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12 - The Island of Dr Moreau - H G Wells · Science Fiction Books - Daily

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Twelve the sayers of the law. Then something cold touched my hand. I
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started violently and saw close to me a pinkish thing, looking more like a
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flayed child than anything else in the world. The creature had exactly the mild
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but repulsive features of a sloth, the same low forehead and slow gestures.
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As the first shock of the change of light passed, I saw about me
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more distinctly. The little slothlike creature was standing and staring at me. My
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conductor had vanished. The place was a narrow passage between high walls of lava,
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a crack in the knotted rock, and on either side, interwoven heaps
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of sea mat, palm, fans, and reeds leaning against the rock formed
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rough and impenetrably dark dens. The winding way up the ravine between these was
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scarcely three yards wide, and was disfigured by lumps of decaying fruit, pulp,
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and other refuse, which accounted for the disagreeable stench of the place.
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The little pink sloth creature was still blinking at me when my ape man reappeared
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at the aperture of the nearest of these dens and beckoned me in. As
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he did so a slouching monster wriggled out of one of the places further up
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this strange street, and stood up in featureless silhouette against the bright green beyond,
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staring at me. I hesitated, having half a mind to bolt the
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way I had come, and then determined to go through with the adventure.
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I gripped my nailed stick about the middle and crawled into the little, evil
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smelling lean to after my conductor. It was a semicircular space, shaped like
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the half of a bee hive, and against the rocky wall that formed the
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inner side of it was a pile of variegated fruits, cocoa nuts, among
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others. Some rough vessels of lava and wood stood about the floor, and
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one on a rough stool. There was no fire. In the darkest corner
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of the hut sat a shapeless mass of darkness that grunted hey as I came
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in, and my ape man stood in the dim light of the doorway and
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held out a split cocoanut to me. As I crawled into the other corner
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and squatted down, I took it and began gnawing it as serenely as possible,
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in spite of a certain trepidation and the nearly intolerable closeness of the den.
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The little pink sloth creature stood in the aperture of the hut, and
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something else with a drab face and bright eyes came staring over its shoulder.
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Hey came out of the lump of mystery opposite. It is a man.
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It is a man, gabbled my conductor. A man, a man,
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A five man like me. Shut up, said the voice from the dark,
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and grunted. I gnawed my cocoanut amid an impressive stillness. I peered
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hard into the blackness, but could distinguish nothing. It is a man,
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the voice repeated, he comes to live with us. It was a thick
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voice with something in it, a kind of whistling overtone that struck me as
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peculiar, but the English accent was strangely good. The ape man looked at
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me as though he expected something I perceived. The pause was interrogative. He
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comes to live with you, I said. It is a man. He
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must learn the law. I began to distinguish now a deeper blackness in the
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black, a vague outline of a hunched up figure. Then I noticed the
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opening of the place was darkened by two more black heads. My hand tightened
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on my stick. The thing in the dark repeated, in a louder tone,
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say the words I had missed. Its last remark, not to go
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on all fours, that is the law, it repeated, in a kind
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of sing song. I was puzzled. Say the word, said the ape
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man, repeating, and the figures in the doorway echoed this with a threat
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in the tone of their voices. I realized that I had to repeat this
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idiotic formula, and then began the insanest ceremony. The voice in the dark
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began intoning a mad litany, line by line, and I in the rest
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to repeat it. As they did so, they swayed from side to side
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in the oddest way, and beat their hands upon their knees, and I
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followed their example. I could have imagined I was already dead, and in
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another world, that dark hut, these grotesque dim figures just flecked here and
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there by a glimmer of light, and all of them swaying in unison,
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enchanting not to go on all fours? That is the law. Are we
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not men? Not to suck up drink? That is the law? Are
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we not men? Not to eat fish or flesh. That is the law.
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Are we not men? Not to claw the bark of trees? That
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is the law? Are we not men? Not to chase other men?
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That is the law? Are we not men? And so from the prohibition
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of these acts of folly on to the prohibition of what I thought then were
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the maddest, most impossible, and most indecent things one could well imagine,
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a kind of rhythmic fervor fell on all of us. We gabbled and swayed
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faster and faster, repeating this amazing law superficially. The contagion of these brutes
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was upon me, but deep down within me the laughter and disgust struggled together.
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We ran through a long list of prohibitions, and then the chance swung
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round to a new formula. His is the house of pain. His is
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the hand that makes, His is the hand that wounds, His is the
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hand that heals, and so on for another long series, mostly quite incomprehensible
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gibberish to me, about him, whoever he might be. I could have
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fancied it was a dream, But never before have I heard chanting in a
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dream. His is the lightning we flash, We sang is the deep salt
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sea. A horrible fancy came into my head. That moreau, after animalizing,
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these men had infected their dwarfed brains with a kind of deification of himself.
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However, I was too keenly aware of white teeth and strong claws about
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me to stop my chanting on that account. His are the stars in the
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sky. At last, that song hinded. I saw the ape man's face
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shining with perspiration, and my eyes, being now accustomed to the darkness,
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I saw more distinctly the figure in the corner from which the voice came.
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It was the size of a man, but it seemed covered with the dull
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gray hair, almost like a sky terrier. What was it? What were
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they all? Imagine yourself surrounded by all the most horrible cripple and maniacs.
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It is possible to conceive, and you may understand a little of my feelings.
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With these grotesque caricatures of humanity about me. Here's a five man,
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a five man, a five man like me, said the ape man.
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I held out my hands. The gray creature in the corner leant forward.
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Not two anon, all fours, that is the law. Are we not
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men? He said, He put out a strangely distorted talon and gripped my
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fingers. The thing was almost like the hoof of a deer produced into claws.
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I could have yelled with surprise and pain. His face came forward and
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peered at my nails, came forward into the light of the opening of the
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hut, and I saw, with a quivering disgust, that it was like
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the face of night, neither man nor beast, but a mere shock of
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gray hair, with three shadowy over archings to mark the eyes and mouth.
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He has little nails, said this grisly creature in his hairy beard. It
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is well. He threw my hand down, and instinctively I gripped my stick,
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heat roots and herbs. It is his will, said the ape man.
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I am the sayer of the law, said the gray figure. Here
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come all that be new to learn the law. I sit in the darkness
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and say the law. It is even so, said one of the beasts
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in the doorway. Evil are the punishments of those who break the law.
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None escape, None escape, said the beast folk, glancing furtively at one
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another. None none, said the ape man. None escape. See,
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I did a little thing, a wrong thing, wants a jabberd jabbert.
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Stop talking. None could understand. I am burnt branded in the hand.
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He is great, he is good. None escape, said the gray creature
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in the corner. None escape, said the beast. People looking askance at
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one another. For every one the want that is bad, said the gray
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sayer of the law. What you will want, we do not know.
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We shall know. Some want to follow things that move, to watch and
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slink and wait and spring, to kill and bite by deep and rich,
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sucking the blood. It is bad not to chase other men. That is
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the law. Are we not men? Not to eat flesh or fish?
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That is the law? Are we not men? None escape, said a
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dappled brute standing in the doorway. For every one the want is bad,
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said the gray sayer of the law. Some want to go tearing with teeth
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and hands into the roots of things, snuffing into the earth. It is
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bad. None escape, said the men in the door. Some go clawing
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trees, Some go scratching at the graves of the dead. Some go fighting
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with foreheads or feet or claws. Some bite suddenly, none giving occasion.
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Some love uncleanness. None escape, said the man scratching his calf none escape,
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said the little pink sloth creature. Punishment is sharp and sure. Therefore
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learn the law, say the words. And incontinently he began again the strange
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litany of the law. And again I and all these creatures began singing and
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swaying. My head reeled with this jabbering in the close stench of the place,
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But I kept on, trusting to find presently some chance of a new
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development. Not to go on all fours, that is the law. Are
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we not men? We were making such a noise that I noticed nothing of
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a tumult outside, until some one, who I think was one of the
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two swine men I had seen, thrust his head over the little pink sloth
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creature and shouted something excitedly, something that I did not catch. Incontinently,
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those at the opening of the hut vanished. My ape man rushed out.
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The thing that had sat in the dark followed him. I only observed that
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it was big and clumsy and covered with silvery hair, and I was left
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alone. Then, before I reached the aperture, I heard the yelp of
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a staghound. In another moment, I was standing outside the hovel, my
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chair rail in my hand, every muscle of me. Quivering before me were
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the clumsy backs of perhaps a score of these beast people, their misshapen heads
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half hidden by their shoulder blades. They were gesticulating excitedly. Other half animal
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faces glared interrogation out of their hovels, looking in the direction which they faced,
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I saw coming through the haze under the trees, beyond the end of
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the passage of Dens, the dark figure and a white face of Moreau.
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He was holding the leaping staghound back, and close behind him came Montgomery,
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revolver in hand. For a moment, I stood horror struck. I turned
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and saw the passage behind me blocked by another heavy brute with a huge gray
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face and twinkling little eyes, advancing towards me. I looked round and saw
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to the right of me, and a half dozen yards in front of me
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a narrow gap in the wall of rock, through which a ray of light
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slanted into the shadows. Stop, cried Moreau, as I strode towards this
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and then hold him at that. First one face turned towards me, and
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then others. The best your minds were happily slow. I dashed my shoulder
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into a clumsy monster, who was turning to see what Moreau meant, and
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flung him forward into another I felt his hands fly round, clutching at me
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and missing me. The little, pink slothe creature dashed at me, and
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I gashed down its ugly face with the nail in my stick, and in
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another minute was scrambling up a steep side of pathway, a kind of sloping
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chimney out of the ravine. I heard howl behind me and cries of catch
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him, hold him, and the gray faced creature peered behind me and jammed
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his huge bulk into the cleft. Go On, go on, they howled.
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I clambered up the narrow cleft in the rock and came out upon the
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sulfur on the westward side of the village of the beast Men. That gap
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was altogether fortunate for me, for the narrow chimney slanting obliquely upward must have
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impeded the nearer pursuers. I ran over the white space and down a steep
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slope through a scattered growth of trees, and came to a low lying stretch
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of tall reeds, through which I pushed into a dark, thick undergrowth that
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was black and succulent under foot. As I plunged into the reeds, my
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foremost pursuers emerged from the gap. I broke my way through this undergrowth for
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some minutes. The air behind me and about me was soon full of threatening
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cries. I heard the tumult of my pursuers in the gap up the slope,
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then the crashing of the reeds, and every now and then the crackling
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crash of a branch. Some of the creatures roared like excited beasts of prey.
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The staghound yelped to the left. I heard Moreau and Montgomery shouting in
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the same direction. I turned sharply to the right. It seemed to me
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even then that I heard Montgomery shouting for me to run for my life.
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Presently the ground gave rich and oozy under my feet, but I was desperate
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and went headlong into struggled through knee deep, and so came to a winding
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path among tall canes. The noise of my pursuers passed away to my left.
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In one place, three strange pink hopping animals about the size of cats,
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bolted before my footsteps. This pathway ran up hill across another open space
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covered with white incrustation and plunged into a cane brake again. Then suddenly it
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turned parallel with the edge of a steep walled gap, which came without warning
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like a ha ha of an English park, turned with an unexpected abruptness.
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I was still running with all my might, and I never saw this drop
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until I was flying headlong through the air. I fell on my forearms and
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head among thorns, and rose with a torn ear and bleeding face. I
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had fallen into a precipitous ravine, rocky and thorny, full of a hazy
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mist, which drifted about me in wisps, and with a narrow streamlet from
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which this mist came meandering down the ciner. I was astonished at this thin
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fog in the full blaze of daylight, but I had no time to stand
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wandering. Then I turned to my right down stream, hoping to come to
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the sea in that direction and so have my way open to drown myself.
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It was only later I found that I had dropped my nail stick in my
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fall. Presently, the ravine grew narrower for a space, and carelessly I
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stepped into the stream. I jumped out again pretty quickly for the water was
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almost boiling. I noticed too, there was a thin, sulfurous scum drifting
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upon its coiling water. Almost immediately came a turn in the ravine, and
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the indistinct blue horizon the nearer sea was flashing the sun from a myriad facets.
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I saw my death before me, but I was hot and panting,
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with the warm blood oozing out on my face and running pleasantly through my veins.
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I felt more than a touch of exultation too, at having distanced my
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pursuers. It was not in me then to go out and drown myself.
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Yet I stared back the way I had come. I listened, save for
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the hum of the gnats and the chirp of some small insects that hopped among
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the thorns, the air was absolutely still. Then came the yelp of a
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dog, very faint, and a chattering and gibbering, the snap of a
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whip, and voices. They grew louder, then fainter again. The noise
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receded the stream and faded away. For a while. The chase was over,
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But I knew now how much hope of help for me lay in the beast people