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

owner.

I’m the law here, I tell you,—the law and the prophets.

I bargained to take a man and his attendant to and from Arica,

and bring back some animals. I never bargained to carry a mad devil

and a silly Sawbones, a—”

 

Well, never mind what he called Montgomery. I saw the latter take

a step forward, and interposed. “He’s drunk,” said I. The captain

began some abuse even fouler than the last. “Shut up!” I said,

turning on him sharply, for I had seen danger in Montgomery’s white face.

With that I brought the downpour on myself.

 

However, I was glad to avert what was uncommonly near a scuffle,

even at the price of the captain’s drunken ill-will. I do not think

I have ever heard quite so much vile language come in a continuous

stream from any man’s lips before, though I have frequented eccentric

company enough. I found some of it hard to endure, though I am

a mild-tempered man; but, certainly, when I told the captain to

“shut up” I had forgotten that I was merely a bit of human flotsam,

cut off from my resources and with my fare unpaid; a mere casual

dependant on the bounty, or speculative enterprise, of the ship.

He reminded me of it with considerable vigour; but at any rate I prevented

a fight.

 

IV. AT THE SCHOONER’S RAIL.

 

THAT night land was sighted after sundown, and the schooner

hove to. Montgomery intimated that was his destination.

It was too far to see any details; it seemed to me then simply

a lowlying patch of dim blue in the uncertain blue-grey sea.

An almost vertical streak of smoke went up from it into the sky.

The captain was not on deck when it was sighted. After he had vented

his wrath on me he had staggered below, and I understand he went to sleep

on the floor of his own cabin. The mate practically assumed the command.

He was the gaunt, taciturn individual we had seen at the wheel.

Apparently he was in an evil temper with Montgomery. He took

not the slightest notice of either of us. We dined with him in a

sulky silence, after a few ineffectual efforts on my part to talk.

It struck me too that the men regarded my companion and his animals

in a singularly unfriendly manner. I found Montgomery very reticent

about his purpose with these creatures, and about his destination;

and though I was sensible of a growing curiosity as to both, I did not

press him.

 

We remained talking on the quarter deck until the sky was thick

with stars. Except for an occasional sound in the yellow-lit forecastle

and a movement of the animals now and then, the night was very still.

The puma lay crouched together, watching us with shining eyes, a black

heap in the corner of its cage. Montgomery produced some cigars.

He talked to me of London in a tone of half-painful reminiscence,

asking all kinds of questions about changes that had taken place.

He spoke like a man who had loved his life there, and had been

suddenly and irrevocably cut off from it. I gossiped as well as I

could of this and that. All the time the strangeness of him was

shaping itself in my mind; and as I talked I peered at his odd,

pallid face in the dim light of the binnacle lantern behind me. Then I

looked out at the darkling sea, where in the dimness his little island

was hidden.

 

This man, it seemed to me, had come out of Immensity merely to save

my life. To-morrow he would drop over the side, and vanish again out

of my existence. Even had it been under commonplace circumstances,

it would have made me a trifle thoughtful; but in the first place was

the singularity of an educated man living on this unknown little island,

and coupled with that the extraordinary nature of his luggage.

I found myself repeating the captain’s question, What did he want

with the beasts? Why, too, had he pretended they were not his when I

had remarked about them at first? Then, again, in his personal attendant

there was a bizarre quality which had impressed me profoundly.

These circumstances threw a haze of mystery round the man. They laid

hold of my imagination, and hampered my tongue.

 

Towards midnight our talk of London died away, and we stood

side by side leaning over the bulwarks and staring dreamily

over the silent, starlit sea, each pursuing his own thoughts.

It was the atmosphere for sentiment, and I began upon my gratitude.

 

“If I may say it,” said I, after a time, “you have saved my life.”

 

“Chance,” he answered. “Just chance.”

 

“I prefer to make my thanks to the accessible agent.”

 

“Thank no one. You had the need, and I had the knowledge;

and I injected and fed you much as I might have collected a specimen.

I was bored and wanted something to do. If I’d been jaded that day,

or hadn’t liked your face, well—it’s a curious question where you would

have been now!”

 

This damped my mood a little. “At any rate,” I began.

 

“It’s chance, I tell you,” he interrupted, “as everything is in

a man’s life. Only the asses won’t see it! Why am I here now,

an outcast from civilisation, instead of being a happy man enjoying

all the pleasures of London? Simply because eleven years ago—

I lost my head for ten minutes on a foggy night.”

 

He stopped. “Yes?” said I.

 

“That’s all.”

 

We relapsed into silence. Presently he laughed.

“There’s something in this starlight that loosens one’s tongue.

I’m an ass, and yet somehow I would like to tell you.”

 

“Whatever you tell me, you may rely upon my keeping to myself—

if that’s it.”

 

He was on the point of beginning, and then shook his head, doubtfully.

 

“Don’t,” said I. “It is all the same to me. After all, it is better

to keep your secret. There’s nothing gained but a little relief

if I respect your confidence. If I don’t—well?”

 

He grunted undecidedly. I felt I had him at a disadvantage, had caught

him in the mood of indiscretion; and to tell the truth I was not curious

to learn what might have driven a young medical student out of London.

I have an imagination. I shrugged my shoulders and turned away.

Over the taffrail leant a silent black figure, watching the stars.

It was Montgomery’s strange attendant. It looked over its shoulder

quickly with my movement, then looked away again.

 

It may seem a little thing to you, perhaps, but it came like a sudden

blow to me. The only light near us was a lantern at the wheel.

The creature’s face was turned for one brief instant out of the dimness

of the stern towards this illumination, and I saw that the eyes

that glanced at me shone with a pale-green light. I did not know then

that a reddish luminosity, at least, is not uncommon in human eyes.

The thing came to me as stark inhumanity. That black figure with its

eyes of fire struck down through all my adult thoughts and feelings,

and for a moment the forgotten horrors of childhood came back to my mind.

Then the effect passed as it had come. An uncouth black figure

of a man, a figure of no particular import, hung over the taffrail

against the starlight, and I found Montgomery was speaking

to me.

 

“I’m thinking of turning in, then,” said he, “if you’ve had enough

of this.”

 

I answered him incongruously. We went below, and he wished me

good-night at the door of my cabin.

 

That night I had some very unpleasant dreams. The waning

moon rose late. Its light struck a ghostly white beam across

my cabin, and made an ominous shape on the planking by my bunk.

Then the staghounds woke, and began howling and baying;

so that I dreamt fitfully, and scarcely slept until the approach

of dawn.

 

V. THE MAN WHO HAD NOWHERE TO GO.

 

IN the early morning (it was the second morning after my recovery,

and I believe the fourth after I was picked up), I awoke through an avenue

of tumultuous dreams,—dreams of guns and howling mobs,—and became

sensible of a hoarse shouting above me. I rubbed my eyes and lay

listening to the noise, doubtful for a little while of my whereabouts.

Then came a sudden pattering of bare feet, the sound of heavy objects

being thrown about, a violent creaking and the rattling of chains.

I heard the swish of the water as the ship was suddenly brought round,

and a foamy yellow-green wave flew across the little round

window and left it streaming. I jumped into my clothes and went

on deck.

 

As I came up the ladder I saw against the flushed sky—for the sun

was just rising—the broad back and red hair of the captain,

and over his shoulder the puma spinning from a tackle rigged on

to the mizzen spanker-boom.

 

The poor brute seemed horribly scared, and crouched in the bottom

of its little cage.

 

“Overboard with ‘em!” bawled the captain. “Overboard with ‘em!

We’ll have a clean ship soon of the whole bilin’ of ‘em.”

 

He stood in my way, so that I had perforce to tap his shoulder

to come on deck. He came round with a start, and staggered back

a few paces to stare at me. It needed no expert eye to tell

that the man was still drunk.

 

“Hullo!” said he, stupidly; and then with a light coming into his eyes,

“Why, it’s Mister—Mister?”

 

“Prendick,” said I.

 

“Pendick be damned!” said he. “Shut-up,—that’s your name.

Mister Shut-up.”

 

It was no good answering the brute; but I certainly did not expect

his next move. He held out his hand to the gangway by which Montgomery

stood talking to a massive grey-haired man in dirty-blue flannels,

who had apparently just come aboard.

 

“That way, Mister Blasted Shut-up! that way!” roared the captain.

 

Montgomery and his companion turned as he spoke.

 

“What do you mean?” I said.

 

“That way, Mister Blasted Shut-up,—that’s what I mean!

Overboard, Mister Shut-up,—and sharp! We’re cleaning the ship out,—

cleaning the whole blessed ship out; and overboard you go!”

 

I stared at him dumfounded. Then it occurred to me that it was

exactly the thing I wanted. The lost prospect of a journey as sole

passenger with this quarrelsome sot was not one to mourn over.

I turned towards Montgomery.

 

“Can’t have you,” said Montgomery’s companion, concisely.

 

“You can’t have me!” said I, aghast. He had the squarest and most

resolute face I ever set eyes upon.

 

“Look here,” I began, turning to the captain.

 

“Overboard!” said the captain. “This ship aint for beasts

and cannibals and worse than beasts, any more. Overboard you go,

Mister Shut-up. If they can’t have you, you goes overboard.

But, anyhow, you go—with your friends. I’ve done with this blessed

island for evermore, amen! I’ve had enough of it.”

 

“But, Montgomery,” I appealed.

 

He distorted his lower lip, and nodded his head hopelessly at

the grey-haired man beside him, to indicate his powerlessness to help me.

 

“I’ll see to you, presently,” said the captain.

 

Then began a curious three-cornered altercation.

Alternately I appealed to one and another of the three men,—

first to the grey-haired man to let me land, and then to the drunken

captain to keep me aboard. I even bawled entreaties to the sailors.

Montgomery said never a word, only shook his head.

“You’re going overboard, I tell you,” was the captain’s refrain.

“Law be