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The Island of Doctor Moreau Chapter 12 - The Sayers of the Law · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Section thirteen 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 twelve The Sayers of the Law. Then something
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  Speaker 1: cold touched my hand. I started violently, and saw close
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  Speaker 1: to me a pinkish thing, looking more like a flayed
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  Speaker 1: child than anything else in the world. The creature had
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  Speaker 1: exactly the mild but repulsive features of a sloth, the
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  Speaker 1: same low forehead and slow gestures. As the first shock
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  Speaker 1: of the change of light passed, I saw about me
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  Speaker 1: more distinctly the little slothlike creature was standing and staring
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  Speaker 1: at me. My conductor had vanished. The place was a
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  Speaker 1: narrow passage between high walls of lava, a crack in
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  Speaker 1: the knotted rock, and on either side interwoven heaps of
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  Speaker 1: sea mat, palm, fans, and reeds leaning against the rock
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  Speaker 1: formed rough and impenetrably dark dens. The winding way up
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  Speaker 1: the ravine between these was scarcely three yards wide, and
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  Speaker 1: was disfigured by lumps of decaying fruit, pulp, and other refuse,
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  Speaker 1: which accounted for the disagreeable stench of the place. The
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  Speaker 1: little pink sloth creature was still blinking at me, when
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  Speaker 1: my ape man reappeared at the aperture of the nearest
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  Speaker 1: of these dens and beckoned me in. As he did so,
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  Speaker 1: a slouching monster wriggled out of one of the places
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  Speaker 1: further up this strange street and stood up in featureless
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  Speaker 1: silhouette against the bright green beyond, staring at me. I hesitated,
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  Speaker 1: having half a mind to bolt the way I had come,
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  Speaker 1: and then determined to go through with the adventure. I
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  Speaker 1: gripped my nailed stick about the middle and crawled into
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  Speaker 1: the little, evil smelling lean to after my conductor. It
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  Speaker 1: was a semi circular space, shaped like the half of
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  Speaker 1: a bee hive, and against the rocky wall that formed
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  Speaker 1: the inner side of it was a pile of variegated fruits, cocoanuts,
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  Speaker 1: among others. Some rough vessels of lava and wood stood
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  Speaker 1: about the floor, and one on a rough stool. There
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  Speaker 1: was no fire. In the darkest corner of the hut
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  Speaker 1: sat a shapeless mass of darkness that grunted hey as
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  Speaker 1: I came in, and my ape man stood in the
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  Speaker 1: dim light of the doorway and held out a split
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  Speaker 1: cocoanut to me. As I crawled into the other corner
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  Speaker 1: and squatted down. I took it and began gnawing it
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  Speaker 1: as serenely as possible, in spite of a certain trepidation
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  Speaker 1: and the nearly intolerable closeness of the den. The little
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  Speaker 1: pink sloth creature stood in the aperture of the hut,
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  Speaker 1: and something else with a drab face and bright eyes
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  Speaker 1: came staring over its shoulder. Hey came out of the
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  Speaker 1: lump of mystery opposite. It is a man. It is
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  Speaker 1: a man, gabbled my conductor. A man, a man, a
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  Speaker 1: five man like me. Shut up, said the voice from
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  Speaker 1: the dark, and grunted. I gnawed my cocoanut amid an
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  Speaker 1: impressive stillness. I peered hard into the blackness, but could
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  Speaker 1: distinguish nothing. It is a man, the voice repeated, He
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  Speaker 1: comes to live with us. It was a thick voice
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  Speaker 1: with something in it, a kind of whistling overtone that
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  Speaker 1: struck me as peculiar, but the English accent was strangely good.
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  Speaker 1: The ape man looked at me as though he expected
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  Speaker 1: something I perceived. The pause was interrogative. He comes to
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  Speaker 1: live with you, I said. It is a man. He
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  Speaker 1: must learn the law. I began to distinguish now a
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  Speaker 1: deeper blackness in the black a vague outline of a
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  Speaker 1: hunched up figure. Then I noticed the opening of the
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  Speaker 1: place was darkened by two more black heads. My hand
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  Speaker 1: tightened on my stick. The thing in the dark repeated,
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  Speaker 1: in a louder tone, say the words I had missed.
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  Speaker 1: Its last remark, not to go on all fours. That
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  Speaker 1: is the law, it repeated, in a kind of sing song.
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  Speaker 1: I was puzzled, say the word, said the ape man, repeating,
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  Speaker 1: and the figures in the doorway echoed this with a
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  Speaker 1: threat in the tone of their voices. I realized that
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  Speaker 1: I had to repeat this idiotic formula, and then began
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  Speaker 1: the insanest ceremony. The voice in the dark began in
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  Speaker 1: holding a mad litany, line by line, and I in
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  Speaker 1: the rest to repeat it. As they did so, they
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  Speaker 1: swayed from side to side in the oddest way, and
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  Speaker 1: beat their hands upon their knees, and I followed their example.
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  Speaker 1: I could have imagined I was already dead, and in
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  Speaker 1: another world that dark hut, these grotesque, dim figures just
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  Speaker 1: flecked here and there by a glimmer of light, and
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  Speaker 1: all of them swaying in unison enchanting not to go
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  Speaker 1: on all fours? That is the law. Are we not
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  Speaker 1: men not to suck up drink? That is the law?
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  Speaker 1: Are we not men not to eat fish or flesh?
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  Speaker 1: That is the law. Are we not men not to
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  Speaker 1: claw the bark of trees? That is the law? Are
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  Speaker 1: we not men not to chase other men? That is
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  Speaker 1: the law? Are we not men? And so from the
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  Speaker 1: prohibition of these acts of folly on to the prohibition
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  Speaker 1: of what I thought then were the maddest, most impossible,
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  Speaker 1: and most indecent things one could well imagine, a kind
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  Speaker 1: of rhythmic fervor fell on all of us. We gabbled
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  Speaker 1: and swayed, faster and faster, repeating this amazing law superficially.
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  Speaker 1: The contagion of these brutes was upon me, but deep
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  Speaker 1: down within me the laughter and disgust struggled together. We
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  Speaker 1: ran through a long list of prohibitions, and then the
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  Speaker 1: chance swung round to a new formula. His is the
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  Speaker 1: house of pain. His is the hand that makes, His
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  Speaker 1: is the hand that wounds, His is the hand that heals,
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  Speaker 1: and so on for another long series, mostly quite incomprehensible
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  Speaker 1: gibberish to me about him whoever he might be. I
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  Speaker 1: could have fancied it was a dream, But never before
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  Speaker 1: have I heard chanting in a dream. His is the lightning,
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  Speaker 1: we flash, we sang, His is the deep salt sea.
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  Speaker 1: A horrible fancy came into my head that moreau, after
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  Speaker 1: animalizing these men, had infected their dwarfed brains with a
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  Speaker 1: kind of deification of himself. However, I was too keenly
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  Speaker 1: aware of white teeth and strong claws about me to
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  Speaker 1: stop my chanting on that account. His are the stars
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  Speaker 1: in the sky. At last that song ended, I saw
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  Speaker 1: the ape man's face shining with perspiration, and my eyes,
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  Speaker 1: being now accustomed to the darkness, I saw more distinctly
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  Speaker 1: the figure in the corner from which the voice came.
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  Speaker 1: It was the size of a man, but it seemed
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  Speaker 1: covered with a dull gray, almost like a sky terrier.
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  Speaker 1: What was it? What were they all? Imagine yourself surrounded
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  Speaker 1: by all the most horrible cripples and maniacs. It is
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  Speaker 1: possible to conceive, and you may understand a little of
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  Speaker 1: my feelings. With these grotesque caricatures of humanity about me.
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  Speaker 1: Here is a five man, a five man, a five
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  Speaker 1: man like me, said the ape man, I held out
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  Speaker 1: my hands. The gray creature in the corner leant forward,
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  Speaker 1: not two anon, all fours. That is the law. Are
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  Speaker 1: we not men? He said? He put out a strangely
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  Speaker 1: distorted talon and gripped my fingers. The thing was almost
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  Speaker 1: like the hoof of a deer produced into claws. I
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  Speaker 1: could have yelled with surprise and pain. His face came
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  Speaker 1: forward and peered at my nails. Came forward into the
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  Speaker 1: light of the opening of the hut, and I saw,
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  Speaker 1: with a quivering disgust, that it was like the face
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  Speaker 1: of neither man nor beast, but a mere shock of
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  Speaker 1: gray hair, with three shadowy over archings to mark the
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  Speaker 1: eyes and mouth. He has little nails, said this grisly
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  Speaker 1: creature in his hairy beard. It is well. He threw
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  Speaker 1: my hand down, and instinctively I gripped my stick, heat
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  Speaker 1: roots and herbs. It is his will, said the ape man.
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  Speaker 1: I am the sayer of the law, said the gray figure.
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  Speaker 1: Here come all that be new to learn the law.
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  Speaker 1: I sit in the darkness and say the law. It
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  Speaker 1: is even so, said one of the beasts in the doorway.
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  Speaker 1: Evil are the punishments of those who break the law?
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  Speaker 1: None escape None escape, said the beast folk, glancing furtively
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  Speaker 1: at one another. None none, said the ape man. None escape.
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  Speaker 1: See I did a little thing, a wrong thing. Wants
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  Speaker 1: a jabberd jabbert Stop talking. None could understand. I am
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  Speaker 1: burnt branded in the hand. He is great, he is good.
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  Speaker 1: None escape, said the gray creature in the corner. None escape,
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  Speaker 1: said the beast people, looking askance at one another. For
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  Speaker 1: every one the want that is bad, said the gray
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  Speaker 1: sayer of the law. What you will want we do
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  Speaker 1: not know. We shall know. So want to follow things
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  Speaker 1: that move, to watch and slink and wait and spring,
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  Speaker 1: to kill, and bite, bite deep and rich, sucking the blood.
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  Speaker 1: It is bad Not to chase other men. That is
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  Speaker 1: the law. Are we not men? Not to eat flesh
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  Speaker 1: or fish? That is the law? Are we not men?
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  Speaker 1: None escape, said a dappled brute standing in the doorway.
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  Speaker 1: For every one the want is bad, said the gray
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  Speaker 1: sayer of the law. Some want to go tearing with
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  Speaker 1: teeth and hands into the roots of things, snuffing into
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  Speaker 1: the earth. It is bad. None escape, said the men
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  Speaker 1: in the door. Some go clawing trees, some go scratching
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  Speaker 1: at the graves of the dead. Some go fighting with foreheads,
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  Speaker 1: or feet, or claw, some bite suddenly none giving occasion,
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  Speaker 1: some love, uncleanness. None escape, said the ape man, scratching
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  Speaker 1: his calf. None escape, said the little pink sloth creature.
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  Speaker 1: Punishment is sharp and sure. Therefore learn the law, say
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  Speaker 1: the words. And incontinently he began again the strange litany
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  Speaker 1: of the law. And again I and all these creatures
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  Speaker 1: began singing and swaying. My head reeled with this jabbering
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  Speaker 1: in the close stench of the place. But I kept on,
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  Speaker 1: trusting to find presently some chance of a new development.
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  Speaker 1: Not to go on all fours. That is the law.
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  Speaker 1: Are we not men? We were making such a noise
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  Speaker 1: that I noticed nothing of a tumult outside, until someone
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  Speaker 1: who I think was one of the two swine men
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  Speaker 1: I had seen, thrust his head over the little pink
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  Speaker 1: sloth creature and shouted something excitedly, something that I did
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  Speaker 1: not catch. Incontinently, those at the opening of the hut vanished.
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  Speaker 1: My ape man rushed out. The thing that had sat
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  Speaker 1: in the dark followed him. I only observed that it
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  Speaker 1: was big and clumsy and covered with silvery hair, and
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  Speaker 1: I was left alone. Then, before I reached the aperture,
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  Speaker 1: I heard the yelp of a staghound. In another moment,
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  Speaker 1: I was standing outside the hovel, my chair rail in
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  Speaker 1: my hand, every muscle of me quivering. Before me were
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  Speaker 1: the clumsy backs of perhaps a score of these beast people,
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  Speaker 1: their misshapen heads half hidden by their shoulder blades. They
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  Speaker 1: were gesticulating excitedly. Other half animal faces glared interrogation out
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  Speaker 1: of their Looking in the direction which they faced, I
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  Speaker 1: saw coming through the haze under the trees, beyond the
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  Speaker 1: end of the passage of Dens, the dark figure and
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  Speaker 1: awful white face of Moreau. He was holding the leaping
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  Speaker 1: staghound back, and close behind him came Montgomery, revolver in hand.
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  Speaker 1: For a moment, I stood horror struck. I turned and
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  Speaker 1: saw the passage behind me blocked by another heavy brute
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  Speaker 1: with a huge gray face and twinkling little eyes advancing
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  Speaker 1: towards me. I looked round and saw to the right
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  Speaker 1: of me, and a half dozen yards in front of
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  Speaker 1: me a narrow gap in the wall of rock, through
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  Speaker 1: which a ray of light slanted into the shadows. Stop,
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  Speaker 1: cried Moreau, as I strode towards this and then hold
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  Speaker 1: him at that first one face turned towards me, and
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  Speaker 1: then others. The best your minds were happily slow. I
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  Speaker 1: dashed my shoulder into a clumsy monster who was turning
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  Speaker 1: to see what Moreau meant, and flung him forward into another.
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  Speaker 1: I felt his hands fly round, clutching at me and
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  Speaker 1: missing me. The little pink sloth creature dashed at me,
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  Speaker 1: and I gashed down its ugly face with the nail
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  Speaker 1: in my stick, and in another minute was scrambling up
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  Speaker 1: a steep side of pathway, a kind of sloping chimney
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  Speaker 1: out of the ravine. I heard howl behind me and
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  Speaker 1: cries of catch him, hold him, and the gray faced
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  Speaker 1: creature peered behind me and jammed his huge bulk into
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  Speaker 1: the cleft. Go On, go on, they howled. I clambered
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  Speaker 1: up the narrow cleft in the rock and came out
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  Speaker 1: upon the sulfur on the westward side of the village
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  Speaker 1: of the beast Men. That gap was altogether fortunate for me,
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  Speaker 1: for the narrow chimney slanting obliquely upward must have impeded
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  Speaker 1: the nearer pursuers. I ran over the white space and
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  Speaker 1: down a steep slope through a scattered growth of trees,
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  Speaker 1: and came to a low lying stretch of tall reeds,
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  Speaker 1: through which I pushed into a dark, thick undergrowth that
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  Speaker 1: was black and succulent under foot. As I plunged into
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  Speaker 1: the reeds, my foremost pursuers emerged from the gap. I
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  Speaker 1: broke my way through this undergrowth for some minutes. The
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  Speaker 1: air behind me and about me was soon full of
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  Speaker 1: threatening cries. I heard the tumult of my pursuers in
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  Speaker 1: the gap up the slope, then the crashing of the reeds,
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  Speaker 1: and every now and then the crackling crash of a branch.
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  Speaker 1: Some of the creatures roared like excited beasts of prey.
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  Speaker 1: The staghound yelped to the left. I heard Moreau and
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  Speaker 1: Montgomery shouting in the same direction. I turned sharply to
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  Speaker 1: the right. It seemed to me even then that I
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  Speaker 1: heard Montgomery shouting for me to run for my life.
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  Speaker 1: Presently the ground gave rich and oozy under my feet,
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  Speaker 1: but I was desperate and went headlong into struggled through
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  Speaker 1: knee deep, and so came to a winding path among
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  Speaker 1: tall canes. The noise of my pursuers passed away to
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  Speaker 1: my left. In one place, three strange pink hopping animals
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  Speaker 1: about the size of cats bolted before my footsteps. This
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  Speaker 1: pathway ran up hill, across another open space covered with
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  Speaker 1: white incrustation, and plunged into a cane brake again. Then
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  Speaker 1: suddenly it turned parallel with the edge of a steep
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  Speaker 1: walled gap, which came without warning like a ha ha
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  Speaker 1: of an English park. Turned with an unexpected abruptness. I
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  Speaker 1: was still running with all my might, and I never
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  Speaker 1: saw this drop until I was flying headlong through the air.
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  Speaker 1: I fell on my forearms and head among thorns, and
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  Speaker 1: rose with a torn ear and bleeding face. I had
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  Speaker 1: fallen into a precipitous ravine, rocky and thorny, full of
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  Speaker 1: a hazy mist, which drifted about me in wisps, and
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  Speaker 1: with a narrow streamlet from which this mist came meandering
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  Speaker 1: down the center. I was astonished at this thin fog
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  Speaker 1: in the full blaze of daylight, but I had no
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  Speaker 1: time to stand wandering. Then I turned to my right
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  Speaker 1: down stream, hoping to come to the sea in that
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  Speaker 1: direction and so have my way open to drown myself.
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  Speaker 1: It was only later I found that I had dropped
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  Speaker 1: my nail stick in my fall. Presently, the ravine grew
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  Speaker 1: narrower for a space, and carelessly I stepped into the stream.
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  Speaker 1: I jumped out again pretty quickly, for the water was
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  Speaker 1: almost boiling. I noticed too, there was a thin, sulfurous
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  Speaker 1: scum drifting upon its coiling water. Almost immediately came a
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  Speaker 1: turn in the ravine, and the indistinct blue horizon the
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  Speaker 1: nearer sea was flashing the sun from a myriad facets.
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  Speaker 1: I saw my death before me, but I was hot
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  Speaker 1: and panting, with the warm blood oozing out on my
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  Speaker 1: face and running pleasantly through my veins. I felt more
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  Speaker 1: than a touch of exultation too, at having distanced my pursuers.
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  Speaker 1: It was not in me then to go out and
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  Speaker 1: drown myself. Yet I stared back the way I had come.
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  Speaker 1: I listened. Save for the hum of the gnats and
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: the chirp of some small insects that hopped among the thorns,
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  Speaker 1: the air was absolutely still. Then came the yelp of
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: a dog, very faint, chattering and gibbering, the snap of
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  Speaker 1: a whip, and voices. They grew louder, then fainter again.
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  Speaker 1: The noise receded up the stream and faded away. For
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  Speaker 1: a while. The chase was over. But I knew now
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  Speaker 1: how much hope of help for me lay in the
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  Speaker 1: beast people. End of Section thirteen.