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The Island of Doctor Moreau Chapter 6 - The Evil-Looking Boatmen · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Section seven of the Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells.
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  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
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  Speaker 1: Tom Hare six the evil looking boatmen, but the islanders,
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  Speaker 1: seeing that I was really adrift, took pity on me.
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  Speaker 1: I drifted very slowly to the eastward, approaching the island slantingly,
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  Speaker 1: and presently I saw with hysterical relief, the launch come
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  Speaker 1: round and return towards me. She was heavily laden, and
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  Speaker 1: I could make out as she drew nearer. Montgomery's white haired,
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  Speaker 1: broad shouldered companion sitting cramped up with the dogs in
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  Speaker 1: several packing cases in the stern sheets. This individual stared
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  Speaker 1: fixedly at me, without moving or speaking. The black faced
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  Speaker 1: cripple was glaring at me as fixedly. In the boughs
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  Speaker 1: near the puma. There were three other men, besides three strange,
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  Speaker 1: brutish looking fellows, at whom the staghounds were snarling savagely. Montgomery,
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  Speaker 1: who was steering, brought the boat by me, and rising
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  Speaker 1: caught and fastened my painter to the tiller to tow me,
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  Speaker 1: for there was no room aboard. I had recovered from
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  Speaker 1: my hysterical phase by this time, and answered his hail.
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  Speaker 1: As he approached bravely enough, I told him that dinghy
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  Speaker 1: was nearly swamped, and he reached me a pigan. I
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  Speaker 1: was jerked back as the rope tightened between the boats.
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  Speaker 1: For some time I was busy baling. It was not
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  Speaker 1: until I had got the water under for the water
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  Speaker 1: and the dinghy had been shipped the boat was perfectly sound,
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  Speaker 1: that I had leisure to look at the people in
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  Speaker 1: the launch again. The white haired man I found was
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  Speaker 1: still regarding me steadfastly, but with an expression as I
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  Speaker 1: now fancied, of some perplexity. When my eyes met his,
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  Speaker 1: he looked down at the staghound that sat between his knees.
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  Speaker 1: He was a powerfully built man, as I have said,
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  Speaker 1: with a fine forehead and rather heavy features. But his
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  Speaker 1: eyes had that odd drooping of the skin above the
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  Speaker 1: lids which often comes with advancing years, and the fall
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  Speaker 1: of his mouth at the corners gave him an expression
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  Speaker 1: of pugnacious resolution. He talked to Montgomery in a tone
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  Speaker 1: too low for me to hear from him. My eyes
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  Speaker 1: traveled to his three men and a strange crew. They were.
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  Speaker 1: I saw only their faces, Yet there was something in
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  Speaker 1: their faces I knew not what. That gave me a
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  Speaker 1: queer spasm of disgust. I looked steadily at them, and
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  Speaker 1: the impression did not pass, though I failed to see
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  Speaker 1: what had occasioned it. They seemed to me then to
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  Speaker 1: be brown men, but their limbs were oddly sware in
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  Speaker 1: some thin, dirty white stuff down even to the fingers
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  Speaker 1: and feet. I have never seen men so wrapped up
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  Speaker 1: a four and women so only in the East. They
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  Speaker 1: wore turbans, too, and thereunder peered out their elfin faces
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  Speaker 1: at me, faces with protruding lower jaws and bright eyes.
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  Speaker 1: They had lank black hair, almost like horse hair, and seemed,
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  Speaker 1: as they sat, to exceed in stature any race of
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  Speaker 1: men I have seen. The white haired man, whom I
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  Speaker 1: knew was a good six feet in height, sat a
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  Speaker 1: head below any one of the three. I found afterwards
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  Speaker 1: that really none were taller than myself. But their bodies
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  Speaker 1: were abnormally long, and the thigh part of the leg
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  Speaker 1: short and curiously twisted. At any rate, they were an
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  Speaker 1: amazingly ugly gang. And over the heads of them, under
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  Speaker 1: the forward lug peered the black face of the man,
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  Speaker 1: whose eyes were luminous in the dark. As I stared
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  Speaker 1: at them. They met my gaze, and then first one
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  Speaker 1: and then another turned away from my direct stair and
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  Speaker 1: looked at me in an odd, furtive manner. It occurred
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  Speaker 1: to me that I was perhaps annoying them, and I
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  Speaker 1: turned my attention to the island we were approaching. It
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  Speaker 1: was low and covered with vegetation, chiefly a kind of
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  Speaker 1: palm that was new to me. From one point, a
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  Speaker 1: thin white thread of vapor rose slantingly to an immense height,
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  Speaker 1: and then frayed out like a down feather. We were
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  Speaker 1: now within the embrace of a broad bay, flanked on
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  Speaker 1: either hand by a low promontory. The beach was of
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  Speaker 1: dull gray sand and sloped steeply up to a ridge
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  Speaker 1: perhaps sixty or seventy feet above the sea level, and
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  Speaker 1: regularly sat with trees and undergrowth half way upward as
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  Speaker 1: a square enclosure of some grayish stone, which I found
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  Speaker 1: subsequently was built partly of coral and partly of pumicious lava.
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  Speaker 1: Two thatched roofs peeped from within this enclosure. A man
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  Speaker 1: stood awaiting us at the water's edge. I fancied, while
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  Speaker 1: we were still far off, that I saw some other
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  Speaker 1: and very grotesque looking creatures scuttle into the bushes upon
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  Speaker 1: the slope, But I saw nothing of these. As we
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  Speaker 1: drew nearer. This man was of a moderate size and
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  Speaker 1: with a black negroid face. He had a large, almost
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  Speaker 1: lipless mouth, extraordinary lank arms, long thin feet and bow legs,
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  Speaker 1: and stood with his heavy face thrust forward staring at us.
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  Speaker 1: He was dressed like Montgomery and his white haired companion,
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  Speaker 1: in jacket and trousers of blue surge. As we came
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  Speaker 1: still nearer, this individual began to run to and fro
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  Speaker 1: on the beach, making the most grotesque movements. At a
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  Speaker 1: word of command from Montgomery, the four men in the
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  Speaker 1: launch sprang up and, with singularly awkward gestures, struck the lugs.
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  Speaker 1: Montgomery steered us round into a narrow little dock excavated
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  Speaker 1: into the beach. Then the man on the beach hastened
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  Speaker 1: towards us. This dock, as I call it, was really
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  Speaker 1: a mere ditch, just long enough at this phase of
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  Speaker 1: the tide to take the long boat. I heard the
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  Speaker 1: boughs ground in the sand, staved the dinghy off the
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  Speaker 1: rudder of the big boat, with my pigin and freeing
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  Speaker 1: the painter landed, the three muffled men, with the clumsiest movements,
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  Speaker 1: scrambled out upon the sand and forthwith set to landing
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  Speaker 1: the cargo, assisted by the man on the beach. I
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  Speaker 1: was struck, especially by the curious movements of the legs
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  Speaker 1: of the three swathed and bandaged boatmen. Not stiff they were,
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  Speaker 1: but distorted in some odd way, almost as if they
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  Speaker 1: were jointed in the wrong place. The dogs were still
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  Speaker 1: snarling and strained at their chains after these men. As
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  Speaker 1: the white haired man landed with them, the three big
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  Speaker 1: fellows spoke to one another in odd guttural tones, and
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  Speaker 1: the man who had waited for us on the beach
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  Speaker 1: began chattering to them excitedly a foreign language. As I
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  Speaker 1: fancied as they laid hands on some bales piled near
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  Speaker 1: the stern. Somewhere I had heard such a voice before,
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  Speaker 1: and I could not think where the white haired man stood,
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  Speaker 1: holding in a tumult of six dogs and bawling orders
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  Speaker 1: over their din. Montgomery, having unshipped the rudder, landed likewise,
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  Speaker 1: and all set to work at unloading. I was too faint,
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  Speaker 1: what with my long fast in the sun beating down
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  Speaker 1: on my bare head, to offer any assistance. Presently, the
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  Speaker 1: white haired man seemed to recollect my presence and came
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  Speaker 1: up to me. You look, said he, as though you
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  Speaker 1: had scarcely breakfast. It His little eyes were a brilliant
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  Speaker 1: black under his heavy brows. I must apologize for that.
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  Speaker 1: Now you are our guest. We must make you comfortable,
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  Speaker 1: though you are uninvited. You know, he looked keenly into
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  Speaker 1: my face. Montgomery says, you are an educated man. Mister
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  Speaker 1: Prindick says you know something of science. May I ask
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  Speaker 1: what that signifies? I told him I had spent some
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  Speaker 1: years at the Royal College of Science and had done
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  Speaker 1: some researches in biology under Huxley. He raised his eyebrows
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  Speaker 1: slightly at that. That alters the case a little. Mister Prindick,
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  Speaker 1: he said, with a trifle more respect in his manner.
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  Speaker 1: As it happens, we are biologists here. This is a
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  Speaker 1: biological station of a sort. His eyes rested on the
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  Speaker 1: men in white who were busily hauling the puma on
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  Speaker 1: rollers towards the walled yard. Ay and Montgomery at least,
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  Speaker 1: he added, Then when you will be able to get away,
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  Speaker 1: I can't say we are off the track to anywhere
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  Speaker 1: we see a ship once in a twelve month or so.
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  Speaker 1: He left me abruptly and went up the beach past
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  Speaker 1: this group, and I think entered the enclosure. The other
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  Speaker 1: two men were with Montgomery erecting a pile of smaller
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  Speaker 1: packages on a low wheeled truck. The lama was still
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  Speaker 1: on the launch with the rabbit hutches. The staghounds were
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  Speaker 1: still lashed to the thwarts. The pile of things completed,
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  Speaker 1: all three men laid hold of the truck and began
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  Speaker 1: shoving the ton weight or so up after the puma. Presently,
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  Speaker 1: Montgomery left them and, coming back to me, held out
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  Speaker 1: his hand. I'm glad, said he for my own part.
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  Speaker 1: That captain w a thilly asth he'd have made things
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  Speaker 1: lively for you. It was you, said I that saved
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  Speaker 1: me again, that de pinhe you'll find the island an
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  Speaker 1: infirmly rum plaith. I promise you I'd watch my goings
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  Speaker 1: carefully if I were you. He he hesitated and seemed
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  Speaker 1: to alter his mind about what was on his lips.
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  Speaker 1: I wish you'd help me with thee rabbits, he said.
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  Speaker 1: His procedure with the rabbits was singular. I waded in
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  Speaker 1: with him, and helped him lug one of the hatches ashore.
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  Speaker 1: No sooner was that done than he opened the door
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  Speaker 1: of it, and, tilting the thing on one end, turned
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  Speaker 1: its living contents out on the ground. They fell in
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  Speaker 1: a struggling heap, one on top of the other. He
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  Speaker 1: clapped his hands, and forthwith they went off at that
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  Speaker 1: hopping run of theirs, fifteen or twenty of them. I
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  Speaker 1: should think up the beach in Greeth and multiply, my friend,
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  Speaker 1: said Montgomery, Replyneth the island hitherto. We've had a certain
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  Speaker 1: lack of meat here. As I watched them disappearing, the
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  Speaker 1: white haired man returned with a brandy flask and some biscuits.
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  Speaker 1: Something to go on with, Priddick, said he in a
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  Speaker 1: far more familiar tone than before. I made no ado,
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  Speaker 1: but set to work on the biscuits at once, while
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  Speaker 1: the white haired man helped Montgomery to release about a
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  Speaker 1: score more of the rabbits. Three big hutches, however, went
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  Speaker 1: up to the house with the puma. The brandy I
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  Speaker 1: did not touch, for I have been an abstainer from
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  Speaker 1: my birth. End of Section seven