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18 - The Island of Dr Moreau - H G Wells · Adventure Books Collection

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  Eighteen, The finding of Moreau. When I saw Montgomery swallow a third dose
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  of brandy, I took it upon myself to interfere. It was already more
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  than half fuddled. I told him that some serious thing must have happened to
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  Moreau by this time, or he would have returned before this, and that
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  it behooved us to ascertain what that catastrophe was. Montgomery raised some feeble objections,
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  and at last agreed. We had some food, and then all three
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  of us started. It is possibly due to the tension of my mind at
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  the time, but even now that start into the hot stillness of the tropical
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  afternoon is a singularly vivid expression. Imling went first, his shoulder hunched,
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  his strange black head, moving with quick starts as he peered, first on
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  this side of the way and then on that. He was unarmed his axe
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  he had dropped when he encountered the swine men. Teeth were his weapons when
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  it came to fighting. Montgomery followed with stumbling footsteps, his hands in his
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  pockets, his face downcast. He was in a state of muddled sullenness.
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  With me, on account of the brandy. My left arm was in a
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  sling. It was lucky. It was my left and I carried my revolver
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  in my right. Soon we traced a narrow path through the wild luxuriance of
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  the island, going northwestward, and presently Amling stopped and became rigid with watchfulness.
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  Montgomery almost staggered into him, and then stopped too. Then, listening
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  intently, we heard coming through the trees the sound of voices and footsteps approaching
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  us. He is dead, said a deep vibrating voice. He is not
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  dead. He is not dead, jabbered another. We saw, we saw,
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  said several voices. Hello, suddenly shouted Montgomery. HALLO, there,
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  confound you, said I and gripped my pistol. There was a silence,
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  then a crashing among the interlacing vegetation, first here, then there, and
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  then half a dozen faces appeared, strange faces lit by a strange light.
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  Imling made a growling noise in his throat. I recognized the ape man,
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  I had indeed already identified his voice, and two of the white swathed,
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  brown featured creatures I had seen in Montgomery's boat with These were the two dappled
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  brutes and that gray, horribly crooked creature who said the law, with his
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  gray hair streaming down its cheeks, heavy gray eyebrows, and gray locks pouring
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  off from a central parting upon its sloping forehead. A heavy, faceless thing
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  with strange red eyes looking at us curiously from amidst the green For a space,
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  no one spoke. Then Montgomery hiccoughed, who said he worth dead?
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  The monkey man looked guiltily at the hairy gray thing. He is dead,
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  said this monster. They saw there was nothing threatening about this detachment at any
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  rate. They seemed awe stricken and puzzled. Whereth he said Montgomery beyond?
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  And the gray creature pointed. Is there a law? Now? Asked the
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  monkey man. Is it still to be this? And that? Is he
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  dead? Indeed? Is there a law? Repeated the man in white.
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  Is there a law? Thou Weather with the whip? He is dead,
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  said the hairy gray thing. And they all stood watching us. Prindic,
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  said Montgomery, turning his dull eyes to me. He dead. Evidently I
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  had been standing behind him during this colloquy. I began to see how things
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  lay with them. I suddenly stepped in front of Montgomery and lifted up my
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  voice. Children of the Law, I said, he is not dead,
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  imling turned his sharp eyes on me. He has changed his shape, he
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  has changed his body. I went on for a time. You will not
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  see him. He is there, I pointed upward, where he can watch
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  you. You cannot see him, but he can see you. Fear the
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  law. I looked at them squarely. They flinched. He is great,
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  he is good, said the ape man, peering fearfully upward among the dense
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  trees. And the other thing, I demanded, the thing that bled and
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  ran, screaming and sobbing. That is dead too, said the gray thing,
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  still regarding me. That's well, grunted Montgomery. The other with the
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  whip began. The gray thing well said, I said he was dead.
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  But Montgomery was still sober enough to understand my motive in denying Moreau's death.
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  He is not dead, he said, slowly, not dead at all,
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  no more dead than I am. Some said I have broken the law.
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  They will die. Some have died. Show us now where his old body
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  lies, the body he cast away because he had no more need of it.
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  It is this way man who walked in the sea, said the gray
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  thing, And with these six creatures guiding us, we went through the tumult
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  of ferns and creepers and tree stems towards the northwest. Then came a yelling,
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  a crashing among the branches, and a little pink harmunculus rushed by us,
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  shrieking. Immediately after appeared a monster in headlong pursuit. Blood bedabbled who
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  was amongst us. Almost before he could stop his career, the gray thing
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  leaped aside Imling with a snarl, flew at it, and was struck aside.
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  Montgomery fired and missed, bowed his head, threw up his arm,
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  and turned to run. I fired, and the thing still came on.
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  Fired again, point blank into its ugly face. I saw its features vanish
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  in a flash. Its face was driven in yet it passed me, gripped
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  Montgomery, and holding him, fell headlong beside him, and pulled him,
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  sprawling upon itself in its death agony. I found myself alone with him ling,
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  the dead brute and the prostrate man. Montgomery raised himself slowly and stared
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  in a muddled way at the shattered beast man beside him. It more than
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  half sobered him. He scrambled to his feet. Than I saw the gray
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  thing returning cautiously through the trees, see, said I, pointing to the
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  dead brute. Is the law not alive? This came of breaking the law.
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  He peered at his body. He sends the fire that kills, said
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  he in his deep voice, repeating part of the ritual. The others gathered
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  round and stared for a space. At last we drew near the westward extremity
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  of the island. We came upon the nod and mutilated body of the puma,
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  its shoulder bone smashed by a bullet, and perhaps twenty yards farther found
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  at last what we sought. Moreau lay face downward in a trampled space in
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  a cane brake. One hand was almost severed at the wrist, and his
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  silvery hair dabbled in blood. His head had been battered in by the fetters
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  of the puma. The broken canes beneath him were smeared with blood. His
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  revolver could not be found. Montgomery turned him over, resting at intervals,
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  and with the help of the seven beast people, for he was a heavy
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  man, we carried Moreau back to the enclosure. The night was darkling.
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  Twice we heard unseen creatures howling and shrieking past our little band, and once
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  the little pink sloth creature appeared and stared at us, and vanished again,
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  but we were not attacked again. At the gates of the enclosure, our
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  company of beast people left us imbling, going with the rest. We locked
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  ourselves in, and then took Moreau's mangled body into the yard and laid it
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  upon a pile of brushwood. Then we went into the laboratory and put an
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  end to all we found living there.