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

or sleep.

I had recovered strength amazingly since my landing, but I was still

inclined to be nervous and to break down under any great stress.

I felt that I ought to cross the island and establish myself

with the Beast People, and make myself secure in their confidence.

But my heart failed me. I went back to the beach, and turning

eastward past the burning enclosure, made for a point where a shallow

spit of coral sand ran out towards the reef. Here I could sit down

and think, my back to the sea and my face against any surprise.

And there I sat, chin on knees, the sun beating down upon my head

and unspeakable dread in my mind, plotting how I could live on against

the hour of my rescue (if ever rescue came). I tried to review the whole

situation as calmly as I could, but it was difficult to clear the thing

of emotion.

 

I began turning over in my mind the reason of Montgomery’s despair.

“They will change,” he said; “they are sure to change.” And Moreau,

what was it that Moreau had said? “The stubborn beast-flesh grows

day by day back again.” Then I came round to the Hyena-swine. I

felt sure that if I did not kill that brute, he would kill me.

The Sayer of the Law was dead: worse luck. They knew now that we

of the Whips could be killed even as they themselves were killed.

Were they peering at me already out of the green masses of ferns

and palms over yonder, watching until I came within their spring?

Were they plotting against me? What was the Hyena-swine telling them?

My imagination was running away with me into a morass of unsubstantial

fears.

 

My thoughts were disturbed by a crying of sea-birds hurrying

towards some black object that had been stranded by the waves

on the beach near the enclosure. I knew what that object was,

but I had not the heart to go back and drive them off.

I began walking along the beach in the opposite direction,

designing to come round the eastward corner of the island and so

approach the ravine of the huts, without traversing the possible

ambuscades of the thickets.

 

Perhaps half a mile along the beach I became aware of one of my three

Beast Folk advancing out of the landward bushes towards me. I was now

so nervous with my own imaginings that I immediately drew my revolver.

Even the propitiatory gestures of the creature failed to disarm me.

He hesitated as he approached.

 

“Go away!” cried I.

 

There was something very suggestive of a dog in the cringing attitude

of the creature. It retreated a little way, very like a dog being

sent home, and stopped, looking at me imploringly with canine

brown eyes.

 

“Go away,” said I. “Do not come near me.”

 

“May I not come near you?” it said.

 

“No; go away,” I insisted, and snapped my whip. Then putting

my whip in my teeth, I stooped for a stone, and with that threat

drove the creature away.

 

So in solitude I came round by the ravine of the Beast People,

and hiding among the weeds and reeds that separated this

crevice from the sea I watched such of them as appeared,

trying to judge from their gestures and appearance how the death

of Moreau and Montgomery and the destruction of the House of Pain

had affected them. I know now the folly of my cowardice.

Had I kept my courage up to the level of the dawn, had I not

allowed it to ebb away in solitary thought, I might have grasped

the vacant sceptre of Moreau and ruled over the Beast People.

As it was I lost the opportunity, and sank to the position of a mere

leader among my fellows.

 

Towards noon certain of them came and squatted basking in the hot sand.

The imperious voices of hunger and thirst prevailed over my dread.

I came out of the bushes, and, revolver in hand, walked down towards

these seated figures. One, a Wolf-woman, turned her head and stared

at me, and then the others. None attempted to rise or salute me.

I felt too faint and weary to insist, and I let the moment pass.

 

“I want food,” said I, almost apologetically, and drawing near.

 

“There is food in the huts,” said an Ox-boar-man, drowsily,

and looking away from me.

 

I passed them, and went down into the shadow and odours of the almost

deserted ravine. In an empty hut I feasted on some specked

and half-decayed fruit; and then after I had propped some branches

and sticks about the opening, and placed myself with my face

towards it and my hand upon my revolver, the exhaustion of the last

thirty hours claimed its own, and I fell into a light slumber,

hoping that the flimsy barricade I had erected would cause

sufficient noise in its removal to save me from surprise.

 

XXI. THE REVERSION OF THE BEAST FOLK.

 

IN this way I became one among the Beast People in the Island

of Doctor Moreau. When I awoke, it was dark about me. My arm ached

in its bandages. I sat up, wondering at first where I might be.

I heard coarse voices talking outside. Then I saw that my

barricade had gone, and that the opening of the hut stood clear.

My revolver was still in my hand.

 

I heard something breathing, saw something crouched together

close beside me. I held my breath, trying to see what it was.

It began to move slowly, interminably. Then something soft and warm

and moist passed across my hand. All my muscles contracted. I snatched

my hand away. A cry of alarm began and was stifled in my throat.

Then I just realised what had happened sufficiently to stay my fingers on

the revolver.

 

“Who is that?” I said in a hoarse whisper, the revolver still pointed.

 

“I—Master.”

 

“Who are you?”

 

“They say there is no Master now. But I know, I know. I carried the

bodies into the sea, O Walker in the Sea! the bodies of those you slew.

I am your slave, Master.”

 

“Are you the one I met on the beach?” I asked.

 

“The same, Master.”

 

The Thing was evidently faithful enough, for it might have fallen

upon me as I slept. “It is well,” I said, extending my hand for

another licking kiss. I began to realise what its presence meant,

and the tide of my courage flowed. “Where are the others?”

I asked.

 

“They are mad; they are fools,” said the Dog-man. “Even now they

talk together beyond there. They say, `The Master is dead.

The Other with the Whip is dead. That Other who walked in the Sea is

as we are. We have no Master, no Whips, no House of Pain, any more.

There is an end. We love the Law, and will keep it; but there

is no Pain, no Master, no Whips for ever again.’ So they say.

But I know, Master, I know.”

 

I felt in the darkness, and patted the Dog-man’s head. “It is well,”

I said again.

 

“Presently you will slay them all,” said the Dog-man.

 

“Presently,” I answered, “I will slay them all,—after certain

days and certain things have come to pass. Every one of them save

those you spare, every one of them shall be slain.”

 

“What the Master wishes to kill, the Master kills,” said the Dog-man

with a certain satisfaction in his voice.

 

“And that their sins may grow,” I said, “let them live in their folly

until their time is ripe. Let them not know that I am the Master.”

 

“The Master’s will is sweet,” said the Dog-man, with the ready tact

of his canine blood.

 

“But one has sinned,” said I. “Him I will kill, whenever I may meet him.

When I say to you, `That is he,’ see that you fall upon him.

And now I will go to the men and women who are assembled together.”

 

For a moment the opening of the hut was blackened by the exit of

the Dog-man. Then I followed and stood up, almost in the exact spot

where I had been when I had heard Moreau and his staghound pursuing me.

But now it was night, and all the miasmatic ravine about me was black;

and beyond, instead of a green, sunlit slope, I saw a red fire,

before which hunched, grotesque figures moved to and fro.

Farther were the thick trees, a bank of darkness, fringed above

with the black lace of the upper branches. The moon was just riding

up on the edge of the ravine, and like a bar across its face drove

the spire of vapour that was for ever streaming from the fumaroles of

the island.

 

“Walk by me,” said I, nerving myself; and side by side we walked

down the narrow way, taking little heed of the dim Things that peered

at us out of the huts.

 

None about the fire attempted to salute me. Most of them

disregarded me, ostentatiously. I looked round for the Hyena-swine,

but he was not there. Altogether, perhaps twenty of the Beast

Folk squatted, staring into the fire or talking to one another.

 

“He is dead, he is dead! the Master is dead!” said the voice

of the Ape-man to the right of me. “The House of Pain—

there is no House of Pain!”

 

“He is not dead,” said I, in a loud voice. “Even now he watches us!”

 

This startled them. Twenty pairs of eyes regarded me.

 

“The House of Pain is gone,” said I. “It will come again.

The Master you cannot see; yet even now he listens among you.”

 

“True, true!” said the Dog-man.

 

They were staggered at my assurance. An animal may be ferocious

and cunning enough, but it takes a real man to tell a lie.

 

“The Man with the Bandaged Arm speaks a strange thing,”

said one of the Beast Folk.

 

“I tell you it is so,” I said. “The Master and the House of Pain

will come again. Woe be to him who breaks the Law!”

 

They looked curiously at one another. With an affectation of indifference

I began to chop idly at the ground in front of me with my hatchet.

They looked, I noticed, at the deep cuts I made in the turf.

 

Then the Satyr raised a doubt. I answered him. Then one of the dappled

things objected, and an animated discussion sprang up round the fire.

Every moment I began to feel more convinced of my present security.

I talked now without the catching in my breath, due to the intensity

of my excitement, that had troubled me at first. In the course of about

an hour I had really convinced several of the Beast Folk of the truth

of my assertions, and talked most of the others into a dubious state.

I kept a sharp eye for my enemy the Hyena-swine, but he never appeared.

Every now and then a suspicious movement would startle me, but my

confidence grew rapidly. Then as the moon crept down from the zenith,

one by one the listeners began to yawn (showing the oddest teeth in

the light of the sinking fire), and first one and then another retired

towards the dens in the ravine; and I, dreading the silence and darkness,

went with them, knowing I was safer with several of them than with

one alone.

 

In this manner began the longer part of my sojourn upon this

Island of Doctor Moreau. But from that night until the end came,

there was but one