself with some of them in the first month of my loneliness became a shuddering
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horror to recall. The change was slow and inevitable for them. For me,
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it came without any definite shock. I still went among them in safety,
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because no jolt in the downward glide had released the increasing charge of explosive
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animalism that ousted the human day by day. But I began to fear that
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soon now that shock must come. My saint Bernard Brute followed me to the
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enclosure every night, and his vigilance enabled me to sleep at times in something
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like peace. The little pink sloth thing became shy and left me to crawl
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back to its natural life once more. Among the tree branches. We were
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in just the state of equilibrium that would remain in one of those happy family
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cages which animal tamers exhibit, if the tamer were to leave it forever.
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Of course, these did not decline into such beasts as the reader has seen
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in zoological gardens, into ordinary bears, wolves, tigers, oxen, swine,
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and apes. There was still something strange about each. In each Moreau
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had blended this animal with that. One perhaps was ersine chiefly, another feline
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chiefly, another bovine chiefly, But each was tainted with other creatures, a
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kind of generalized animalism appearing through the specific dispositions, and the dwindling shreds of
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the humanity still startled me every now and then, a momentary recrudescence of speech,
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perhaps an unexpected dexterity of the forefoot, a pitiful attempt to walk erect.
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I too, must have undergone strange changes. My clothes hung about me
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as yellow rags, through whose rents showed the tanned skin. My hair grew
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long and became matted together. I am told that even now my eyes have
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a strange brightness, a swift alertness of movement. At first, I spent
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the daylight hours on the southward beach, watching for a ship, hoping and
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praying for a ship. I counted on the Ipaquana returning as the year wore
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on, but she never came. Five times I saw sails and thrice smoke,
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but nothing ever touched the island. I always had a bonfire ready,
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but no doubt the volcanic reputation of the island was taken into account for that.
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It was only about September or October that I began to think of making
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a raft. By that time my arm had healed and both hands were at
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my service again. At first I found my helplessness appalling. I had never
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done any carpentry or such like work in my life, and I spent day
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at to day in experimental chopping and binding among the trees. I had no
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ropes, and could hit on nothing wherewith to make ropes. None of the
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abundant creepers seemed limber or strong enough, and with all my litter of scientific
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education, I could not devise any way of making them. So I spent
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more than a fortnight grubbing among the black ruins of the enclosure and on the
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beach where the boats had been burnt, looking for nails and other stray pieces
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of metal that might prove of service. Now and then some beast creature would
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watch me and go leaping off when I called to it. There came a
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season of thunder storms and heavy rain, which greatly retarded my work. But
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at last the raft was completed. I was delighted with it, but with
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a certain lack of practical sense, which has always been my bane. I
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had made it a mile or more from the sea, and before I had
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dragged it down to the beach, the thing had fallen to pieces perhaps it
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is as well that I was saved from launching it. But at the time
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my misery at my failure was so acute that for some days I simply moped
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on the beach and stared at the water and thought of death. I did
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not, however, mean to die, and an incident occurred that warn me
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unmistakably of the folly of letting the days pass, so, for each fresh
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day was fraught with increasing danger from the beast people. I was lying in
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the shade of the enclosure wall, staring out to sea, when I was
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startled by something cold touching the skin of my heel, and starting round,
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found the little pink sloth creature blinking into my face. He had long since
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lost speech an active movement, and the lank hair of the little brute grew
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thicker every day, and his stumpy claws more askew. He made a moaning
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noise when he saw he had attracted my attention, went a little way towards
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the bushes, and looked back at me. At first I did not understand,
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but presently it occurred to me that he wished me to follow him,
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and this I did at last, slowly, for the day was hot When
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we reached the trees, he clambered into them, for he could travel better
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among their swinging creepers than on the ground. And suddenly, in a trampled
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space, I came upon a ghostly group. My saint Bernard creature lay on
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the ground, dead, and near his body crouched the hyena swine, gripping
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the quivering flesh with its misshapen claws, gnawing at it and snarling with delight.
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As I approached, the monster lifted its glaring eyes to mine. Its
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lips went trembling back from its red stained teeth, and it growled menacingly.
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It was not afraid and not ashamed. The last vestige of the human taint
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had vanished. I advanced step farther, stopped, and pulled out my revolver.
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At last, I had him face to face. The brute made no
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sign of retreat, but its ears went back, its hair bristled, and
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its body crouched together. I aimed between the eyes and fired. As I
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did so, the thing rose straight at me in a leap, and I
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was knocked over like a nine pin. It clutched at me with its crippled
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hand and struck me in the face. Its spring carried it over me.
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I fell under the hind part of its body, but luckily I had hit
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as I meant, and it had died even as it leapt. I crawled
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out from under its unclean weight and stood up, trembling, staring at its
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quivering body. That danger, at least was over, But this I knew
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was only the first of the series of relapses that must come. I burnt
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both of the bodies on a pyre of brushwood. But after that I saw
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that unless I left the island, my death was only a question of time.
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The beast people by that time had, with one or two exceptions,
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left the ravine and made themselves layers according to their taste. Among the thickets
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of the island, few prowled. By day, most of them slept,
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and the island might have seemed deserted to a newcomer. But at night the
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air was hideous with their calls and howling. I had half a mind to
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make a massacre of them, to build traps, or fight them with my
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knife. Had I possessed sufficient cartridges, I should not have hesitated to begin
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the killing. There can now be scarcely a score left of the dangerous carnivores.
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The braver of these were already dead. After the death of this poor
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dog of mine, my last friend, I too adopted to some extent the
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practice of slumbering in the daytime in order to be on my guard at night.
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I rebuilt my den in the walls of the enclosure, with such a
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narrow opening that anything attempting to enter must necessarily make a considerable noise. The
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creature had lost the art of fire too, and recovered their fear of it.
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I turned once more, almost passionately, now to hammering together stakes and
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branches to form a raft for my escape. I found a thousand difficulties.
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I am an extremely unhandy man. My schooling was over before the days of
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Sliord. But most of the requirements of a raft I met at last in
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some clumsy, circuitous way or another, And this time I took care of
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the strength. The only insurmountable obstacle was that I had no vessel to contain
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the water I should need if I floated forth upon these untraveled seas. I
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would have even tried pottery, but the eye and contained no clay. I
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used to go moping about the island, trying with all my might to solve
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this one last difficulty. Sometimes I would give way to wild outbursts of rage,
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and hack and splinter some unlucky tree in my intolerable vexation. But I
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could think of nothing. And then came a day, a wonderful day,
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which I spent in ecstasy. I saw a sail to the southwest, a
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small sail like that of a little schooner, and forthwith I lit a great
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pile of brushwood, and stood by it in the heat of it and the
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heat of the midday sun, watching All day, I watched that sail,
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eating or drinking nothing, so that my head reeled, and the beasts came
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and glared at me, and seemed to wander and went away. It was
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still distant when night came and swallowed it up, And all night I toiled
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to keep my blaze bright and high, and the eyes of the beasts shone
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out of the darkness, marveling in the dawn. The sail was nearer,
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and I saw it was the dirty lug sail of a small boat, but
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it sailed strangely. My eyes were weary with watching, and I peered and
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could not believe them. Two men were in the boat sitting low down,
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one by the boughs, the other at the rudder. The head was not
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kept in the wind. It yarred and fell away. As the day grew
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brighter, I began waving the last rag of my jacket to them, but
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they did not notice me, and sat still facing each other. I went
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to the lowest point of the low headland and gesticulated and shouted. There was
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no response, and the boat kept on her aimless course, making slowly,
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very slowly for the bay. Suddenly, a great white bird flew up out
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of the boat, and neither of the men stirred or noticed it. It
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circled round and then came sweeping overhead with its strong wings outspread. Then I
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stopped shouting and sat down on the headland and rested my chin on my hands
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and stared slowly slowly. The boat drove past towards the west. I would
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have swum out to it, but something, a cold, vague fear,
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kept me back. In the afternoon, the tide stranded the boat and left
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it a hundred yards or so to the westward of the ruins of the enclosure.
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The men in it were dead, had been dead so long that they
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fell to pieces. When I tilted the boat on its side and dragged them
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out. One had a shock of red hair like the captain of the ipa
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Quana, and a dirty white cap lay in the bottom of the boat.
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As I stood beside the boat, three of the beasts came slinking out of
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the bushes and sniffing towards me. One of my spasms of disgust came upon
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me. I thrust the little boat down the beach and clambered on board her.
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Two of the brutes were wolf beasts, and came forward with quivering nostrils
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and glittering eyes. The third was the horrible nondescript of bear and bull.
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When I saw them approaching those wretched remains, heard them snarling at one another,
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and caught the gleam of their teeth, A frantic horror succeeded my repulsion.
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I turned my back upon them, struck the lug, and again,
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paddling out to sea, I could not bring myself to look behind me.
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I lay, however, between the reef and the island. That night and
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the next morning went round to the stream and filled the empty keg aboard with
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water. Then, with such patience as I could command, I collected a
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quantity of fruit and waylaid and killed two rabbits with my last three cartridges.
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While I was doing this, I left the boat in word to an inward
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projection of the wreath, for fear of the beast people,