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16 - The Island of Dr Moreau - H G Wells · Daily Classic Sci Fi Books

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Sixteen, how the beast folk taste blood. My experience as
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: a writer betrays me, and I wander from the thread
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: of my story. After I had breakfasted with Montgomery, he
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: took me across the island to see the fumarole in
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: the source of the hot spring into whose scalding waters
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: I had blundered on the previous day. Both of us
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: carried whips in loaded revolvers. While going through a leafy
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: jungle on our road thither, we heard a rabbit squealing.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: We stopped and listened, but we heard no more, and
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: presently we went on our way, and the incident dropped
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: out of our minds. Montgomery called my attention to certain
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: little pink animals with long hind legs that went leaping
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: through the undergrowth. He told me they were creatures made
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: of the offspring of the beast people that Moreau had invented.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: He had fancied they might serve for meat, but a
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  Speaker 1: rabbit like habit of devouring their young had defeated this intention.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I had already encountered some of these creatures, once string
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: my moonlight flight from the Leopard Man, and once during
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: my pursuit by Moreau on the previous day. By chance,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: one hopping to avoid us, leapt into the hole caused
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: by the uprooting of a wind blown tree. Before it
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: could extricate itself, we managed to catch it. It spat
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: like a cat, scratched and kicked vigorously with its hind legs,
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  Speaker 1: and made an attempt to bite, but its teeth were
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  Speaker 1: too feeble to inflict more than a painless pinch. Seemed
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: to me rather a pretty little creature, And as Montgomery
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: stated that it never destroyed the turf by burrowing, and
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: was very cleanly in its habits, I should imagine it
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: might prove a convenient substitute for the common rabbit in
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: gentlemen's parks. We also saw on our way the trunk
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  Speaker 1: of a tree barked in long strips and splintered deeply.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Montgomery called my attention to this, not to claw the
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: bark of truth. That is the law, he said, much
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: thumb of them care for it. It was after this,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: I think that we met the satyr and the ape man.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: The satyr was a gleam of classical memory on the
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: part of Moreau. His face so vine an expression like
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: the coarser Hebrew type, his voice a harsh bleat his
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: nether extremity satanic. He was gnawing the husk of a
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: part like fruit. As he passed us. Both of them
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: saluted Montgomery. Hail, said they to the other with the whip.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: They're the third with a whip, now, said Montgomery. Though
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: you'd better mind worth He not made, said the ape man.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: He said, he said he was made. The satire man
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: looked curiously at me. The third with the whip, he
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: that walks weeping into the sea, has a thin white face.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: He hath a thin long whip, said Montgomery. Yet did
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: they he bled and wept, said the satier. You never
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: bleed nor weep. The master does not bleed or weep.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: All n dorf hin beggar, said Montgomery. You'll bleed and
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: weep if you don't look out. He has five fingers.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: He is a five man, like me, said the ape man.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Come along, Prindick, said Montgomery, taking my arm, and I
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: went on with him. The satier and the ape man
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: stood watching us and making other remarks to each other.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: He says nothing, said the satier. Men have voices yeth
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  Speaker 1: to day. He asked me of things to eat, said
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: the ape man. He did not know. Then they spoke
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: inaudible things, and I heard the satier laughing. It was
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: on our way back that we came upon the dead rabbit.
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  Speaker 1: The red body of the wretched little beast was rent
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  Speaker 1: to pieces, many of the ribs stripped white, and the
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: backbone indisputably gnawed. At that, Montgomery stopped. Good God, said
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: he stooping down and picking up some of the crushed
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: vertebrae to examine them more closely. Good God, he repeated,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: What can this mean? Some carnivore of yours has remembered
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: its old habits, I said, after a pause. This backbone
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  Speaker 1: has been bitten through. He stood staring, with his face
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: white and his lip pulled askew. I don't like this,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: he said slowly. I saw something of the same kind,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: said I. The first day I came here, the devil
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: you did. What was it? A rabbit with its head
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  Speaker 1: twisted off the day you came here, The day I
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  Speaker 1: came here, in the undergrowth at the back of the enclosure.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: When I went out in the evening, the head was
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: completely wrung off. He gave a long, low whistle. And
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: what is more, I have an idea of which your
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: brutes did the thing. It's only a suspicion, you know.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Before I came on the rabbit, I saw one of
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: your monsters drinking in the stream, fucking his drink. Yes,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: not to Thirk, you'll drink. That is the law. Much
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: the brutes care for the law, eh, would moreaud not
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: about it was the brute who chased me, of course,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: said Montgomery. It's just the way with the carlive Worth.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: After a keel, they'd drink. It's the teeth of blood,
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  Speaker 1: you know. What was the brute like? He continued, Would
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: you know him again? He glanced about us, standing astride
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: over the mass of dead rabbit, his eyes roving among
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: the shadows and screens of greenery, the lurking places and
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: ambuse gards of the forest that bounded us in The
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: teethte of blood, he said again. He took out his revolver,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: examined the cartridges in it, and replaced it. Then he
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: began to pull at his dropping lip. I think I
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: should know the brute again, I said. I stunned him.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: He ought to have a handsome bruise on the forehead
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  Speaker 1: of him. But then we have to prove that he
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: killed the rabbit, said Montgomery, I with, I'd never brought
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  Speaker 1: the thing here. I should have gone on, But he
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: stayed there, thinking over the mangled rabbit in a puzzle
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  Speaker 1: headed way. As it was, I went to such a
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  Speaker 1: distance that the rabbit's remains were hidden. Come on, I said. Presently,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: he woke and came towards me. You see, he said,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: almost in a whisper. They are all for both to
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  Speaker 1: have a fixed idea against eating anything that runs on land.
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  Speaker 1: If thumb brute hath by any accident, taithe did blood.
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  Speaker 1: We went on some way in silence. I wonder what
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: can have happened, he said to himself. Then, after a pause, again,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: I did a foolish thing the other day. The servant
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: of mine. I throwed him how to skin and cook
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  Speaker 1: a rabbit. He thought, I saw him licking his hands.
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  Speaker 1: It never occurred to me. Then we must put a
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: stop to this. I must tell Moreau. He could think
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: of nothing else on our homeward journey. Moreau took the
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  Speaker 1: matter even more seriously than Montgomery, and I need scarcely
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: say that I was affected by the evident consternation. We
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: must make an example, said Moreau. I've no doubt in
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: my mind that the leopard man was the sinner, But
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: how can we prove it? I wish, Montgomery, you had
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: kept your taste for meat in hand and gone without
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: these exciting novelties. We may find ourselves in a mess.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Yet through it, I was a thiliath, said Montgomery. But
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: the thing's done now, and you said I might have them.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: You know we must see to the thing at once,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: said Moreau. I suppose if anything should turn up, Imling
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: can take care of himself. I'm not though sure of Imling,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: said Montgomery. I think I ought to know him. In
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: the afternoon, Moreau, Montgomery, myself, and Imling went across the
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  Speaker 1: island to the huts in the ravine. We three were armed.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Imling carried the little hatchet he used in chopping firewood
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: and some coils of wire. Moreau had a huge coward's
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  Speaker 1: horn slung over his shoulder. You will see a gathering
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: of the beast people, said Montgomery. It is a pretty fight.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Moreau said, not a word on the way, but the
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  Speaker 1: expression of his heavy, white fringed face was grimly set.
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  Speaker 1: We crossed the ravine down which smoked the dream of
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: hot water, and followed the winding pathway through the cane
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  Speaker 1: breaks until we reached a wide area covered over with
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  Speaker 1: a thick, powdery yellow substance, which I believe was sulfur,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: above the shoulder of a weedy bank, the sea glittered.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: We came to a kind of shallow natural amphitheater, and
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: here the four of us halted. Then Moreau sounded the
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  Speaker 1: horn and broke the sleeping stillness of the tropical afternoon.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: He must have had strong lungs. The hooting note rose
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: and rose amidst its echoes to at last an ear
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  Speaker 1: penetrating intensity, Ah, said Moreau, letting the curved instrument fall
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  Speaker 1: to his side again. Immediately there was a crashing through
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the yellow canes, and a sound of voices from the
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: dinse green jungle that marked the morass through which I
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: had run on the previous day. Then at three or
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: four points on the edge of the sulfurous area appeared
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: the grotesque forms of the beast people hurrying towards us.
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  Speaker 1: I could not help a creeping horror, as I perceived
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  Speaker 1: first one and then another trot out from the trees
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  Speaker 1: or reeds and come shambling along over the hot dust.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: But Moreau and Montgomery stood calmly enough and perforce I
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  Speaker 1: stuck beside them. First to arrive was the satyr, strangely
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  Speaker 1: unreal for all that he cast a shadow and tossed
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  Speaker 1: the dust with his hoofs After him from the break
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  Speaker 1: became a monstrous lout, a thing of horse and rhinoceros,
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  Speaker 1: chewing a straw as it came. Then appeared the swine woman,
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  Speaker 1: and two wolf women. Then the fox bare witch with
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: her red eyes and her peaked red face, and then others,
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  Speaker 1: all hurrying eagerly. As they came forward, they began to
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  Speaker 1: cringe towards moreau enchant, quite regardless of one another, fragments
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: of the latter half of the litany of the law.
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  Speaker 1: His is the hand that wounds, his is the hand
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  Speaker 1: that heals, and so forth. As soon as they had
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: approached within a distance of perhaps thirty yards, they halted, and,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: bowing on knees and elbows, began flinging the white dust
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: upon their heads. Imagine the scene, if you can. We
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: three blue clad men, with our misshapen, black faced attendant,
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  Speaker 1: standing in a wide expanse of sunlit yellow dust under
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: the blazing blue sky, and surrounded by this circle of
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: crouching and gesticulating monstrosities, some almost human, save in their
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: subtle expression and gestures, some like cripples, some so strangely
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  Speaker 1: distorted as to resemble nothing but the dinnizens of our
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  Speaker 1: wildest dreams. And beyond the ready lines of a cane
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: break in one direction, a dense tangle of palm trees
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  Speaker 1: on the other, separating us from the ravine with the huts,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: and to the north the hazy horizon of the Pacific Ocean.
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  Speaker 1: Sixty two sixty three, counted Moreau. There are four more.
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  Speaker 1: I do not see, the leopard Man, said I. Presently
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Moreau sounded the great horn again, and at the sound
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  Speaker 1: of it, all the beast people writhed and graveled in
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: the dust. Then, slinking out of the cane brake, stooping
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: near the ground and trying to join the dust throwing circle.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Behind Moreau's back, came the leopard Man. The last of
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: the beast people to arrive was the little ape Man.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: The earlier animals, hot and weary with their groveling, shot
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  Speaker 1: vicious glances at him. Cease, said Moreau in his firm,
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  Speaker 1: loud voice, and the beast people sat back upon their
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  Speaker 1: hands and wrested from their worshiping where is the sayer
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  Speaker 1: of the law, said Moreau, And the hairy gray monster
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: bowed his face in the dust. Say the words, said Moreau,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: forthwith all in the kneeling assembly, swaying from side to side,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: and dashing up the sulfur with their hands, first the
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: right hand, and a puff of dust. And that the
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: left began once more to chant their strange litany. When
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: they reached not to eat flesh or fish, that is
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  Speaker 1: the law. Moreau held up his lank white hand. Stop,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: he cried, and there fell absolute silence upon them all.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: I think they all knew and dreaded what was coming.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: I looked round at their strange faces. When I saw
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: their wincing attitudes and the firs of dread in their
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: bright eyes, I wondered that I had ever believed them
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: to be men. That law has been broken, said Moreau.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: None escape from the faceless creature with the silvery hair.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: None escape, repeated the kneeling circle of beast people. Who
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: is he cried Moreau, and looked round at their faces,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: cracking his whip. I fancy the hyena swine looked dejected,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: so too did the leopard man. Moreau stopped facing this
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: creature who cringed towards him with the memory and dread
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: of infinite torment. Who is he, repeated Moreau in a
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: voice of thunder. Evil is he who breaks the law?
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Chanted the sayer of the law? Moreau looked into the
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: eyes of the leopard man and seemed to be dragging
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: the very soul out of the creature. Who breaks the law?
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Said Moreau, taking his eyes off his victim and turning
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: towards us. Seemed to me there was a touch of
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: exultation in his voice. Goes back to the house of pain,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: they all clamored. Goes back to the house of pain,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: ol master work, to the house of pain work, to
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: the house of pain, gabbled the ape man, as though
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: the idea was sweet to him. Do you hear, said Moreau,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: turning back to the criminal, My friend, hullo for the
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: leopard man, released from Moreau's eye, had risen straight from
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: his knees, and now, with his eyes aflame and his
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: huge feline tusks flashing out from under his curling lips,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: leaped towards his tormentor. I am convinced that only the
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: madness of unendurable fear could have prompted this attack, the
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: whole circle of three score monsters seemed to rise about us.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: I drew my revolver, the two figures collided. My saw
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Morle reeling back from the leper man's blow. There was
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: a furious yelling and howling all about us. Every one
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: was moving rapidly. For a moment I thought it was
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: a general revolt. The furious face of the leopard man
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: flashed by mine, with imling close in pursuit. I saw
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: the yellow eyes of the hyena swine blazing with excitement
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: his attitude, as if he were half resolved to attack me.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: The sat here, too, glared at me over the hyena
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Swine's hunched shoulders. I heard the crack of moreause pistol
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: and saw the pink flash dart across the tumult The
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: whole crowd seemed to swing round in the direction of
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: the glint of fire, and I too was swung round
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: by the magnetism of the movement. In another second, eye
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: was running one of a tumultuous, shouting crowd in pursuit
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: of the escaping leopard man. That is all I can tell. Definitely.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: I saw the leopard man strike Moreau, and then everything
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: spun about me until I was running headlong. Immling was ahead,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: close in pursuit of the fugitive. Behind their tongues already
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: lolling out ran the wolf women in great leaping strides.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: The swine folk followed, squealing with excitement, and the two
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: bull men in their swathings of white. Then came a
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: row and a cluster of the beast people. His wide
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: brimmed straw had blown off, his revolver in hand, and
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: his lank white hair streaming out. The hyena swine ran
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: beside me, keeping pace with me and glancing furtively at
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: me out of his feline eyes, and the others came
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: pattering and shouting behind us. The leopard man went bursting
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: his way through the long canes, which sprang back as
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: he passed and rattled in Imling's face. We others in
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: the rear found a trampled path for us when we
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: reached the break. The chaise lay through the break for
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: perhaps a quarter of a mile, and then plunged into
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: a dense thicket which retarded our movements exceedingly, though we
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: went through it in a crowd together, Franz flicking into
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: our faces. Ropey creepers, catching us under the chin, or
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: gripping our ankles, thorny plants, hooking into and tearing cloth
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: and fleshed together. He has gone on all fours through
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: this panted morreau, now just ahead of me. None escape,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: said the wolf bear, laughing into my face. With the
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: exultation of hunting. We burst out again among rocks, and
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: saw saw the quary ahead, running lightly on all fours
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: and snarling at us over his shoulder. At that, the
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: wolf folk howled with delight. The thing was still clothed,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: and at a distance its face still seemed human, but
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: the carriage of its four limbs was feline, and the
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: furtive droop of its shoulder was distinctly that of a
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: hunted animal. It leaped over some thorny yellow flowering bushes
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: and was hidden imling was half way across the space.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Most of us now had lost the first speed of
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: the chase, and had fallen into a longer and steadier stride.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: I saw as we traversed the open that the pursuit
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: was now spreading from a column into a line. The
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: hyena swine still rang close to me, watching me as
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: it ran every now and then, puckering its muzzle with
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: a snarling laugh. At the edge of the rocks, the
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: leopard man, realizing that he was making for the projector
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: cape upon which he had stalked me on the night
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: of my arrival, had doubled in the undergrowth, but Montgomery
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: had seen the maneuver and turned him again. So, panting,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: tumbling against rocks, torn by brambles, impeded by ferns and reeds,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: I helped to pursue the leopard man who had broken
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: the law, and the hyena swine ran, laughing savagely by
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: my side. I staggered on, my head, reeling and my
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: heart beating against my ribs, tired almost to death, and
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: yet not daring to lose sight of the chase lest
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: I should be left alone with this horrible companion. I
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: staggered on in spite of infinite fatigue and the dense
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: heat of the tropical afternoon. At last, the fury of
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: the hunt slackened. We had pinned the wretched brute into
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: a corner of the island. Moreau whip hand marshaled us
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: all into an irregular line, and we advanced, now slowly,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: shouting to one another as we advanced, and tightening the
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: cordon about our victim. He lurked, noiseless and invisible, in
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: the bushes through which I had run from him during
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: that midnight pursuit. Steady, cried Moreau. Steady, as the ends
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: of the line crept round the tangle of undergrowth and
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: hemmed the brute in where the rush came the voice
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: of Montgomery from beyond the thicket. I was on the
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: slope above the bushes. Montgomery and Moreau beat along the
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: beach beneath. Slowly we pushed in among the fretted network
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: of branches and leaves. The quarry was silent. Back to
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: the house of Pain, the house of pain, the house
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: of Pain. Yelped the voice of the ape man, some
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: twenty yards to the right. When I heard that, I
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: forgave the poor wretch all the fear he had inspired
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: in me. I heard the twigs snap and the boughs
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: swish aside before the heavy tread of the horse Rhinoceros
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: upon my right. Then, suddenly, through a polygon of green,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: in the half darkness, under the luxuriant growth, I saw
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: the creature we were hunting. I halted. He was crouched
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: together into the smallest possible compass. His luminous green eyes
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: turned over his shoulder. Regarding me. It may seem a
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: strange contradiction in me I cannot explain the fact. But
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: now seeing the creature there in a perfectly animal attitude,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: with the light gleaming in its eyes and its imperfectly
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: human face distorted with terror, I realized again the fact
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: of its humanity. In another moment, other of its pursuers
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: would see, and it would be overpowered and captured to
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: experience once more the horrible tortures of the enclosure. Abruptly,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: I slipped out my revolver, aimed between its terror struck eyes,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: and fired. As I did so, the hyena swine saw
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: the thing and flung itself upon it with an eager cry,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: thrusting thirsty teeth into its neck. All about me, the
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: green masses of the thicket were swaying and cracking as
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: the beast. People came rushing together. One face and then
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: another appeared. Don't kill it, Prindick cried moreau don't kill it,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: And I saw him stooping as he pushed through under
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: the fronds of the big ferns. In another moment, he
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: had beaten off the hyena swine with the handle of
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: his whip, and he and Montgomery were keeping away the
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: excite did carnivorous beast people, and particularly imling from the
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: still quivering body. The hairy gray thing came sniffing at
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the corpse under my arm. The other animals, in their
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: animal ardor jostled me to get a nearer view. Confound you, prindick,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: said Moreau. I wanted him. I'm sorry, said I, though
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: I was not. It was the impulse of the moment.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: I felt sick with exertion and excitement. Turning. I pushed
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: my way out of the crowding beast people and went
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: on alone up the slope towards the highest part of
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: the headland. Under the shouted directions of Moreau. I heard
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: the three white swathed bull men begin dragging the victim
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: down towards the water. It was easy now for me
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: to be alone. The beast people manifested a quite human
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: curiosity about the dead body and followed it in a
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: thick knot, sniffing and growling at it as the bull
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: men dragged it down the beach. I went to the
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: headland and watched the bull men black against the evening
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: sky as they carried the weighted dead body out to sea,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: and like a wave across my mind came the realization
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: of the unspeakable aimlessness of things upon the island. Upon
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: the beach, among the rocks beneath me were the ape man,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: the hyena swine, and several other of the beast people
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: standing about Montgomery and Moreau. They were all still intensely excited,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: and all overflowing with noisy expressions of their loyalty to
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: the law. Yet I felt an absolute assurance in my
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: own mind that the hyena swine was implicated in the
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: rabbit killing. A strange persuasion came upon me that, save
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: for the grossness of the line, the grotesqueness of the forms,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: I had here before me, the whole balance of human
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: life in miniature, the whole interplay of instinct, reason and
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: fate in its simplest form, the leopard man had happened
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: to go under. That was all the difference, poor brute,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: poor brutes. I began to see the viler aspect of
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Moreau's cruelty. I had not thought before of the pain
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: and trouble that came to these poor victims after they
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: had passed from Moreau's hands. I had shivered only at
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: the days of actual torment in the enclosure, but now
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: that seemed to me the lesser part. Before there had
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: been beasts, their instincts fitly adapted to their surroundings, and
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: happy as living things may be. Now they stumbled in
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: the shackles of humanity, lived in a fear that never died,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: fretted by a law they could not understand. Their mock
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: human existence begun in an agony, was one long internal struggle,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: one long dread of Moreau, and for what it was
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: the wantonness of it that stirred me. Had Moreau had
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: any intelligible object, I could have sympathized at least a
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: little with him. I am not so squeamish about pain
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: as that I could have forgiven him a little, even
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: had his motive been only hate. But he was so irresponsible,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: so utterly careless, His curiosity, his mad aimless investigations drove
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: him on, and the things were thrown out to live
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: a year or so, to struggle and blunder and suffer,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: and at last to die painfully. They were wretched in themselves.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: The old animal hate moved them to trouble one another.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: The law held them back from a brief heart struggle
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: and a decisive end to their natural animosities. In those days,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: my fear of the beast people went the way of
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: my personal fear of Moreau. I fell, indeed into a
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: morbid state, deep and enduring and alien to fear, which
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: has left permanent scars upon my mind. I must confess
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: that I lost faith in the sanity of the world
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: when I saw it suffering the painful disorder of this island.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: A blind fate, a vast, pitiless mechanism seemed to cut
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: in shape the fabric of existence. And I Moreau, by
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: his passion for research, Montgomery, by his passion for drink.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: The beast people, with their instincts and mental restrictions, were
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: torn and crushed, ruthless, inevitably amid the infinite complexity of
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: its incessant wheels. But this condition did not come all
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: at once. I think, indeed, that I anticipate a little
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: in speaking of it now,