The Island of Doctor Moreau - H. G. Wells (little readers txt) 📗

like quarrelling, and a sudden wild shriek.

The quality of the sounds changed so greatly that it arrested

my attention. I went out into the yard and listened.

Then cutting like a knife across the confusion came the crack of

a revolver.

 

I rushed at once through my room to the little doorway.

As I did so I heard some of the packing-cases behind me go sliding down

and smash together with a clatter of glass on the floor of the shed.

But I did not heed these. I flung the door open and looked out.

 

Up the beach by the boathouse a bonfire was burning, raining up

sparks into the indistinctness of the dawn. Around this struggled

a mass of black figures. I heard Montgomery call my name.

I began to run at once towards this fire, revolver in hand. I saw the pink

tongue of Montgomery’s pistol lick out once, close to the ground.

He was down. I shouted with all my strength and fired into the air.

I heard some one cry, “The Master!” The knotted black struggle

broke into scattering units, the fire leapt and sank down.

The crowd of Beast People fled in sudden panic before me, up the beach.

In my excitement I fired at their retreating backs as they

disappeared among the bushes. Then I turned to the black heaps upon

the ground.

 

Montgomery lay on his back, with the hairy-grey Beast-man

sprawling across his body. The brute was dead, but still

gripping Montgomery’s throat with its curving claws.

Near by lay M’ling on his face and quite still, his neck bitten

open and the upper part of the smashed brandy-bottle in his hand.

Two other figures lay near the fire,—the one motionless, the other

groaning fitfully, every now and then raising its head slowly,

then dropping it again.

 

I caught hold of the grey man and pulled him off Montgomery’s body;

his claws drew down the torn coat reluctantly as I dragged him away.

Montgomery was dark in the face and scarcely breathing. I splashed

sea-water on his face and pillowed his head on my rolled-up coat.

M’ling was dead. The wounded creature by the fire—it was a Wolf-brute

with a bearded grey face—lay, I found, with the fore part of its

body upon the still glowing timber. The wretched thing was injured

so dreadfully that in mercy I blew its brains out at once.

The other brute was one of the Bull-men swathed in white.

He too was dead. The rest of the Beast People had vanished from

the beach.

 

I went to Montgomery again and knelt beside him, cursing my ignorance

of medicine. The fire beside me had sunk down, and only charred

beams of timber glowing at the central ends and mixed with a grey

ash of brushwood remained. I wondered casually where Montgomery

had got his wood. Then I saw that the dawn was upon us.

The sky had grown brighter, the setting moon was becoming pale

and opaque in the luminous blue of the day. The sky to the eastward

was rimmed with red.

 

Suddenly I heard a thud and a hissing behind me, and, looking round,

sprang to my feet with a cry of horror. Against the warm dawn

great tumultuous masses of black smoke were boiling up out of

the enclosure, and through their stormy darkness shot flickering

threads of blood-red flame. Then the thatched roof caught.

I saw the curving charge of the flames across the sloping straw.

A spurt of fire jetted from the window of my room.

 

I knew at once what had happened. I remembered the crash I had heard.

When I had rushed out to Montgomery’s assistance, I had overturned

the lamp.

 

The hopelessness of saving any of the contents of the enclosure

stared me in the face. My mind came back to my plan of flight,

and turning swiftly I looked to see where the two boats lay upon

the beach. They were gone! Two axes lay upon the sands beside me;

chips and splinters were scattered broadcast, and the ashes

of the bonfire were blackening and smoking under the dawn.

Montgomery had burnt the boats to revenge himself upon me and prevent our

return to mankind!

 

A sudden convulsion of rage shook me. I was almost moved to batter

his foolish head in, as he lay there helpless at my feet.

Then suddenly his hand moved, so feebly, so pitifully, that my

wrath vanished. He groaned, and opened his eyes for a minute.

I knelt down beside him and raised his head. He opened his

eyes again, staring silently at the dawn, and then they met mine.

The lids fell.

 

“Sorry,” he said presently, with an effort. He seemed trying to think.

“The last,” he murmured, “the last of this silly universe.

What a mess—”

 

I listened. His head fell helplessly to one side. I thought some drink

might revive him; but there was neither drink nor vessel in which to

bring drink at hand. He seemed suddenly heavier. My heart went cold.

I bent down to his face, put my hand through the rent in his blouse.

He was dead; and even as he died a line of white heat, the limb

of the sun, rose eastward beyond the projection of the bay,

splashing its radiance across the sky and turning the dark sea into

a weltering tumult of dazzling light. It fell like a glory upon his

death-shrunken face.

 

I let his head fall gently upon the rough pillow I had made for him,

and stood up. Before me was the glittering desolation of the sea,

the awful solitude upon which I had already suffered so much; behind me

the island, hushed under the dawn, its Beast People silent and unseen.

The enclosure, with all its provisions and ammunition, burnt noisily,

with sudden gusts of flame, a fitful crackling, and now and then a crash.

The heavy smoke drove up the beach away from me, rolling low

over the distant tree-tops towards the huts in the ravine.

Beside me were the charred vestiges of the boats and these four

dead bodies.

 

Then out of the bushes came three Beast People, with hunched shoulders,

protruding heads, misshapen hands awkwardly held, and inquisitive,

unfriendly eyes and advanced towards me with hesitating gestures.

 

XX. ALONE WITH THE BEAST FOLK.

 

I FACED these people, facing my fate in them, single-handed now,—

literally single-handed, for I had a broken arm. In my pocket was

a revolver with two empty chambers. Among the chips scattered about

the beach lay the two axes that had been used to chop up the boats.

The tide was creeping in behind me. There was nothing for it but courage.

I looked squarely into the faces of the advancing monsters.

They avoided my eyes, and their quivering nostrils investigated

the bodies that lay beyond me on the beach. I took half-a-dozen steps,

picked up the blood-stained whip that lay beneath the body

of the Wolf-man, and cracked it. They stopped and stared

at me.

 

“Salute!” said I. “Bow down!”

 

They hesitated. One bent his knees. I repeated my command,

with my heart in my mouth, and advanced upon them. One knelt,

then the other two.

 

I turned and walked towards the dead bodies, keeping my face

towards the three kneeling Beast Men, very much as an actor passing

up the stage faces the audience.

 

“They broke the Law,” said I, putting my foot on the Sayer of the Law.

“They have been slain,—even the Sayer of the Law; even the Other with

the Whip. Great is the Law! Come and see.”

 

“None escape,” said one of them, advancing and peering.

 

“None escape,” said I. “Therefore hear and do as I command.”

They stood up, looking questioningly at one another.

 

“Stand there,” said I.

 

I picked up the hatchets and swung them by their heads from

the sling of my arm; turned Montgomery over; picked up his revolver

still loaded in two chambers, and bending down to rummage,

found half-a-dozen cartridges in his pocket.

 

“Take him,” said I, standing up again and pointing with the whip;

“take him, and carry him out and cast him into the sea.”

 

They came forward, evidently still afraid of Montgomery,

but still more afraid of my cracking red whip-lash; and after

some fumbling and hesitation, some whip-cracking and shouting,

they lifted him gingerly, carried him down to the beach, and went

splashing into the dazzling welter of the sea.

 

“On!” said I, “on! Carry him far.”

 

They went in up to their armpits and stood regarding me.

 

“Let go,” said I; and the body of Montgomery vanished with a splash.

Something seemed to tighten across my chest.

 

“Good!” said I, with a break in my voice; and they came back,

hurrying and fearful, to the margin of the water, leaving long

wakes of black in the silver. At the water’s edge they stopped,

turning and glaring into the sea as though they presently expected

Montgomery to arise therefrom and exact vengeance.

 

“Now these,” said I, pointing to the other bodies.

 

They took care not to approach the place where they had thrown

Montgomery into the water, but instead, carried the four dead

Beast People slantingly along the beach for perhaps a hundred

yards before they waded out and cast them away.

 

As I watched them disposing of the mangled remains of M’ling, I

heard a light footfall behind me, and turning quickly saw the big

Hyena-swine perhaps a dozen yards away. His head was bent down,

his bright eyes were fixed upon me, his stumpy hands clenched

and held close by his side. He stopped in this crouching attitude

when I turned, his eyes a little averted.

 

For a moment we stood eye to eye. I dropped the whip and snatched

at the pistol in my pocket; for I meant to kill this brute, the most

formidable of any left now upon the island, at the first excuse.

It may seem treacherous, but so I was resolved. I was far

more afraid of him than of any other two of the Beast Folk.

His continued life was I knew a threat against mine.

 

I was perhaps a dozen seconds collecting myself. Then cried I, “Salute!

Bow down!”

 

His teeth flashed upon me in a snarl. “Who are you that I should—”

 

Perhaps a little too spasmodically I drew my revolver, aimed quickly

and fired. I heard him yelp, saw him run sideways and turn, knew I

had missed, and clicked back the cock with my thumb for the next shot.

But he was already running headlong, jumping from side to side,

and I dared not risk another miss. Every now and then he looked

back at me over his shoulder. He went slanting along the beach,

and vanished beneath the driving masses of dense smoke that were

still pouring out from the burning enclosure. For some time I

stood staring after him. I turned to my three obedient Beast Folk

again and signalled them to drop the body they still carried.

Then I went back to the place by the fire where the bodies had fallen

and kicked the sand until all the brown blood-stains were absorbed

and hidden.

 

I dismissed my three serfs with a wave of the hand, and went up

the beach into the thickets. I carried my pistol in my hand,

my whip thrust with the hatchets in the sling of my arm.

I was anxious to be alone, to think out the position in which I

was now placed. A dreadful thing that I was only beginning

to realise was, that over all this island there was now no safe

place where I could be alone and secure to rest