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06 - The Island of Dr Moreau - H G Wells · Classic Adventure Books - Daily

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  Six the evil looking boatmen, but the islanders, seeing that I was really
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  adrift, took pity on me. I drifted very slowly to the eastward,
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  approaching the island slantingly, and presently I saw with hysterical relief, the launch
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  come round and return towards me. She was heavily laden, and I could
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  make out as she drew nearer Montgomery's white haired, broad shouldered companion sitting cramped
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  up with the dogs in several packing cases in the stern sheets. This individual
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  stared fixedly at me, without moving or speaking. The black faced cripple was
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  glaring at me as fixedly. In the boughs near the puma, there were
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  three other men, besides three strange, brutish looking fellows, at whom the
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  stag hounds were snarling savagely. Montgomery, who was steering, brought the boat
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  by me, and rising caught and fastened my painter to the tiller to tow
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  me, for there was no room aboard. I had recovered from my hysterical
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  phase by this time, and answered his hail as he approached. Bravely enough.
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  I told him that Dinghy was nearly swamped, and he reached me a
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  pigan I was jerked back as the rope tightened between the boats. For some
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  time I was busy baling. It was not until I had got the water
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  under for the water and the dinghy had been shipped the boat was perfectly sound,
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  that I had leisure to look at the people in the launch again.
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  The white haired man I found was still regarding me steadfastly, but with an
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  expression as I now fancied, of some perplexity. When my eyes met his,
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  he looked down at the staghound that sat between his knees. He was
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  a powerfully built man, as I have said, with a fine forehead and
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  rap the heavy features. But his eyes had that odd drooping of the skin
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  above the lids which often comes with advancing years, and the fall of his
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  mouth at the corners gave him an expression of pugnacious resolution. He talked to
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  Montgomery in a tone too low for me to hear from him. My eyes
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  traveled to his three men and a strange crew they were. I saw only
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  their faces, Yet there was something in their faces I knew not what.
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  That gave me a queer spasm of disgust. I looked steadily at them,
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  and the impression did not pass, though I failed to see what had occasioned
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  it. They seemed to me then to be brown men, but their limbs
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  were oddly swathed in some thin, dirty white stuff down even to the fingers
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  and feet. I have never seen men so wrapped up a four and women
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  so only in the East. They wore turbans, too, and thereunder peered
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  out their elfin faces at me, faces with protruding lower jaws and bright eyes.
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  They had lank black hair, almost like horse hair, and seemed,
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  as they sat, to exceed in stature any race of men I have seen.
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  The white haired man, whom I knew was a good six feet in
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  height, sat a head below any one of the three. I found afterwards
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  that really none were taller than myself. But their bodies were abnormally long,
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  and the thigh part of the leg short and curiously twisted. At any rate,
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  they were an amazingly ugly gang. And over the heads of them,
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  under the forward lug peered the black face of the man, whose eyes were
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  luminous in the dark. As I stared at them, they met my gaze,
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  and then first one and then another turned away from my direct stair and
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  looked at me in an odd, furtive manner. It occurred to me that
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  I was perhaps annoying them, and I turned my attention to the island we
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  were approaching. It was low and covered with vegetation, chiefly a kind of
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  palm that was new to me. From one point, a thin white thread
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  of vapor rose slantingly to an immense height, and then frayed out like a
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  down feather. We were now within the embrace of a broad bay, flanked
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  on either hand by a low promontory. The beach was of dull gray sand
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  and sloped steeply up to a ridge perhaps sixty or seventy feet above the sea
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  level, and regularly set with trees and undergrowth. Half Way up was a
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  square enclosure of some grayish stone, which I found subsequently was built partly of
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  coral and partly of pumicious lava. Two thatched roofs heaped from within this enclosure.
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  A man stood awaiting us at the water's edge. I fancied, while
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  we were still far off that I saw some other and very grotesque looking creatures
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  scuttle into the bushes upon the slope, But I saw nothing of these as
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  we drew nearer. This man was of a moderate size and with a black
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  negroid face. He had a large, almost lipless mouth, extraordinary lank arms,
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  long thin feet and bow legs, and stood with his heavy face thrust
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  forward staring at us. He was dressed like Montgomery and his white head companion,
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  in jacket and trousers of blue surge. As we came still nearer,
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  this individual began to run to and fro on the beach, making the most
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  grotesque movements. At a word of command from Montgomery, the four men in
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  the launch sprang up and, with singularly awkward gestures, struck the lug.
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  Montgomery steered us round into a narrow little dock excavated into the beach. Then
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  the man on the beach hastened towards us. This dock, as I call
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  it, was really a mere ditch, just long enough at this phase of
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  the tide to take the long boat. I heard the boughs ground in the
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  sand, staved the dinghy off the rudder of the big boat with my piggin
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  and freeing the painter landed. The three muffled men, with the clumsiest movements,
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  scrambled out upon the sand and forthwith set to landing the cargo assisted by
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  the man on the beach. I was struck, especially by the curious movements
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  of the legs of the three swathed and bandaged boatmen. Not stiff they were,
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  but distorted in some odd way, almost as if they were jointed in
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  the wrong place. The dogs were still snarling and strained at their chains after
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  these men. As the white haired man landed with them, the three big
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  fellows spoke to one another in odd guttural tones, and the man who had
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  waited for us on the beach began chattering to them excitedly a foreign language.
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  As I fancied as they laid hands on some bales piled near the stern.
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  Somewhere I had heard such a voice before, and I could not think where.
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  The white haired man stood, holding in a tumult of six dogs and
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  bawling orders over their din. Montgomery, having unshipped the rudder, landed likewise,
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  and all set to work at unloading. I was too faint, what
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  with my long fast in the sun beating down on my bare head, to
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  offer any assistance. Presently, the white haired man seemed to recollect my presence
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  and came up to me. You look, said he, as though you
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  had scarcely pricked. His little eyes were a brilliant black under his heavy brows.
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  I must apologize for that. Now you are our guest. We must
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  make you comfortable, though you are uninvited, you know, he looked keenly
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  into my face. Montgomery says, you are an educated man. Mister Prindick
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  says, you know something of science. May I ask what that signifies?
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  I told him I had spent some years at the Royal College of Science and
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  had done some researches in biology under Huxley. He raised his eyebrows slightly at
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  that. That alters the case a little. Mister Prindick, he said,
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  with a trifle more respect in his manner. As it happens, we are
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  biologists here. This is a biological station of a sort. His eyes rested
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  on the men in white, who were easily hauling the puma on rollers towards
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  the walled yard Ay and Montgomery at least, he added, Then when you
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  will be able to get away, I can't say we are off the track
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  to anywhere. We see a ship once in a twelve month or so.
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  He left me abruptly and went up the beach past this group, and I
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  think entered the enclosure. The other two men were with Montgomery erecting a pile
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  of smaller packages on a low wheeled truck. The lama was still on the
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  launch with the rabbit hutches. The staghounds were still lashed to the thwarts.
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  The pile of things completed, all three men laid hold of the truck and
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  began shoving the ton weight or so upon it after the puma. Presently,
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  Montgomery left them, and, coming back to me, held out his hand.
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  I'm glad, said he for my own part. That captain w a
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  thilly asth he'd have made things lively for you. It was you, said
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  I that saved me again, that de pinthe you'll find this island an infirmly
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  rum plaith. I promise you I'd watch my goings carefully if I were you.
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  He he hesitated and seemed to alter his mind about what was on his
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  lips. I wish you'd help me with thee rabbits, he said. His
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  procedure with the rabbits was singular. I waded in with him and helped him
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  lug one of the hatches ashore. No sooner was that done than he opened
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  the door of it and tilting the thing on one end, turned its living
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  contents out on the ground. They fell in a struggling heap, one on
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  top of the other. He clapped his hands, and forthwith they went off
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  at that hopping of theirs, fifteen or twenty of them. I should think
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  up the beach in Greeth and multiply, my friend, said Montgomery, Replyneth
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  the island hitherto. We've had a certain lack of meat here. As I
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  watched them disappearing, the white haired man returned with a brandy flask and some
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  biscuits. Something to go on with, Priddock, said he in a far
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  more familiar tone than before. I made no ado, but set to work
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  on the biscuits at once, while the white haired man helped Montgomery to release
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  about a score more of the rabbits. Three big hutches, however, went
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  up to the house with the puma. The brandy I did not touch,
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  for I have been an abstainer from my berth