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The Island of Doctor Moreau Chapter 4 - At the Schooner's Rail · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Section five 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 four. At the schooner's rail that night, Land
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  Speaker 1: was sighted at the sundown, and the schooner hove two.
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  Speaker 1: Montgomery intimated that was his destination. It was too far
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  Speaker 1: to see in it details. It seemed to me then
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  Speaker 1: simply a low lying patch of dim blue and the
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  Speaker 1: uncertain blue gray sea. An almost vertical streak of smoke
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  Speaker 1: went up from it into the sky. The captain was
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  Speaker 1: not on deck when it was sighted. After he had
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  Speaker 1: vented his wrath on me, he had staggered below, and
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  Speaker 1: I understand he went to sleep on the floor of
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  Speaker 1: his own cabin. The mate practically assumed the command. He
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  Speaker 1: was the gaunt, taciturn individual we had seen at the wheel.
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  Speaker 1: Apparently he was in an evil temper with Montgomery. He
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  Speaker 1: took not the slightest notice of either of us. We
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  Speaker 1: dined with him in a sulky silence, after a few
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  Speaker 1: ineffectual efforts on my part to talk. It struck me
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  Speaker 1: too that the men regarded my companion and his animals
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  Speaker 1: in a singularly unfriendly manner. I found Montgomery very reticent
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  Speaker 1: about his purpose with these creatures and about his destination,
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  Speaker 1: and though I was sensible of a growing curiosity as
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  Speaker 1: to both, I did not press him. We remained talking
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  Speaker 1: on the quarter deck until the sky was thick with stars.
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  Speaker 1: Except for an occasional sound in the yellow lit forecastle
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  Speaker 1: and a movement of the animals. Now and then the
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  Speaker 1: night was very still. The puma lay crouched together, watching
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  Speaker 1: us with shining eyes a black heap in the corner
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  Speaker 1: of its cage. Montgomery produced some cigars. He talked to
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  Speaker 1: me of London in a tone of half painful reminiscence,
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  Speaker 1: asking all kinds of questions about changes that had taken place.
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  Speaker 1: He spoke like a man who had loved his life
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  Speaker 1: there and had been suddenly and irrevocably cut off from it.
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  Speaker 1: I gossiped as well as I could of this and that.
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  Speaker 1: All the time the strangeness of him was shaping itself
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  Speaker 1: in my mind, And as I talked, I peered at
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  Speaker 1: his odd, pallid face in the dim light of the
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  Speaker 1: binnacle lantern behind me. Then I looked out at the
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  Speaker 1: darkling sea, where in the dimness his little island was hidden.
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  Speaker 1: This man, it seemed to me, had come out of
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  Speaker 1: a mincity merely to save my life. Tomorrow he would
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  Speaker 1: drop over the side and vanish again, out of my existence.
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  Speaker 1: Even had it been under commonplace circumstances, it would have
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  Speaker 1: made me a trifle thoughtful. But in the first place
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  Speaker 1: was the singularity of an educated man living on this
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  Speaker 1: unknown little idland, and coupled with that the extraordinary nature
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  Speaker 1: of his luggage. I found myself repeating the captain's question,
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  Speaker 1: what did he want with the beasts? Why? Too, had
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  Speaker 1: he pretended they were not his? When I had remarked
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  Speaker 1: about them at first? Then again in his personal attendant.
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  Speaker 1: There was a bizarre quality which had impressed me profoundly.
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  Speaker 1: These circumstances threw a haze of mystery round the man.
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  Speaker 1: They laid hold of my imagination and hampered my tongue.
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  Speaker 1: Towards midnight, our talk of London died away, and we
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  Speaker 1: stood side by side, leaning over the bulwarks and staring
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  Speaker 1: dreamily over the silent, starlit sea, each pursuing his own thoughts.
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  Speaker 1: It was the atmosphere for sentiment, and I began upon
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  Speaker 1: my gratitude, if I may say it, said I, after
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  Speaker 1: a time you saved my life. Chance, he answered, just chance.
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  Speaker 1: I prefer to make my thanks to the accessible agent.
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  Speaker 1: Thank no one. You had the need and I had
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  Speaker 1: the knowledge, and I injected and fed you much as
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  Speaker 1: I might have collected a spathaman. I was bored and
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  Speaker 1: wanted something to do. If i'd being jaded that day,
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  Speaker 1: or hadn't liked your faith, well it's a curediouth question
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  Speaker 1: where you would have been. Now this damped my mood
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  Speaker 1: a little. At any rate, I began. It's a chance,
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  Speaker 1: I tell you, he interrupted, as everything is in a
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  Speaker 1: man's life, only the aths won't see it. Why am
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  Speaker 1: I here now an outcast from civilization instead of being
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  Speaker 1: a happy man enjoying all the pleasures of London, simply
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  Speaker 1: because a eleven years ago I lost my head for
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  Speaker 1: ten minutes on a foggy night. He stopped, Yes, said
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  Speaker 1: I that's all. We relapsed into silence. Presently, he laughed,
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  Speaker 1: there's something in the starlight that louthened one'th tongue. I'm
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  Speaker 1: an ath and you somehow I would like to tell you.
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  Speaker 1: Whatever you tell me, you may rely upon my keeping
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  Speaker 1: to myself. If that's it. He was on the point
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  Speaker 1: of beginning, and then shook his head doubtfully. Don't, said I.
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  Speaker 1: It is all the same to me, after all, tis
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  Speaker 1: better to keep your secret. There's nothing gained but a
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  Speaker 1: little relief if I respect your confidence. If I don't, well,
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  Speaker 1: he grunted undecidedly. I felt A had him at a disadvantage,
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  Speaker 1: had caught him in the mood of indiscretion. And to
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  Speaker 1: tell the truth, I was not curious to learn what
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  Speaker 1: might have driven a young medical student out of London.
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  Speaker 1: I have an imagination. I shrugged my shoulders and turned
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  Speaker 1: away over the taffrail into silent black figure watching the stars.
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  Speaker 1: It was Montgomery's strange attendant. It looked over its shoulder
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  Speaker 1: quickly with my movement, then looked away again. It may
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  Speaker 1: seem a little thing to you, perhaps, but it came
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  Speaker 1: like a sudden blow to me. The only light near
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  Speaker 1: us was a lantern at the wheel. The creature's face
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  Speaker 1: was turned for one brief instant out of the dimness
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  Speaker 1: of the stern, towards this illumination, and I saw that
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  Speaker 1: the eyes that glanced at me shone with a pale
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  Speaker 1: green light. I did not know then that a reddish
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  Speaker 1: luminosity at least is not uncommon in human eyes. The
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  Speaker 1: thing came to me as stark inhumanity. That black figure,
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  Speaker 1: with its eyes of fire, struck down through all my
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  Speaker 1: adult thoughts and feelings, and for a moment the forgotten
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  Speaker 1: horrors of childhood came back to my mind. Then the
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  Speaker 1: effect passed as it had come. An uncouth black figure
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  Speaker 1: of a man, a figure of no particular import, hung
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  Speaker 1: over the taffrail against the starlight, and I found Montgomery
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  Speaker 1: was speaking to me. I'm thinking of turning in, then
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  Speaker 1: said he if you've had enough of this, I answered
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  Speaker 1: him incongruously. We went below, and he wished me good
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  Speaker 1: night at the door of my cabin. That night I
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  Speaker 1: had some very unpleasant dreams. The waning moon rose late,
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  Speaker 1: its light struck a ghostly white beam across my cabin
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  Speaker 1: and made an ominous ship keep on the planking of
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  Speaker 1: my bunk. Then the staghounds woke and began howling and baying,
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  Speaker 1: so that I dreamt fitfully and scarcely slept until the
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  Speaker 1: approach of dawn. End of Section five