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

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  For at the schooner's rail that night, Land was sighted at the sundown,
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  and the schooner hove too. Montgomery intimated that was his destination. It was
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  too far to see in the details. It seemed to me then, simply
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  a low lying patch of dim blue and the uncertain blue gray sea. An
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  almost vertical streak of smoke went up from it into the sky. The captain
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  was not on deck when it was sighted. After he had vented his wrath
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  on me, he had staggered below, and I understand he went to sleep
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  on the floor of his own cabin. The mate practically assumed the command.
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  He was the gaunt, taciturn individual we had seen at the wheel. Apparently
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  he was in an evil temper with Montgomery. He took not the slightest notice
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  of either of us. We dined with him in a sulky silence, after
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  a few ineffectual efforts on my part to talk. It struck me too that
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  the men regarded my companion and his animals in a singularly unfriendly manner. I
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  found Montgomery very reticent about his purpose with these creatures, and about his destination,
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  And though I was sensible of a growing curiosity as to both. I
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  did not press him. We remained talking on the quarter deck until the sky
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  was thick with stars. Except for an occasional sound in the yellow lit forecastle
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  and a movement of the animals. Now and then, the night was very
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  still. The puma lay crouched together, watching us with shining eyes, a
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  black heap in the corner of its cage. Montgomery produced some cigars. He
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  talked to me of London in a tone of half painful reminiscence, asking all
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  kinds of questions about changes that had taken place. He spoke like a man
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  who had loved his life there and had been suddenly and irrevocably cut off from
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  it. I gossiped as well as I could of this and that. All
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  the time the strangeness of him was shaping itself in my mind, And as
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  I talked, I peered at his odd, pallid face in the dim light
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  of the binnacle lantern behind me. Then I looked out at the darkling sea,
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  where in the dimness his little island was hidden. This man, it
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  seemed to me, had come out of immnsity merely to save my life.
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  Tomorrow he would drop over the side and vanish again out of my existence.
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  Even had it been under commonplace circumstances, it would have made me a trifle
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  thoughtful. But in the first place was the singularity of an educated man living
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  on this unknown little island, and coupled with that the extraordinary nature of his
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  luggage. I found myself repeating the captain's question, what did he want with
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  the beasts? Why? Too, had he pretended they were not his?
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  When I had remarked about them at first? Then again in his personal attendant.
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  There was a bizarre quality which had impressed me profoundly. These circumstances threw
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  a haze of mystery round the man. They laid hold of my imagination and
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  hampered my tongue. Towards midnight, our talk of London died away, and
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  we stood side by side, leaning over the bulwarks and staring dreamily over the
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  silent starlit sea, each pursuing his own thoughts. It was the atmosphere for
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  sentiment, and I began upon my gratitude, if I may say it,
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  said I, after a time you saved my life. Chance, he answered,
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  just chance. I prefer to make my thanks to the accessible agent.
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  Thanked no one. You had the need and I had the knowledge, and
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  I injected and fed you much as I might have collected a spathamen. I
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  was bored and wanted something to do. If i'd being jaded that day,
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  or hadn't liked your faith, well, it's a curious question where he would
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  have been. Now this damped my mood a little. At any rate,
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  I began. It's a chance, I tell you, he interrupted, as
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  everything is in a man's life, only the athes won't see it. Why
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  am I here now an outcast from civilization instead of being a happy man enjoying
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  all the pleasures of London, simply because eleven years ago I lost my head
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  for ten minutes on a foggy night. He stopped, Yes, said I,
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  that's all. We relapsed into silence. Presently, he laughed, there's
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  something in the starlight that luthened one'th tongue. I'm an ath and you somehow
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  I would like to tell you. Whatever you tell me, you may rely
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  upon my keeping to myself, if that's it. He was on the point
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  of beginning, and then shook his head. Doubtfully, don't, said I.
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  It is all the same to me. After all, it is better
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  to keep your secret. There's nothing gained but a little relief. If I
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  respect your confidence, if I don't, well, he grunted undecidedly. I
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  felt I had him at a disadvantage, had caught him in the mood of
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  indiscretion. And to tell the truth, I was not curious to learn what
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  might have driven a young medical student out of London. I have an imagination.
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  I shrugged my shoulders and turned away over the taffrail into silent black figure
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  watching the stars. It was Montgomery's strange attendant. It looked over its shoulder
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  quickly with my movement, then looked away again. It may seem a little
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  thing to you, perhaps, but it came like a sudden blow to me.
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  The only light near us was a lantern at the wheel. The creature's
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  face was turned for one brief instant out of the dimness of the stern,
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  towards this illumination, and I saw that the eyes that glanced at me shone
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  with a pale green light. I did not know then that a reddish luminosity,
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  at least is not uncommon in human eyes. The thing came to me
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  as stark inhumanity. That black figure, with its eyes of fire, struck
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  down through all my adult thoughts and feelings, and for a moment the forgotten
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  horrors of childhood came back to my mind. Then the effect passed as it
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  had come. An uncouth, black figure of a man, a figure of
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  no particular import, hung over the taffrail against the starlight, and I found
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  Montgomery was speaking to me. I'm thinking of turning in, then said he
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  if you've had enough of this, I answered him incongruously. We went below,
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  and he wished me good night at the door of my cabin. That
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  night, I had some very unpleasant dreams. The waning moon rose late.
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  Its light struck a ghostly white beam across my cabin and made an ominous shape
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  on the planking of my bunk. Then the staghounds woke and began howling and
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  baying, so that I dreamt fitfully and scarcely slept until the approach of dawn.