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11 - The Island of Dr Moreau - H G Wells · Adventure Books Library

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  Eleven, The Hunting of the Man. It came before my mind with an
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  unreasonable hope of escape, that the outer door of my room was still open
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  to me. I was convinced, now, absolutely assured, that Moreau had
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  been vivisecting a human being. All the time since I had heard his name,
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  I had been trying to link in my mind in some way the grotesque
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  animalism of the Islanders with his abominations, and now I thought I saw it
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  all. The memory of his work on the transfusion of blood recurred to me.
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  These creatures I had seen were the victims of some hideous experiment. These
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  sickening scoundrels had merely intended to keep me back, to fool me with their
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  display of confidence, and presently to fall upon me with a fate more horrible
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  than death, with torture, and after torture, the most hideous degradation it
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  is possible to conceive, to send me off a lost soul, a beast,
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  to the rest of their comus route. I looked around for some weapon,
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  nothing, Then with an inspiration, I turned over the deck chair,
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  put my foot on the side of it, and tore away the side rail.
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  It happened that a nail came away with the wood and projecting gave a
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  touch of danger to an otherwise petty weapon. I heard a step outside,
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  and incontinently flung open the door and found Montgomery within a yard of it.
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  He meant to lock the outer door. I raised this nailed stick of mine
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  and cut at his face, but he sprang back. I hesitated a moment,
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  then turned and fled round the corner of the house prindic man. I
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  heard his astonished cry, don't be a thiliath man. Another minute, thought
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  I, and he would have had me locked in and as ready as a
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  hospital rabbit for my feet. He emerged behind the corner for I heard him
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  shout prynd dick. Then he began to run after me, shouting things as
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  he ran, this time running blindly. I went northeastward in the direction at
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  right angles to my previous expedition. Once, as I went running headlong up
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  the beach, I glanced over my shoulder and saw his attendant with him.
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  I ran furiously up the slope over it, then turning eastward along a rocky
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  valley fringed on either side with jungle, I ran for perhaps a mile altogether
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  my chest, straining my heart beating in my ears, and then, hearing
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  nothing of Montgomery or his man, and feeling upon the verge of exhaustion,
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  I doubled sharply back towards the beach as I judged, and lay down in
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  the shelter of a cane brake. There I remained for a long time,
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  too fearful to move, and indeed too fearful even to plan a course of
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  action. The wild scene about me lay sleeping silently under the sun, and
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  the only sound near me was the thin hum of some small gnats that had
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  discovered me. Presently I became aware of a drowsy breathing sound, the sowing
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  of the sea upon the beach. After about an hour I heard Montgomery shouting
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  my name far away to the north. That set me thinking of my plan
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  of action as I interpreted it. Then this island was inhabited only by these
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  two vivisectors and their animal lies victims. Some of these, no doubt they
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  could press into their service against me if need arose. I knew both Moreau
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  and Montgomery carried revolvers, and save for a feeble bar of deal spiked with
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  a small nail, the merest mockery of a mace. I was unarmed,
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  so I lay still there until I began to think of food and drink.
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  And at that thought the real hopelessness of my situation came home to me.
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  I knew no way of getting anything to eat. I was too ignorant of
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  botany to discover any resort of root or fruit that might lie about me.
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  I had no means of trapping the few rabbits upon the island. It grew
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  blanker the more I turned the prospect over. At last, in the desperation
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  of my position, my mind turned to the animal men I had encountered.
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  I tried to find some hope in what I remembered of them. In turn,
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  I recalled each one I had seen, and tried to draw some augury
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  of assistance from my memory. Then suddenly I heard a stag hound bay,
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  and at that realized a new danger. I took little time to think,
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  or they would have caught me then, but, snatching up my nailed stick,
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  rushed headlong from my hiding place towards the sound of the sea. I
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  remember a growth of thorny plants with spines that stabbed like pin knives. I
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  emerged bleeding and with torn clothes, upon the lip of a long creek opening
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  northward, I went straight into the water without a minute's hesitation, wading up
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  the creek and presently finding myself knee deep in a little stream, I scrambled
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  out at last on the westward bank, and with my heart beating loudly in
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  my ears, crept into a tangle of ferns to await the issue. I
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  heard the dog there was only one draw nearer, and yelp when it came
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  to the thorns. Then I heard no more, and presently began to think
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  I had escaped. The minutes passed, the silence lengthened out, and at
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  last, after an hour of security, my courage began to return to me.
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  By this time I was no longer very much terrified or very miserable.
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  I had, as it were, past the limit of terror and despair.
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  I felt now that my life was practically lost, and that persuasion made me
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  capable of daring anything. I had even a certain wish to encounter mo Row
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  face to face. And as I had waded into the water, I remembered
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  that if I were too hard pressed, at least one path of a skin
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  from torment still lay open to me. They could not very well prevent my
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  drowning myself. I had half a mind to drown myself then, but not
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  wished to see the whole adventure out. A queer impersonal spectacular interest in myself
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  restrained me. I stretched my limbs, sore and painful from the pricks of
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  the spiny plants, and stared around me at the trees, and so suddenly
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  that it seemed to jump out of the green tracery about it. My eyes
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  lit upon a black face watching me. I saw that it was the Simian
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  creature who had met the launch upon the beach. He was clinging to the
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  oblique stem of a palm tree. I gripped my stick and stood up facing
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  him. He began chattering, you, you, You was all I could
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  distinguish at first. Suddenly he dropped from the tree, and in another moment
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  was holding the fronds apart and staring curiously at me. I did not feel
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  the same repugnance towards this creature which I had experienced in my encounters with the
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  other beast men. You, he said in the boat. He was a
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  man, then, at least as much of a man as Montgomery's attendant,
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  for he could talk. Yes, I said, I came in the boat
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  from the ship. Oh, he said, And his bright, restless eyes
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  traveled over me, to my hands, to the stick I carried, to
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  my feet, to the tattered places in my coat, and the cuts and
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  scratches I had received from the thorns. He seemed puzzled at something. His
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  eyes came back to my hands. He held out his own hand and counted
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  his digits slowly, one, two, three, four, five. Ay.
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  I did not grasp his meaning. Then, afterwards I was to find
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  that a great proportion of these beast men had malformed hands, lacking sometimes even
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  three digits. But, guessing this was in some way a greeting, I
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  did the same thing by way of reply. He grinned with immense satisfaction.
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  Then his swift, roving glance went round again. He made a swift movement
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  and vanished. The fern Franz he had stood between came swishing together. I
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  pushed out of the break after him, and was astonished to find him swinging
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  cheerfully by one lanka from a rope of creepers that looped down from the foliage
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  overhead. His back was to me hullo, said I. He came down
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  with a twisting jump and stood facing me. I say, said I,
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  where can I get something to eat? Eat? He said, eat man's
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  food now, and his eye went back to the swing of ropes at the
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  huts. But where are the huts? Oh, I'm new, you know?
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  At that, he swung round and set off at a quick walk.
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  All his motions were curiously rapid. Come along, said he. I went
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  with him to see the adventure out. I guessed the huts were some rough
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  shelter where he and some more of these beast people lived. I might perhaps
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  find them friendly, find some handle in their minds to take hold of.
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  I did not know how far they had forgotten their human heritage. My ape
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  like companion trotted along by my side, with his hands hanging down and his
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  jaw thrust forward. I wondered what memory he might have in him. How
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  long have you been on this island? Said I? How long? He
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  asked, and after having the question repeated, he held up three fingers.
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  The creature was little better than an idiot. I tried to make out what
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  he meant by that, and it seems I bored him. After another question
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  or two, he suddenly left my side and went leaping at some fruit that
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  hung from a tree. He pulled down a handful of prickly husks and went
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  on eating the contents. I noted this with satisfaction, for here, at
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  least was a hint for feeding. I tried him with some other questions,
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  but his chattering prompt responses were, as often as not, quite at cross
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  purposes with my question. Some few were appropriate, others quite parrot like.
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  I was so intent upon these peculiarities that I scarcely noticed the path we followed.
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  Presently we came to trees all charred and brown, and so to a
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  bare place covered with a yellow white incrustation, across which a drifting smoke,
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  pungent in wiffs to nose and eyes. When drifting on our right over a
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  shoulder of bare rock, I saw the level blue of the sea. The
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  path coiled down abruptly into a narrow ravine between two tumbled and knotty masses of
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  blackish scory eye. Into this we plunged. It was extremely dark this passage.
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  After the blinding sunlight reflected from the sulfurous ground, Its walls grew steep
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  and approached each other blotches of green and crimson drifted across my eyes. My
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  conductor stopped suddenly, home, said he. And I stood in a floor
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  of a chasm that was at first absolutely dark to me. I heard some
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  strange noises and thrust the knuckles of my left hand into my eyes. I
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  became aware of a disagreeable odor, like that of a monkey's cage. Ill
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  cleaned beyond the rock opened again upon a gradual slope of sunlit greenery, and
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  on either hand the lights smote down through narrow ways into the central gloom.