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The Island of Doctor Moreau Chapter 19 - Montgomery's Bank Holiday · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Section twenty 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 nineteen Montgomery's Bank holiday. When this was accomplished
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  Speaker 1: and we had washed and eaten, Montgomery and I went
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  Speaker 1: into my little room and seriously discussed our position for
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  Speaker 1: the first time. It was then near midnight. He was
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  Speaker 1: almost sober, but greatly disturbed in his mind. He had
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  Speaker 1: been strangely under the influence of Moreau's personality. I do
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  Speaker 1: not think it had ever occurred to him that Moreau
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  Speaker 1: could die. This disaster was the sudden collapse of the
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  Speaker 1: habits that had become part of his nature in the
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  Speaker 1: tin or more monotonous years he had spent on the island.
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  Speaker 1: He talked vaguely, answered my questions crookedly, wandered into mineral questions.
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  Speaker 1: The silly ass of a world, he said, What a
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  Speaker 1: muddle it all is. I haven't heard any life. I
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  Speaker 1: wonder when it's going to begin. Sixteen years of being
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  Speaker 1: bullied by nurses and schoolmath turth at their own sweet
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  Speaker 1: will five in London, grinding hard at madicine, bad food,
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  Speaker 1: shabby lodgings, shabby clothes, shabby vice, a blunder. I didn't
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  Speaker 1: know any better, and hustled off to this Beethly island
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  Speaker 1: ten yearth here. What they're all for? Preddic? Are we
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  Speaker 1: bubbles blown by a baby? It was hard to deal
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  Speaker 1: with such ravings. The thing we have to think of now,
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  Speaker 1: said I, is how to get away from this island.
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  Speaker 1: What the good of getting away? I'm an outcast. Where
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  Speaker 1: am I to join on? It's all very well for you, prendick,
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  Speaker 1: poor old Moreau. We can't leave him here to have
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  Speaker 1: his bones picked as it is, and beside what will
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  Speaker 1: become of the death and part of the beast folk, Well,
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  Speaker 1: said I, that will do tomorrow. I've been thinking we
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  Speaker 1: might make the brushwood into a pyre and burn his
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  Speaker 1: body and those other things. Then what will happen with
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  Speaker 1: the beast folk? I don't know. I suppose those that
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  Speaker 1: were made beasts of prey we'll make thilly aths of themselves.
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  Speaker 1: Sooner or later. We can't masthacre the lot, can we.
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  Speaker 1: I suppose that's what your humanity would suggest. But they'll change.
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  Speaker 1: They are sure to change. He talked thus inconclusively, until
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  Speaker 1: at last I felt my temper going darnation, he exclaimed
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  Speaker 1: at some petulance of mine. Can't you see I'm in
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  Speaker 1: a worth hole than you are? And got up and
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  Speaker 1: went for the brandy drink, he said, returning you logic
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  Speaker 1: chopping chalky faith, think of an atheist drink not, I
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  Speaker 1: said I, and sat grimly watching his face under the
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  Speaker 1: yellow paraffin flare as he drank himself into a garrulous misery.
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  Speaker 1: I have a memory of infinite tedium. He wandered into
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  Speaker 1: a model in defense of the beast people and of Imling. Imling,
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  Speaker 1: he said, was the only thing that had ever really
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  Speaker 1: cared for him, And suddenly an idea came to him.
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  Speaker 1: I'm damned, said he, staggering to his feet and clutching
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  Speaker 1: the brandy bottle. By some flash of intuition, I knew
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  Speaker 1: what it was. He intended. You don't give drink to
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  Speaker 1: that beast, I said, rising and facing him. Beast said
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  Speaker 1: he you're the beast. He taketh hith liquor like a Christian.
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  Speaker 1: Come out of my way, Prindick, for God's sake, said I.
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  Speaker 1: Get out of the way. He roared, and suddenly whipped
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  Speaker 1: out his revolver. Very well, said I, and stood aside,
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  Speaker 1: half minded to fall upon him as he put his
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  Speaker 1: hand upon the latch, but deterred by the thought of
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  Speaker 1: my useless arm. You've made a beast of yourself. To
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  Speaker 1: the beasts, you may go. He flung the doorway open
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  Speaker 1: and stood half facing me between the yellow lamp light
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  Speaker 1: and the pallid glare of the moon. His eye sockets
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  Speaker 1: were blotches of black under his stubby eyebrows. You're a
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  Speaker 1: solemn prig, prindick, a thiliath. You're always fearing and fancying.
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  Speaker 1: We're on the edge of things. I'm bound to cut
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  Speaker 1: my throat tomorrow. I'm going to have a damned bank
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  Speaker 1: holiday to night. He turned and went out into the moonlight. Yimling,
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  Speaker 1: he cried, jim Ling, old friend. Three dim creatures in
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  Speaker 1: the silvery light came along the edge of the wan beach,
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  Speaker 1: one a white wrapped creature, the other two blotches of blackness.
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  Speaker 1: Following it. They halted, staring. Then I saw Imling's hunched
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  Speaker 1: shoulders as he came round the corner of the house. Drink,
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  Speaker 1: cried Montgomery. Drink, you brute, drink and be man. Damn
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  Speaker 1: I'm the clever Moreau forgot this, This is the last
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  Speaker 1: touch drink, I tell you, And waving the bottle in
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  Speaker 1: his hand, he started off at a kind of quick
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  Speaker 1: trot to the westward, imbling, ranging himself between him and
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  Speaker 1: the three dim creatures who followed. I went to the doorway.
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  Speaker 1: They were already indistinct in the midst of the moonlight
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  Speaker 1: before Montgomery halted. I saw him and minister a dose
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  Speaker 1: of the raw brandy to imbling, and saw the five
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  Speaker 1: figures melt into one vague patch thing. I heard Montgomery shout,
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  Speaker 1: thing all together. Confound Old Prendick. That's right now again,
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  Speaker 1: confound Old Prendick. The black group broke up into five
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  Speaker 1: separate figures and wound slowly away from me along the
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  Speaker 1: band of shining Beach. Each went howling at his own
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  Speaker 1: sweet will yelping insults at me, or giving whatever other
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  Speaker 1: vent this new inspiration of brandy demanded. Presently, I heard
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  Speaker 1: Montgomery's voice shouting right, turn, and they passed with their
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  Speaker 1: shouts and howls into the blackness of the landward trees. Slowly,
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  Speaker 1: very slowly, they receded into silence. The peaceful splendor of
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  Speaker 1: the night healed again. The moon was now past the meridian,
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  Speaker 1: and traveling down the west, it was at its full
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  Speaker 1: and very bright. Riding through the empty blue sky, the
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  Speaker 1: shadow of the wall lay a yard wide and of
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  Speaker 1: inky blackness at my feet. The eastward sea was a featureless, gray,
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  Speaker 1: dark and mysterious. And between the sea and the shadow,
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  Speaker 1: the gray sands of volcanic glass and crystals flashed and
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  Speaker 1: shone like a beach of diamonds. Behind me, the paraffine
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  Speaker 1: lamp flared hot and ruddy. Then I shut the door,
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  Speaker 1: locked it, and went into the enclosure, where Moreau lay
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  Speaker 1: beside his latest victims, the staghounds and the Lama and
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  Speaker 1: some other wretched brutes. With his massive face calm even
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  Speaker 1: after his terrible death, and with his hard eyes open
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  Speaker 1: staring at the dead white moon above, I sat down
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  Speaker 1: upon the edge of the sink, and with my eyes
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  Speaker 1: upon that ghastly pile of silvery light and ominous shadows,
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  Speaker 1: began to turn over my plans. In the morning, I
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  Speaker 1: would gather some provisions in the dinghy, and after setting
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  Speaker 1: fire to the pyre before me, push out into the
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  Speaker 1: desolation of the high sea. Once more, I felt that
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  Speaker 1: for Montgomery there was no help, that he was in
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  Speaker 1: truth half akin to these beast folk unfitted for human kindred.
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  Speaker 1: I do not know how long I sat there scheming,
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  Speaker 1: It must have been an hour or so. Then my
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  Speaker 1: planning was interrupted by the return of Montgomery to my neighborhood.
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  Speaker 1: I heard a yelling from many throats, a tumult of
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  Speaker 1: exultant cries passing down towards the beach, whooping and howling,
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  Speaker 1: and excited shrieks that seemed to come to a stop
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  Speaker 1: near the water's edge. The riot rose and fell. I
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  Speaker 1: heard heavy blows and the splintering smash of wood, but
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  Speaker 1: it did not trouble me. Then a discordant chanting began.
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  Speaker 1: My thoughts went back to my means of escape. I
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  Speaker 1: got up, brought the lamp, and went into a shed
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  Speaker 1: to look at some kegs I had seen there. Then
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  Speaker 1: I became interested in the contents of some biscuit tins
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  Speaker 1: and opened one. I saw something out of the tail
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  Speaker 1: of my eye, a red figure, and turned sharply. Behind
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  Speaker 1: me lay the yard, vividly black and white in the moonlight,
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  Speaker 1: and the pile of wood and ragots on which Moreau
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  Speaker 1: and his mutilated victims lay one over another. They seemed
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  Speaker 1: to be gripping one another in one last revengeful grapple.
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  Speaker 1: His wounds gaped black as night, and the blood that
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  Speaker 1: had dripped lay in black patches upon the sand. Then
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  Speaker 1: I saw, without understanding the cause of my phantom, a
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  Speaker 1: ruddy glow that came and danced and went upon the
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  Speaker 1: wall opposite. I misinterpreted this, fancied it was a reflection
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  Speaker 1: of my flickering lamp, and turned again to the stalls
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  Speaker 1: in the shed. I went on rummaging among them as
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  Speaker 1: well as a one armed man could, finding this convenient
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  Speaker 1: thing and that, and putting them aside for tomorrow's launch.
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  Speaker 1: My movements were slow, and the time passed quickly. Insensibly,
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  Speaker 1: the daylight crept upon me. The chanting died down, giving
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  Speaker 1: place to a clamor. Then it began again, and suddenly
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  Speaker 1: broke into a tumult. I heard cries of more, more,
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  Speaker 1: a sound like quarreling, and a sudden wild shriek. The
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  Speaker 1: quality of the sounds changed so greatly that it arrested
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  Speaker 1: my attention. I went out into the yard and listened. Then,
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  Speaker 1: cutting like a knife across the confusion, came the crack
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  Speaker 1: of a revolver. I rushed at once through my room
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  Speaker 1: to the little doorway. As I did so, I heard
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  Speaker 1: some of the packing cases behind me go sliding down
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  Speaker 1: and smashed together with a clatter of glass on the
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  Speaker 1: floor of the shed, But I did not heat these.
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  Speaker 1: I flung the door open and looked out up the beach.
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  Speaker 1: By the boat house. A bonfire was burning, raining up
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  Speaker 1: sparks into the indistinctness of the dawn. Around this struggled
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  Speaker 1: a mass of black figures. I heard Montgomery call my name.
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  Speaker 1: I began to run at once towards this fire, revolver
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  Speaker 1: and hand. I saw the pink tongue of Montgomery's pistol
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  Speaker 1: lick out. Once close to the ground, he was down.
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  Speaker 1: I shouted with all my strength and fired into the air.
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  Speaker 1: I heard someone cry. The mass stir. The knotted black
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  Speaker 1: struggle broken to scattering units. The fire leaped and sank down.
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  Speaker 1: The crowd of beast people fled in sudden panic before
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  Speaker 1: me up the beach. In my excitement, I fired at
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  Speaker 1: their retreating backs as they disappeared among the bushes. Then
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  Speaker 1: I turned to the black heaps upon the ground. Montgomery
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  Speaker 1: lay on his back, with a hairy gray beast man
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  Speaker 1: sprawling across his body. The brute was dead, but still
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  Speaker 1: gripping Montgomery's throat with its curving claws. Near By lay
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  Speaker 1: himbling on his face and quite still, his neck bitten open,
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  Speaker 1: and the upper part of the smashed brandy bottle in
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  Speaker 1: his hand. Two other figures lay near the fire, the
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  Speaker 1: one motionless, the other groaning fitfully every now and then,
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  Speaker 1: raising its head slowly, then dropping it again. I caught
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  Speaker 1: hold of the gray man and pulled him off Montgomery's body.
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  Speaker 1: His claws drew down the torn coat reluctantly as I
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  Speaker 1: dragged him away. Montgomery was dark in the face and
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  Speaker 1: scarcely breathing. I splashed sea water on his face and
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  Speaker 1: pillowed his head on my rolled up coat. Imling was dead.
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  Speaker 1: The wounded creature by the fire. It was a wolf
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  Speaker 1: brute with the bearded gray face. Lay I found with
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  Speaker 1: the fore part of its body upon the still glowing timber.
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  Speaker 1: The wretched thing was injured so dreadfully that in mercy
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  Speaker 1: I blew its brains out at once. The other brute
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  Speaker 1: was one of the bull min, swathed in white. He
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  Speaker 1: too was dead. The rest of the beast people had
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  Speaker 1: vanished from the beach. I went to Montgomery again and
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  Speaker 1: knelt beside him, cursing my ignorance of medicine. The fire
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  Speaker 1: beside me had sunk down, and only charred beams of
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  Speaker 1: timber glowing at the central ends, and mixed of the
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  Speaker 1: gray ash of brushwood remained. I wondered casually where Montgomery
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  Speaker 1: had got his wood. Then I saw that the dawn
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  Speaker 1: was upon us. The sky had grown brighter, the setting
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  Speaker 1: moon was becoming pale and opaque in the luminous blue
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  Speaker 1: of the day. The sky to the eastward was rimmed
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  Speaker 1: with red. Suddenly I heard a thud and a hissing
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  Speaker 1: behind me, and looking round, sprang to my feet with
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  Speaker 1: a cry of horror. Against the warm dawn, great tumultuous
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  Speaker 1: masses of black smoke were boiling up out of the enclosure,
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  Speaker 1: and through their stormy darkness shot flickering threads of blood
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  Speaker 1: red flame. Then the thatched roof caught I saw the
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  Speaker 1: curving charge of the flames across the sloping straw. A
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  Speaker 1: spurt of fire jetted from the window of my room.
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  Speaker 1: I knew at once what had happened. I remembered the
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  Speaker 1: crash I had heard when I had rushed out to
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  Speaker 1: Montgomery's assistance. I had overturned the lamp. The hopelessness of
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  Speaker 1: saving any of the contents of the enclosure stared me
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  Speaker 1: in the face. My mind came back to my plan
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  Speaker 1: of flight, and turning swiftly, I looked to see where
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  Speaker 1: the two boats lay upon the beach. They were gone.
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  Speaker 1: Two axes lay upon the sands beside me. Chips and
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  Speaker 1: splinters were scattered broadcast, and the ashes of the bonfire
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  Speaker 1: were blackening and smoking under the dawn. Montgomery had burnt
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  Speaker 1: the boats to revenge himself upon me and prevent our
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  Speaker 1: return to mankind. A sudden convulsion of rage shook me.
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  Speaker 1: I was almost moved to batter his foolish head in
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  Speaker 1: as he lay there helpless at my feet. Then suddenly
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  Speaker 1: his hand moved so feebly, so pitifully, that my wrath vanished.
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  Speaker 1: He groaned and opened his eyes. For a minute. I
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  Speaker 1: knelt down beside him and raised his head. He opened
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  Speaker 1: his eyes again, staring silently at the dawn, and then
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  Speaker 1: they met mine. The lids fell. Sorry, he said, presently,
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  Speaker 1: with an effort he seemed trying to think. The laughed.
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  Speaker 1: He murmured, the laugh of this silly universe. What a mess.
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  Speaker 1: I listened. His head fell helplessly to one side. I
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  Speaker 1: thought some drink might revive him, but there was neither
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  Speaker 1: drink nor vessel in which to bring drink. At hand.
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  Speaker 1: He seemed suddenly heavier. My heart went cold. I bent
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  Speaker 1: down to his face, put my hand through the rent
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  Speaker 1: in his blouse. He was dead, and even as he died,
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  Speaker 1: a line of white heat the limb of the sun
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  Speaker 1: rose eastward beyond the projection of the bay, splashing its
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  Speaker 1: radiance across the sky and turning the dark sea into
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  Speaker 1: a weltering tumult of dazzling light. It fell like a
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  Speaker 1: glory upon his death, shrunken face. I let his head
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  Speaker 1: fall gently upon the rough pillow I had made for him,
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  Speaker 1: and stood up. Before me was the glittering desolation of
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  Speaker 1: the sea, the awful solitude upon which I had already
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  Speaker 1: suffered so much. Behind me, the island hushed under the dawn,
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  Speaker 1: its beast people silent and unseen. The enclosure, with all
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  Speaker 1: its provisions and ammunition, burnt noisily with sudden gusts. Aflame
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  Speaker 1: a fitful crackling, and now and then a crash. The
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  Speaker 1: heavy smoke drove up the beach away from me, rolling
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  Speaker 1: low over the distant treetops towards the huts in the ravine.
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  Speaker 1: Beside me were the charred vestiges of the boats, and
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  Speaker 1: these five dead bodies. Then out of the bushes came
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  Speaker 1: three beast people with hunched shoulders, protruding heads, misshapen hands,
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  Speaker 1: awkwardly held and inquisitive unfriendly eyes, and advanced towards me
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  Speaker 1: with hesitating gestures. End of Section twenty