Latest / Adventure Books Collection / 12 - The Island of Dr Moreau - H G Wells
Transcript
- Twelve the sayers of the law. Then something cold touched my hand. I started violently and saw close to me a pinkish thing, looking more like a flayed child than anything else in the world. The creature had exactly the mild but repulsive features of a sloth, the same low forehead and slow gestures. As the first shock of the change of light passed, I saw about me more distinctly. The little slothlike creature was standing and staring at me. My conductor had vanished. The place was a narrow passage between high walls of lava, a crack in the knotted rock, and on either side, interwoven heaps of sea mat, palm, fans, and reeds leaning against the rock formed rough and impenetrably dark dens. The winding way up the ravine between these was scarcely three yards wide, and was disfigured by lumps of decaying fruit, pulp, and other refuse, which accounted for the disagreeable stench of the place. The little pink sloth creature was still blinking at me when my ape man reappeared at the aperture of the nearest of these dens and beckoned me in. As he did so a slouching monster wriggled out of one of the places further up this strange street, and stood up in featureless silhouette against the bright green beyond, staring at me. I hesitated, having half a mind to bolt the way I had come, and then determined to go through with the adventure. I gripped my nailed stick about the middle and crawled into the little, evil smelling lean to after my conductor. It was a semicircular space, shaped like the half of a bee hive, and against the rocky wall that formed the inner side of it was a pile of variegated fruits, cocoa nuts, among others. Some rough vessels of lava and wood stood about the floor, and one on a rough stool. There was no fire. In the darkest corner of the hut sat a shapeless mass of darkness that grunted hey as I came in, and my ape man stood in the dim light of the doorway and held out a split cocoanut to me. As I crawled into the other corner and squatted down, I took it and began gnawing it as serenely as possible, in spite of a certain trepidation and the nearly intolerable closeness of the den. The little pink sloth creature stood in the aperture of the hut, and something else with a drab face and bright eyes came staring over its shoulder. Hey came out of the lump of mystery opposite. It is a man. It is a man, gabbled my conductor. A man, a man, A five man like me. Shut up, said the voice from the dark, and grunted. I gnawed my cocoanut amid an impressive stillness. I peered hard into the blackness, but could distinguish nothing. It is a man, the voice repeated, he comes to live with us. It was a thick voice with something in it, a kind of whistling overtone that struck me as peculiar, but the English accent was strangely good. The ape man looked at me as though he expected something I perceived. The pause was interrogative. He comes to live with you, I said. It is a man. He must learn the law. I began to distinguish now a deeper blackness in the black, a vague outline of a hunched up figure. Then I noticed the opening of the place was darkened by two more black heads. My hand tightened on my stick. The thing in the dark repeated, in a louder tone, say the words I had missed. Its last remark, not to go on all fours, that is the law, it repeated, in a kind of sing song. I was puzzled. Say the word, said the ape man, repeating, and the figures in the doorway echoed this with a threat in the tone of their voices. I realized that I had to repeat this idiotic formula, and then began the insanest ceremony. The voice in the dark began intoning a mad litany, line by line, and I in the rest to repeat it. As they did so, they swayed from side to side in the oddest way, and beat their hands upon their knees, and I followed their example. I could have imagined I was already dead, and in another world, that dark hut, these grotesque dim figures just flecked here and there by a glimmer of light, and all of them swaying in unison, enchanting not to go on all fours? That is the law. Are we not men? Not to suck up drink? That is the law? Are we not men? Not to eat fish or flesh. That is the law. Are we not men? Not to claw the bark of trees? That is the law? Are we not men? Not to chase other men? That is the law? Are we not men? And so from the prohibition of these acts of folly on to the prohibition of what I thought then were the maddest, most impossible, and most indecent things one could well imagine, a kind of rhythmic fervor fell on all of us. We gabbled and swayed faster and faster, repeating this amazing law superficially. The contagion of these brutes was upon me, but deep down within me the laughter and disgust struggled together. We ran through a long list of prohibitions, and then the chance swung round to a new formula. His is the house of pain. His is the hand that makes, His is the hand that wounds, His is the hand that heals, and so on for another long series, mostly quite incomprehensible gibberish to me, about him, whoever he might be. I could have fancied it was a dream, But never before have I heard chanting in a dream. His is the lightning we flash, We sang is the deep salt sea. A horrible fancy came into my head. That moreau, after animalizing, these men had infected their dwarfed brains with a kind of deification of himself. However, I was too keenly aware of white teeth and strong claws about me to stop my chanting on that account. His are the stars in the sky. At last, that song hinded. I saw the ape man's face shining with perspiration, and my eyes, being now accustomed to the darkness, I saw more distinctly the figure in the corner from which the voice came. It was the size of a man, but it seemed covered with the dull gray hair, almost like a sky terrier. What was it? What were they all? Imagine yourself surrounded by all the most horrible cripple and maniacs. It is possible to conceive, and you may understand a little of my feelings. With these grotesque caricatures of humanity about me. Here's a five man, a five man, a five man like me, said the ape man. I held out my hands. The gray creature in the corner leant forward. Not two anon, all fours, that is the law. Are we not men? He said, He put out a strangely distorted talon and gripped my fingers. The thing was almost like the hoof of a deer produced into claws. I could have yelled with surprise and pain. His face came forward and peered at my nails, came forward into the light of the opening of the hut, and I saw, with a quivering disgust, that it was like the face of night, neither man nor beast, but a mere shock of gray hair, with three shadowy over archings to mark the eyes and mouth. He has little nails, said this grisly creature in his hairy beard. It is well. He threw my hand down, and instinctively I gripped my stick, heat roots and herbs. It is his will, said the ape man. I am the sayer of the law, said the gray figure. Here come all that be new to learn the law. I sit in the darkness and say the law. It is even so, said one of the beasts in the doorway. Evil are the punishments of those who break the law. None escape, None escape, said the beast folk, glancing furtively at one another. None none, said the ape man. None escape. See, I did a little thing, a wrong thing, wants a jabberd jabbert. Stop talking. None could understand. I am burnt branded in the hand. He is great, he is good. None escape, said the gray creature in the corner. None escape, said the beast. People looking askance at one another. For every one the want that is bad, said the gray sayer of the law. What you will want, we do not know. We shall know. Some want to follow things that move, to watch and slink and wait and spring, to kill and bite by deep and rich, sucking the blood. It is bad not to chase other men. That is the law. Are we not men? Not to eat flesh or fish? That is the law? Are we not men? None escape, said a dappled brute standing in the doorway. For every one the want is bad, said the gray sayer of the law. Some want to go tearing with teeth and hands into the roots of things, snuffing into the earth. It is bad. None escape, said the men in the door. Some go clawing trees, Some go scratching at the graves of the dead. Some go fighting with foreheads or feet or claws. Some bite suddenly, none giving occasion. Some love uncleanness. None escape, said the man scratching his calf none escape, said the little pink sloth creature. Punishment is sharp and sure. Therefore learn the law, say the words. And incontinently he began again the strange litany of the law. And again I and all these creatures began singing and swaying. My head reeled with this jabbering in the close stench of the place, But I kept on, trusting to find presently some chance of a new development. Not to go on all fours, that is the law. Are we not men? We were making such a noise that I noticed nothing of a tumult outside, until some one, who I think was one of the two swine men I had seen, thrust his head over the little pink sloth creature and shouted something excitedly, something that I did not catch. Incontinently, those at the opening of the hut vanished. My ape man rushed out. The thing that had sat in the dark followed him. I only observed that it was big and clumsy and covered with silvery hair, and I was left alone. Then, before I reached the aperture, I heard the yelp of a staghound. In another moment, I was standing outside the hovel, my chair rail in my hand, every muscle of me. Quivering before me were the clumsy backs of perhaps a score of these beast people, their misshapen heads half hidden by their shoulder blades. They were gesticulating excitedly. Other half animal faces glared interrogation out of their hovels, looking in the direction which they faced, I saw coming through the haze under the trees, beyond the end of the passage of Dens, the dark figure and a white face of Moreau. He was holding the leaping staghound back, and close behind him came Montgomery, revolver in hand. For a moment, I stood horror struck. I turned and saw the passage behind me blocked by another heavy brute with a huge gray face and twinkling little eyes, advancing towards me. I looked round and saw to the right of me, and a half dozen yards in front of me a narrow gap in the wall of rock, through which a ray of light slanted into the shadows. Stop, cried Moreau, as I strode towards this and then hold him at that. First one face turned towards me, and then others. The best your minds were happily slow. I dashed my shoulder into a clumsy monster, who was turning to see what Moreau meant, and flung him forward into another I felt his hands fly round, clutching at me and missing me. The little, pink slothe creature dashed at me, and I gashed down its ugly face with the nail in my stick, and in another minute was scrambling up a steep side of pathway, a kind of sloping chimney out of the ravine. I heard howl behind me and cries of catch him, hold him, and the gray faced creature peered behind me and jammed his huge bulk into the cleft. Go On, go on, they howled. I clambered up the narrow cleft in the rock and came out upon the sulfur on the westward side of the village of the beast Men. That gap was altogether fortunate for me, for the narrow chimney slanting obliquely upward must have impeded the nearer pursuers. I ran over the white space and down a steep slope through a scattered growth of trees, and came to a low lying stretch of tall reeds, through which I pushed into a dark, thick undergrowth that was black and succulent under foot. As I plunged into the reeds, my foremost pursuers emerged from the gap. I broke my way through this undergrowth for some minutes. The air behind me and about me was soon full of threatening cries. I heard the tumult of my pursuers in the gap up the slope, then the crashing of the reeds, and every now and then the crackling crash of a branch. Some of the creatures roared like excited beasts of prey. The staghound yelped to the left. I heard Moreau and Montgomery shouting in the same direction. I turned sharply to the right. It seemed to me even then that I heard Montgomery shouting for me to run for my life. Presently the ground gave rich and oozy under my feet, but I was desperate and went headlong into struggled through knee deep, and so came to a winding path among tall canes. The noise of my pursuers passed away to my left. In one place, three strange pink hopping animals about the size of cats, bolted before my footsteps. This pathway ran up hill across another open space covered with white incrustation and plunged into a cane brake again. Then suddenly it turned parallel with the edge of a steep walled gap, which came without warning like a ha ha of an English park, turned with an unexpected abruptness. I was still running with all my might, and I never saw this drop until I was flying headlong through the air. I fell on my forearms and head among thorns, and rose with a torn ear and bleeding face. I had fallen into a precipitous ravine, rocky and thorny, full of a hazy mist, which drifted about me in wisps, and with a narrow streamlet from which this mist came meandering down the ciner. I was astonished at this thin fog in the full blaze of daylight, but I had no time to stand wandering. Then I turned to my right down stream, hoping to come to the sea in that direction and so have my way open to drown myself. It was only later I found that I had dropped my nail stick in my fall. Presently, the ravine grew narrower for a space, and carelessly I stepped into the stream. I jumped out again pretty quickly for the water was almost boiling. I noticed too, there was a thin, sulfurous scum drifting upon its coiling water. Almost immediately came a turn in the ravine, and the indistinct blue horizon the nearer sea was flashing the sun from a myriad facets. I saw my death before me, but I was hot and panting, with the warm blood oozing out on my face and running pleasantly through my veins. I felt more than a touch of exultation too, at having distanced my pursuers. It was not in me then to go out and drown myself. Yet I stared back the way I had come. I listened, save for the hum of the gnats and the chirp of some small insects that hopped among the thorns, the air was absolutely still. Then came the yelp of a dog, very faint, and a chattering and gibbering, the snap of a whip, and voices. They grew louder, then fainter again. The noise receded the stream and faded away. For a while. The chase was over, But I knew now how much hope of help for me lay in the beast people