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The Island of Doctor Moreau Chapter 21 - The Reversion of the Beast Folk · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Section twenty two 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 twenty one, The Reversion of the beast Folk.
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Speaker 1: In this way, I became one among the beast people
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Speaker 1: in the Island of Doctor Moreau. When I awoke, it
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Speaker 1: was dark about me, my arm ached in its bandages.
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Speaker 1: I sat up, wondering at first where I might be.
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Speaker 1: I heard coarse voices talking outside. Then I saw that
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Speaker 1: my barricade had gone and that the opening of the
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Speaker 1: hut stood clear. My revolver was still in my hand.
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Speaker 1: I heard something breathing, saw something crouched together close beside me.
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Speaker 1: I held my breath, trying to see what it was.
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Speaker 1: It began to move slowly interminably. Then something soft and
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Speaker 1: warm and moist passed across my hand. All my muscles contracted.
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Speaker 1: I snatched my hand away. A cry of alarm began
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Speaker 1: and was stifled in my throat. Then I just realized
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Speaker 1: what had happened sufficiently to stay my fingers on the revolver.
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Speaker 1: Who is that? I said, in a hoarse whisper. The
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Speaker 1: revolver still pointed, a master, Who are you? They say,
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Speaker 1: there is no master now. But I know, I know.
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Speaker 1: I carried the bodies into the sea. O walker in
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Speaker 1: the sea, the bodies of those you slew. I am
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Speaker 1: your slave, master. Are you the one I met on
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Speaker 1: the beach? I asked the same master. The thing was
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Speaker 1: evidently faithful enough, for it might have fallen upon me
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Speaker 1: as I slept. It is well, I said, extending my
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Speaker 1: hand for another licking kiss. I began to realize what
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Speaker 1: its presence meant, and the tide of my courage flowed.
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Speaker 1: Where are the others, I asked. They are mad. They
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Speaker 1: are fools, said the dog man. Even now they talk
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Speaker 1: together beyond there. They say, the master is dead. The
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Speaker 1: other with the whip is dead. The other who walked
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Speaker 1: in the sea is as we are. We have no master,
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Speaker 1: no whips, no house of pain any more. There is
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Speaker 1: an end. We love the law and will keep it.
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Speaker 1: But there is no pain, no master, no whips for
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Speaker 1: ever again, so they say, But I know, Master, I know,
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Speaker 1: I felt in the darkness and patted the dog Man's head.
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Speaker 1: It is well, I said again. Presently you will slay
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Speaker 1: them all, said the dog man. Presently, I answered, I
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Speaker 1: will slay them all after certain days, and certain things
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Speaker 1: have come to pass. Every one of them, save those
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Speaker 1: you spare, every one of them shall be slain. What
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Speaker 1: the Master wishes to kill, the Master kills, said the
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Speaker 1: dog man, with a certain satisfaction in his voice, And
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Speaker 1: that their sins may grow, I said. Let them live
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Speaker 1: in their folly until their time is ripe. Let them
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Speaker 1: not know that I am the master. The Master's will
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Speaker 1: is sweet, said the dog man, with the ready tact
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Speaker 1: of his canine blood. But one has sinned, said I him.
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Speaker 1: I will kill whenever I may meet him. When I
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Speaker 1: say to you, that is he, see that you fall
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Speaker 1: upon him. And now I will go to the men
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Speaker 1: and women who are assembled together for a moment. The
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Speaker 1: opening of the hut was blackened by the exit of
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Speaker 1: the dog man. Then I followed and stood up almost
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Speaker 1: in the exact spot where I had been when I
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Speaker 1: had heard Moreau and his staghound pursuing me. But now
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Speaker 1: it was night, and all the me as mattic ravine
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Speaker 1: about me was black, and beyond, instead of a green,
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Speaker 1: sunlit slope, I saw a red fire, before which hunched
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Speaker 1: grotesque figures moved to and fro farther were the thick trees,
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Speaker 1: a bank of darkness fringed above with the black lace
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Speaker 1: of the upper branches. The moon was just riding up
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Speaker 1: on the edge of the ravine, and like a bar
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Speaker 1: across its face drove the spire of vague that was
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Speaker 1: forever streaming from the fumeroles of the island. Walk by me,
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Speaker 1: said I, nerving myself, and side by side we walked
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Speaker 1: down the narrow way, taking little heed of the dim
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Speaker 1: things that peered at us out of the huts. None
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Speaker 1: about the fire attempted to salute me. Most of them
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Speaker 1: disregarded me ostentatiously. I looked round for the hyena swine,
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Speaker 1: but he was not there. Altogether, perhaps twenty of the
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Speaker 1: beast folks squatted, staring into the fire or talking to
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Speaker 1: one another. He is dead. He is dead. The Master
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Speaker 1: is dead, said the voice of the ape man. To
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Speaker 1: the right of me. The house of pain. There is
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Speaker 1: no house of pain. He is not dead, said I,
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Speaker 1: in a loud voice. Even now he watches us. This
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Speaker 1: startled them. Twenty pairs of eyes regarded me. The house
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Speaker 1: of pain is gone, said I. It will come again.
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Speaker 1: The Master. You cannot see yet, even now he listens
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Speaker 1: among you. True, true, said the dog man. They were
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Speaker 1: staggered at my assurance. An animal may be ferocious and
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Speaker 1: cunning enough, but it takes a real man to tell
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Speaker 1: a lie. The man with the bandaged arms speaks a
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Speaker 1: strange thing, said one of the beast folk. I tell
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Speaker 1: you it is so, I said the master, and the
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Speaker 1: house of pain will come back again. Woe be to
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Speaker 1: him who breaks the law. They looked curiously at one another,
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Speaker 1: with an affectation of indifference. I began to chop idly
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Speaker 1: at the ground in front of me with my hatchet.
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Speaker 1: They looked. I noticed at the deep cuts I made
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Speaker 1: in the turf. Then the satyr raised a doubt. I
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Speaker 1: answered him. Then one of the dapple things objected, an
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Speaker 1: an animated discussion sprang up round the fire. Every moment
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Speaker 1: I began to feel more convinced of my present security.
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Speaker 1: I talked now without the catching in my breath due
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Speaker 1: to the intensity of my excitement that had troubled me
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Speaker 1: at first. In the course of about an hour, I
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Speaker 1: had really convinced several of the beast folk of the
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Speaker 1: truth of my assertions, and talked most of the others
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Speaker 1: into a dubious state. I kept a sharp eye for
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Speaker 1: my enemy, the hyena swine, but he never appeared. Every
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Speaker 1: now and then a suspicious movement would startle me, but
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Speaker 1: my confidence grew rapidly. Then, as the moon crept down
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Speaker 1: from the zenith, one by one the listeners began to yawn,
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Speaker 1: showing the haddest teeth in the light of the sinking fire,
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Speaker 1: And first one and then another retired towards the dins
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Speaker 1: in the ravine, and I, dreading the silence and darkness,
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Speaker 1: went with them, knowing it was safer with several of
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Speaker 1: them than with one alone. In this manner began the
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Speaker 1: longer part of my sojourn upon the island of Doctor Moreau.
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Speaker 1: But from that night until the end came, there was
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Speaker 1: but one thing happened to tell, save a series of
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Speaker 1: innumerable small, unpleasant details, and the fretting of an incessant uneasiness.
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Speaker 1: So that I prefer to make no chronicle for that
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Speaker 1: gap of time, to tell only one cardinal incident. Of
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Speaker 1: the ten months I spent as an intimate of these
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Speaker 1: half humanized brutes, there is much that sticks in my
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Speaker 1: memory that I could write, things that I would cheerfully
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Speaker 1: give my right hand to forget, but they do not
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Speaker 1: help the telling of the story. In the retrospect, it
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Speaker 1: is strange to remember how soon I fell in with
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Speaker 1: these monsters ways and gained my confidence again. I had
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Speaker 1: my quarrels with them, of course, and could show some
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Speaker 1: of their teeth marks still, But they soon gained a
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Speaker 1: wholesome respect for my trick of throwing stones and for
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Speaker 1: the bite of my hatchet, and my Saint Bernard Man's
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Speaker 1: loyalty was of infinite service to me. I found their
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Speaker 1: simple scale of honor was based mainly on the capacity
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Speaker 1: for inflicting trenchant wounds. Indeed, I may say without vanity,
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Speaker 1: I hope that I held something like pre eminence among them,
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Speaker 1: one or two whom, in a rare access of high spirits,
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Speaker 1: I had scarred rather badly, bore me a grudge, but
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Speaker 1: invented itself chiefly behind my back and at a safe
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Speaker 1: distance from my missiles. In grimaces. The Hyaena swine avoided me,
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Speaker 1: and I was always on the alert for him. My
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Speaker 1: inseparable dog Man hated and dreaded him intensely. I really
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Speaker 1: believed that was at the root of the brute's attachment
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Speaker 1: to me. It was soon evident to me that the
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Speaker 1: former monster had tasted blood and gone the way of
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Speaker 1: the leopard man. He formed a lair somewhere in the
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Speaker 1: forest and became solitary once. I tried to induce the
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Speaker 1: beast folk to hunt him, but I lacked the authority
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Speaker 1: to make them co operate for one end. Again and
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Speaker 1: again I tried to approach his den and come upon
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Speaker 1: him unaware, but always he was too acute for me
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Speaker 1: and saw or winded me and got away. He too,
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Speaker 1: made every forest pathway dangerous to me and my ally
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Speaker 1: with his lurking ambuscards. The dog man scarcely dared to
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Speaker 1: leave my side. In the first month or so, The
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Speaker 1: beast folk, compared with their latter condition, were human enough,
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Speaker 1: and for one or two besides my canine friend, I
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Speaker 1: even conceived a friendly tolerance. The little pink sloth creature
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Speaker 1: displayed in odd affection for me and took to following
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Speaker 1: me about. The monkey man bought me. However, he assumed,
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Speaker 1: on the strength of his five digits that he was
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Speaker 1: my equal, and was forever jabbering at me, jabbering the
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Speaker 1: most errant nonsense. One thing about him entertained me a little.
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Speaker 1: He had a fantastic trick of coining new words. He
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Speaker 1: had an idea. I believe that to gabble about names
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Speaker 1: that meant nothing was the proper use of speech. He
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Speaker 1: called it big thinks, to distinguish it from little thinks,
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Speaker 1: the sane, every day interests of life. If ever I
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Speaker 1: made a remark he did not understand, he would praise
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Speaker 1: it very much, ask me to say it again, learn
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Speaker 1: it by heart, and go off repeating it with a
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Speaker 1: word wrong here or there, to all the milder of
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Speaker 1: the beast people. He thought nothing of what was plain
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Speaker 1: and comprehensible. I invented some very curious big thinks for
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Speaker 1: his especial use. I think now he was the silliest
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Speaker 1: creature I had ever met. He developed in the most
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Speaker 1: wonderful way the distinctive silliness of man, without losing one
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Speaker 1: jot of the natural folly of a monkey. This, I say,
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Speaker 1: was in the earlier weeks of my solitude among these brutes.
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Speaker 1: During that time they respected the usage established by the
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Speaker 1: law and behaved with general decorum. Once I found another
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Speaker 1: rabbit torn to pieces by the hyena swine, I am assured,
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Speaker 1: but that was all it was. About May, when I
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Speaker 1: first distinctly perceived a growing difference in their speech and carriage,
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Speaker 1: a growing coarseness of articulation, a growing disinclination to talk.
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Speaker 1: My monkey man's jabber multiplied in volume, but grew less
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Speaker 1: and less comprehensible, more and more simian. Some of the
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Speaker 1: others seemed altogether slipping their hold upon speech, though they
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Speaker 1: still understood what I said to them at that time.
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Speaker 1: Can you imagine language, once clear cut and exact, softening
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Speaker 1: and guttering, losing shape and import becoming mere lumps of
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Speaker 1: sound again? And they walked erect with an increasing difficulty,
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Speaker 1: though they evidently felt ashamed of themselves. Every now and
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Speaker 1: then I would come upon one or another, running on
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Speaker 1: toes and finger tips, and quite unable to recover the
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Speaker 1: vertical attitude. They held things more clumsily. Drinking by suction,
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Speaker 1: feeding by gnawing, grew commoner. Every day. I realized, more
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Speaker 1: keenly than ever what Moreau had told me about the
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Speaker 1: stubborn beast flesh. They were reverting, and reverting very rapidly.
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Speaker 1: Some of them, the pioneers in this, I noticed, with
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Speaker 1: some surprise, were all females. Began to disregard the injunction
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Speaker 1: of decency deliberately for the most part. Others even attempted
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Speaker 1: public outrages. Upon the institution of monogamy. The tradition of
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Speaker 1: the law was clearly losing its I cannot pursue this
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Speaker 1: disagreeable subject. My dog man imperceptibly slipped back to the
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Speaker 1: dog again. Day by day he became dumb, quadrupedal, hairy.
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Speaker 1: I scarcely noticed the transition from the companion on my
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Speaker 1: right hand to the lurching dog at my side. As
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Speaker 1: the carelessness and disorganization increased from day to day, the
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Speaker 1: lane of dwelling places, at no time very sweet, became
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Speaker 1: so loathsome that I left it, and, going across the island,
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Speaker 1: made myself a hovel of boughs amid the black ruins
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Speaker 1: of moreause enclosure. Some memory of pain I found still
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Speaker 1: made that place the safest from the beast folk. It
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Speaker 1: would be impossible to detail every step of the lapsing
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Speaker 1: of these monsters, to tell how, day by day the
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Speaker 1: human semblance left them, how they gave up bandagings and wrappings,
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Speaker 1: abandoned at last every stitch of clothing, How the hair
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Speaker 1: began to spread over the exposed limbs, how their foreheads
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Speaker 1: fell away, and their faces projected how the quasi human
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Speaker 1: intimacy I had permitted myself with some of them in
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Speaker 1: the first month of my loneliness became a shuddering horror.
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Speaker 1: To recall. The change was slow and inevitable for them.
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Speaker 1: For me, it came without any definite shock. I still
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Speaker 1: went among them in safety because no jolt in the
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Speaker 1: downward glide had released the increasing charge of explosive animalism
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Speaker 1: that ousted the human day by day. But I began
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Speaker 1: to fear that soon now that shock must come. My
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Speaker 1: Saint Bernard Brute followed me to the enclosure every night,
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Speaker 1: and his vigilance enabled me to sleep at times in
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Speaker 1: something like peace. The little pink sloth thing became shy
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Speaker 1: and left me to crawl back to its natural life
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Speaker 1: once more. Among the tree branches. We were in just
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Speaker 1: the state of equilibrium that would remain in one of
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Speaker 1: those happy family cages which animal tamers exhibit if the
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Speaker 1: tamer were to leave it forever. Of course, these creatures
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Speaker 1: did not decline into such beasts as the reader has
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Speaker 1: seen in zoological gardens, into ordinary bears, wolves, tigers, oxen, swine,
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Speaker 1: and apes. There was still something strange about each In
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Speaker 1: each Moreau had blended this animal with that. One perhaps
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Speaker 1: was ersine chiefly, another feline chiefly, another bovine chiefly, but
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Speaker 1: each was tainted with other creatures. A kind of generalized
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Speaker 1: animalism appearing through the specific dispositions and the dwindling shreds
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Speaker 1: of the humanity still startled me every now and then,
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Speaker 1: a momentary recrudescence of speech, perhaps an unexpected dexterity of
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Speaker 1: the forefoot, a pitiful attempt to walk erect. I too
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Speaker 1: must have undergone strange changes. My clothes hung about me
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Speaker 1: as yellow rags, through whose rents showed the tanned skin.
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Speaker 1: My hair grew long and became matted together. I am
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Speaker 1: told that even now my eyes have a strange brightness,
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Speaker 1: a swift alertness of movement. At first, I spent the
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Speaker 1: daylight hours on the southward beach, watching for a ship,
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Speaker 1: hoping and praying for a ship. I counted on the
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Speaker 1: Ipaquana returning as the year wore on, but she never came.
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Speaker 1: Five times I saw sails and thrice smoke, but nothing
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Speaker 1: ever touched the island. I always had a bonfire ready,
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Speaker 1: but no doubt the volcanic reputation of the island was
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Speaker 1: taken to account for that. It was only about September
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Speaker 1: or October that I began to think of making a raft.
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Speaker 1: By that time my arm had healed and both hands
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Speaker 1: were at my service again. At first I found my
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Speaker 1: helplessness appalling. I had never done any carpentry or such
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Speaker 1: like work in my life, and I spent day after
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Speaker 1: day in experimental chopping and binding among the trees. I
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Speaker 1: had no ropes, and could hit on nothing wherewith to
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Speaker 1: make ropes. None of the abundant creepers seemed limber or
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Speaker 1: strong enough, and with all my litter of scientific education,
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Speaker 1: I could not devise any way of making them. So
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Speaker 1: I spent more than a fortnight grubbing among the black
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Speaker 1: ruins of the enclosure and on the beach where the
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Speaker 1: boats had been burnt, looking for nails and other stray
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Speaker 1: pieces of metal that might prove of service. Now and
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Speaker 1: then some beast creature would watch me and go leaping
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Speaker 1: off when I called to it. There came a season
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Speaker 1: of thunder storms and heavy rain, which greatly retarded my work.
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Speaker 1: But at last the raft was completed. I was to
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Speaker 1: light it with it, but with a certain lack of
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Speaker 1: practical sense which has always been my bane. I had
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Speaker 1: made it a mile or more from the sea, and
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Speaker 1: before I had dragged it down to the beach, the
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Speaker 1: thing had fallen to pieces. Perhaps it is as well
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Speaker 1: that I was saved from launching it. But at the
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Speaker 1: time my misery at my failure was so acute that
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Speaker 1: for some days I simply moped on the beach and
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Speaker 1: stared at the water and thought of death. I did not, however,
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Speaker 1: mean to die, and an incident occurred that worn me
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Speaker 1: unmistakably of the folly of letting the days pass, so
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Speaker 1: for each fresh day was fraught with increasing danger from
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Speaker 1: the beast people. I was lying in the shade of
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Speaker 1: the enclosure wall, staring out to sea, when I was
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Speaker 1: startled by something cold touching the skin of my heel,
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Speaker 1: and starting round, found the little pink sloth creature blinking
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Speaker 1: into my face. He had long since lost speech an
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Speaker 1: active movement, and the lank hair of the little brute
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Speaker 1: grew thicker every day, and his stumpy claws more askew.
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Speaker 1: He made a moaning noise. When he saw he had
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Speaker 1: attracted my attention, went a little way towards the bushes
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Speaker 1: and looked back at me. At first, I did not understand,
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Speaker 1: but presently it occurred to me that he wished me
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Speaker 1: to follow him, and this I did, at last, slowly,
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Speaker 1: for the day was hot. When we reached the trees,
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Speaker 1: he clambered into them, for he could travel better among
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Speaker 1: their swinging creepers than on the ground. And suddenly, in
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Speaker 1: a trampled space, I came upon a ghostly group. My
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Speaker 1: Saint Bernard creature lay on the ground, dead, and near
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Speaker 1: his body crouched the hyena swine, gripping the quivering flesh
20:47
Speaker 1: with its misshapen claws, gnawing at it and snarling with delight.
20:53
Speaker 1: As I approached, the monster lifted its glaring eyes to mine.
20:57
Speaker 1: Its lips went trembling back from its red stain teeth,
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Speaker 1: and it growled menacingly. It was not afraid and not ashamed.
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Speaker 1: The last vestige of the human taint had vanished. I
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Speaker 1: advanced a step farther, stopped, and pulled out my revolver.
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Speaker 1: At last I had him face to face. The brute
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Speaker 1: made no sign of retreat, but its ears went back,
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Speaker 1: its hair bristled, and its body crouched together. I aimed
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Speaker 1: between the eyes and fired. As I did so, the
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Speaker 1: thing rose straight at me in a leap, and I
21:34
Speaker 1: was knocked over like a nine pin. It clutched at
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Speaker 1: me with its crippled hand and struck me in the face.
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Speaker 1: Its spring carried it over me. I fell under the
21:45
Speaker 1: hind part of its body, but luckily I had hit
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Speaker 1: as I meant, and it had died even as it leapt.
21:53
Speaker 1: I crawled out from under its unclean weight and stood up, trembling,
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Speaker 1: staring at its quivering body. That danger, at least was over.
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Speaker 1: But this, I knew was only the first of the
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Speaker 1: series of relapses that must come. I burnt both of
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Speaker 1: the bodies on a pyre of brushwood. But after that
22:15
Speaker 1: I saw that unless I left the island, my death
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Speaker 1: was only a question of time. The beast people, by
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Speaker 1: that time had, with one or two exceptions, left the
22:25
Speaker 1: ravine and made themselves layers according to their taste. Among
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Speaker 1: the thickets of the island, few prowled. By day, most
22:33
Speaker 1: of them slept, and the island might have seemed deserted
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Speaker 1: to a new comer. But at night the air was
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Speaker 1: hideous with their calls and howling. I had half a
22:44
Speaker 1: mind to make a massacre of them, to build traps,
22:47
Speaker 1: or fight them with my knife. Had I possessed sufficient cartridges,
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Speaker 1: I should not have hesitated to begin the killing. There
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Speaker 1: can now be scarcely a score left of the dangerous carnivores.
22:59
Speaker 1: The brave of these were already dead. After the death
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Speaker 1: of this poor dog of mine, my last friend, I
23:08
Speaker 1: too adopted to some extent the practice of slumbering in
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Speaker 1: the daytime. In order to be on my guard at night.
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Speaker 1: I rebuilt my din in the walls of the enclosure,
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Speaker 1: with such a narrow opening that anything attempting to enter
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Speaker 1: must necessarily make a considerable noise. The creature had lost
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Speaker 1: the art of fire, too, and recovered their fear of it.
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Speaker 1: I turned once more, almost passionately, now to hammering together
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Speaker 1: stakes and branches to form a raft for my escape.
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Speaker 1: I found a thousand difficulties. I am an extremely unhandy man.
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Speaker 1: My schooling was over before the days of Sliord. But
23:50
Speaker 1: most of the requirements of a raft I met at
23:53
Speaker 1: last in some clumsy, circuitous way or another, And this
23:56
Speaker 1: time I took care of the strength. The only insurmountable
24:00
Speaker 1: obstacle was that I had no vessel to contain the
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Speaker 1: water I should need if I floated forth upon these
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Speaker 1: untraveled seas. I would have even tried pottery, but the
24:11
Speaker 1: island contained no clay. I used to go moping about
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Speaker 1: the island, trying with all my might to solve this
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Speaker 1: one last difficulty. Sometimes I would give way to wild
24:22
Speaker 1: outbursts of rage, and hack and splinter some unlucky tree
24:26
Speaker 1: in my intolerable vexation. But I could think of nothing.
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Speaker 1: And then came a day, a wonderful day, which I
24:35
Speaker 1: spent in ecstasy. I saw a sail to the southwest,
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Speaker 1: a small sail like that of a little schooner, and
24:42
Speaker 1: forthwith I lit a great pile of brushwood, and stood
24:45
Speaker 1: by it in the heat of it and the heat
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Speaker 1: of the midday sun, watching All day. I watched that sail,
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Speaker 1: eating or drinking nothing, so that my head reeled, and
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Speaker 1: the beasts came and glared at me, and seemed to
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Speaker 1: wander and went away. It was still distant when night
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Speaker 1: came and swallowed it up, And all night I toiled
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Speaker 1: to keep my blaze bright and high, and the eyes
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Speaker 1: of the beasts shone out of the darkness, marveling. In
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Speaker 1: the dawn, the sail was nearer, and I saw it
25:17
Speaker 1: was the dirty lug sail of a small boat, but
25:21
Speaker 1: it sailed strangely. My eyes were weary with watching, and
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Speaker 1: I peered and could not believe them. Two men were
25:30
Speaker 1: in the boat, sitting low down, one by the boughs,
25:33
Speaker 1: the other at the rudder. The head was not kept
25:37
Speaker 1: in the wind. It yarred and fell away. As the
25:40
Speaker 1: day grew brighter. I began waving the last rag of
25:43
Speaker 1: my jacket to them, but they did not notice me
25:47
Speaker 1: and sat still facing each other. I went to the
25:50
Speaker 1: lowest point of the low headland and gesticulated and shouted.
25:55
Speaker 1: There was no response, and the boat kept on her
25:58
Speaker 1: aimless course, making slowly, very slowly for the bay. Suddenly,
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Speaker 1: a great white bird flew up out of the boat,
26:07
Speaker 1: and neither of the men stirred or noticed it. It
26:10
Speaker 1: circled round and then came sweeping overhead with its strong
26:14
Speaker 1: wings outspread. Then I stopped shouting and sat down on
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Speaker 1: the headland and rested my chin on my hands and
26:21
Speaker 1: stared slowly. Slowly, the boat drove past towards the west.
26:28
Speaker 1: I would have swum out to it, but something, a cold,
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Speaker 1: vague fear, kept me back. In the afternoon, the tide
26:37
Speaker 1: stranded the boat and left it a hundred yards or
26:40
Speaker 1: so to the westward of the ruins of the enclosure.
26:44
Speaker 1: The men in it were dead, had been dead so
26:47
Speaker 1: long that they fell to pieces when I tilted the
26:50
Speaker 1: boat on its side and dragged them out. One had
26:53
Speaker 1: a shock of red hair like the captain of the
26:56
Speaker 1: ipa Quana, and a dirty white cap lay in the
26:59
Speaker 1: bottom of the boat. As I stood beside the boat,
27:03
Speaker 1: three of the beasts came slinking out of the bushes
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Speaker 1: and sniffing towards me. One of my spasms of disgust
27:10
Speaker 1: came upon me. I thrust the little boat down the
27:13
Speaker 1: beach and clambered on board her. Two of the brutes
27:17
Speaker 1: were wolf beasts, and came forward with quivering nostrils and
27:20
Speaker 1: glittering eyes. The third was the horrible nondescript of bear
27:25
Speaker 1: and bull. When I saw them approaching those wretched remains,
27:30
Speaker 1: heard them snarling at one another, and caught the gleam
27:33
Speaker 1: of their teeth, A frantic horror succeeded my repulsion. I
27:38
Speaker 1: turned my back upon them, struck the lug, and began
27:41
Speaker 1: paddling out to sea. I could not bring myself to
27:44
Speaker 1: look behind me. I lay, however, between the reef and
27:49
Speaker 1: the island. That night and the next morning went round
27:53
Speaker 1: to the stream and filled the empty keg aboard with water. Then,
27:59
Speaker 1: with such patience as I could command, I collected a
28:02
Speaker 1: quantity of fruit and waylaid and killed two rabbits with
28:06
Speaker 1: my last three cartridges. While I was doing this, I
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Speaker 1: left the boat moored to an inward projection of the reef,
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Speaker 1: for fear of the beast people. End of Section twenty two.