Latest / Adventure Books Library / 06 - The Island of Dr Moreau - H G Wells

Transcript

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

• 0:00
  Six the evil looking boatmen, but the islanders, seeing that I was really
• 0:08
  adrift, took pity on me. I drifted very slowly to the eastward,
• 0:13
  approaching the island slantingly, and presently I saw with hysterical relief, the launch
• 0:20
  come round and return towards me. She was heavily laden, and I could
• 0:25
  make out as she drew nearer Montgomery's white haired, broad shouldered companion sitting cramped
• 0:30
  up with the dogs in several packing cases in the stern sheets. This individual
• 0:36
  stared fixedly at me, without moving or speaking. The black faced cripple was
• 0:42
  glaring at me as fixedly. In the boughs near the puma, there were
• 0:47
  three other men, besides three strange, brutish looking fellows, at whom the
• 0:52
  stag hounds were snarling savagely. Montgomery, who was steering, brought the boat
• 0:58
  by me, and rising caught and fastened my painter to the tiller to tow
• 1:03
  me, for there was no room aboard. I had recovered from my hysterical
• 1:07
  phase by this time, and answered his hail as he approached. Bravely enough.
• 1:14
  I told him that Dinghy was nearly swamped, and he reached me a
• 1:17
  pigan I was jerked back as the rope tightened between the boats. For some
• 1:22
  time I was busy baling. It was not until I had got the water
• 1:27
  under for the water and the dinghy had been shipped the boat was perfectly sound,
• 1:34
  that I had leisure to look at the people in the launch again.
• 1:38
  The white haired man I found was still regarding me steadfastly, but with an
• 1:42
  expression as I now fancied, of some perplexity. When my eyes met his,
• 1:49
  he looked down at the staghound that sat between his knees. He was
• 1:55
  a powerfully built man, as I have said, with a fine forehead and
• 1:59
  rap the heavy features. But his eyes had that odd drooping of the skin
• 2:05
  above the lids which often comes with advancing years, and the fall of his
• 2:08
  mouth at the corners gave him an expression of pugnacious resolution. He talked to
• 2:15
  Montgomery in a tone too low for me to hear from him. My eyes
• 2:21
  traveled to his three men and a strange crew they were. I saw only
• 2:27
  their faces, Yet there was something in their faces I knew not what.
• 2:31
  That gave me a queer spasm of disgust. I looked steadily at them,
• 2:38
  and the impression did not pass, though I failed to see what had occasioned
• 2:43
  it. They seemed to me then to be brown men, but their limbs
• 2:47
  were oddly swathed in some thin, dirty white stuff down even to the fingers
• 2:53
  and feet. I have never seen men so wrapped up a four and women
• 2:58
  so only in the East. They wore turbans, too, and thereunder peered
• 3:04
  out their elfin faces at me, faces with protruding lower jaws and bright eyes.
• 3:12
  They had lank black hair, almost like horse hair, and seemed,
• 3:16
  as they sat, to exceed in stature any race of men I have seen.
• 3:22
  The white haired man, whom I knew was a good six feet in
• 3:24
  height, sat a head below any one of the three. I found afterwards
• 3:30
  that really none were taller than myself. But their bodies were abnormally long,
• 3:36
  and the thigh part of the leg short and curiously twisted. At any rate,
• 3:42
  they were an amazingly ugly gang. And over the heads of them,
• 3:46
  under the forward lug peered the black face of the man, whose eyes were
• 3:51
  luminous in the dark. As I stared at them, they met my gaze,
• 3:57
  and then first one and then another turned away from my direct stair and
• 4:01
  looked at me in an odd, furtive manner. It occurred to me that
• 4:08
  I was perhaps annoying them, and I turned my attention to the island we
• 4:12
  were approaching. It was low and covered with vegetation, chiefly a kind of
• 4:18
  palm that was new to me. From one point, a thin white thread
• 4:24
  of vapor rose slantingly to an immense height, and then frayed out like a
• 4:28
  down feather. We were now within the embrace of a broad bay, flanked
• 4:32
  on either hand by a low promontory. The beach was of dull gray sand
• 4:38
  and sloped steeply up to a ridge perhaps sixty or seventy feet above the sea
• 4:43
  level, and regularly set with trees and undergrowth. Half Way up was a
• 4:48
  square enclosure of some grayish stone, which I found subsequently was built partly of
• 4:55
  coral and partly of pumicious lava. Two thatched roofs heaped from within this enclosure.
• 5:02
  A man stood awaiting us at the water's edge. I fancied, while
• 5:08
  we were still far off that I saw some other and very grotesque looking creatures
• 5:13
  scuttle into the bushes upon the slope, But I saw nothing of these as
• 5:16
  we drew nearer. This man was of a moderate size and with a black
• 5:23
  negroid face. He had a large, almost lipless mouth, extraordinary lank arms,
• 5:29
  long thin feet and bow legs, and stood with his heavy face thrust
• 5:33
  forward staring at us. He was dressed like Montgomery and his white head companion,
• 5:40
  in jacket and trousers of blue surge. As we came still nearer,
• 5:46
  this individual began to run to and fro on the beach, making the most
• 5:49
  grotesque movements. At a word of command from Montgomery, the four men in
• 5:55
  the launch sprang up and, with singularly awkward gestures, struck the lug.
• 6:00
  Montgomery steered us round into a narrow little dock excavated into the beach. Then
• 6:06
  the man on the beach hastened towards us. This dock, as I call
• 6:11
  it, was really a mere ditch, just long enough at this phase of
• 6:14
  the tide to take the long boat. I heard the boughs ground in the
• 6:18
  sand, staved the dinghy off the rudder of the big boat with my piggin
• 6:23
  and freeing the painter landed. The three muffled men, with the clumsiest movements,
• 6:29
  scrambled out upon the sand and forthwith set to landing the cargo assisted by
• 6:33
  the man on the beach. I was struck, especially by the curious movements
• 6:39
  of the legs of the three swathed and bandaged boatmen. Not stiff they were,
• 6:45
  but distorted in some odd way, almost as if they were jointed in
• 6:50
  the wrong place. The dogs were still snarling and strained at their chains after
• 6:57
  these men. As the white haired man landed with them, the three big
• 7:01
  fellows spoke to one another in odd guttural tones, and the man who had
• 7:06
  waited for us on the beach began chattering to them excitedly a foreign language.
• 7:12
  As I fancied as they laid hands on some bales piled near the stern.
• 7:18
  Somewhere I had heard such a voice before, and I could not think where.
• 7:24
  The white haired man stood, holding in a tumult of six dogs and
• 7:29
  bawling orders over their din. Montgomery, having unshipped the rudder, landed likewise,
• 7:35
  and all set to work at unloading. I was too faint, what
• 7:41
  with my long fast in the sun beating down on my bare head, to
• 7:46
  offer any assistance. Presently, the white haired man seemed to recollect my presence
• 7:53
  and came up to me. You look, said he, as though you
• 7:59
  had scarcely pricked. His little eyes were a brilliant black under his heavy brows.
• 8:05
  I must apologize for that. Now you are our guest. We must
• 8:11
  make you comfortable, though you are uninvited, you know, he looked keenly
• 8:18
  into my face. Montgomery says, you are an educated man. Mister Prindick
• 8:24
  says, you know something of science. May I ask what that signifies?
• 8:30
  I told him I had spent some years at the Royal College of Science and
• 8:33
  had done some researches in biology under Huxley. He raised his eyebrows slightly at
• 8:39
  that. That alters the case a little. Mister Prindick, he said,
• 8:45
  with a trifle more respect in his manner. As it happens, we are
• 8:50
  biologists here. This is a biological station of a sort. His eyes rested
• 8:58
  on the men in white, who were easily hauling the puma on rollers towards
• 9:03
  the walled yard Ay and Montgomery at least, he added, Then when you
• 9:11
  will be able to get away, I can't say we are off the track
• 9:16
  to anywhere. We see a ship once in a twelve month or so.
• 9:22
  He left me abruptly and went up the beach past this group, and I
• 9:26
  think entered the enclosure. The other two men were with Montgomery erecting a pile
• 9:31
  of smaller packages on a low wheeled truck. The lama was still on the
• 9:37
  launch with the rabbit hutches. The staghounds were still lashed to the thwarts.
• 9:41
  The pile of things completed, all three men laid hold of the truck and
• 9:46
  began shoving the ton weight or so upon it after the puma. Presently,
• 9:52
  Montgomery left them, and, coming back to me, held out his hand.
• 9:56
  I'm glad, said he for my own part. That captain w a
• 10:03
  thilly asth he'd have made things lively for you. It was you, said
• 10:09
  I that saved me again, that de pinthe you'll find this island an infirmly
• 10:18
  rum plaith. I promise you I'd watch my goings carefully if I were you.
• 10:24
  He he hesitated and seemed to alter his mind about what was on his
• 10:28
  lips. I wish you'd help me with thee rabbits, he said. His
• 10:37
  procedure with the rabbits was singular. I waded in with him and helped him
• 10:41
  lug one of the hatches ashore. No sooner was that done than he opened
• 10:45
  the door of it and tilting the thing on one end, turned its living
• 10:48
  contents out on the ground. They fell in a struggling heap, one on
• 10:54
  top of the other. He clapped his hands, and forthwith they went off
• 10:58
  at that hopping of theirs, fifteen or twenty of them. I should think
• 11:03
  up the beach in Greeth and multiply, my friend, said Montgomery, Replyneth
• 11:09
  the island hitherto. We've had a certain lack of meat here. As I
• 11:16
  watched them disappearing, the white haired man returned with a brandy flask and some
• 11:20
  biscuits. Something to go on with, Priddock, said he in a far
• 11:26
  more familiar tone than before. I made no ado, but set to work
• 11:33
  on the biscuits at once, while the white haired man helped Montgomery to release
• 11:37
  about a score more of the rabbits. Three big hutches, however, went
• 11:43
  up to the house with the puma. The brandy I did not touch,
• 11:48
  for I have been an abstainer from my berth