Section 16

The Reversion of the Beast Folk.

men in it were dead, had been dead so long that
they fell to pieces when I tilted the boat on its
side and dragged them out. One had a shock
of red hair, like the captain of the " Ipecacu-
anha,'* and a dirty white cap lay in the bottom
of the boat.

As I stood beside the boat, three of the
Beasts came slinking out of the bushes and
sniffing towards me. One of my spasms of
disgust came upon me. I thrust the little boat
down the beach and clambered on board her.
Two of the brutes were Wolf-beasts, and came
forward with quivering nostrils and glittering
eyes ; the third was the horrible nondescript of
bear and bull. When I saw them approaching
those wretched remains, heard them snarling at
one another and caught the gleam of their teeth,
a frantic horror succeeded my repulsion. I
turned my back upon them, struck the lug and
began paddling out to sea. I could not bring
myself to look behind me.

I lay, however, between the reef and the

island that night, and the next morning went

round to the stream and filled the empty keg

aboard with water. Then, with such patience

16 241

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

as I could command, I collected a quantity of
fruit, and waylaid and killed two rabbits with
my last three cartridges. While I was doing
this I left the boat moored to an inward projec-
tion of the reefj for fear of the Beast People.

242

XXII.

THE MAN ALONE.

TN the evening I started, and drove out to sea
•*• before a gentle wind from the southwest,
slowly, steadily; and the island grew smaller
and smaller, and the lank spire of smoke dwin-
dled to a finer and finer line against the hot sun-
set. The ocean rose up around me, hiding that
low, dark patch from my eyes. The daylight,
the trailing glory of the sun, went streaming out
of the sky, was drawn aside like some luminous
curtain, and at last I looked into the blue gulf of
immensity which the sunshine hides, and saw
the floating hosts of the stars. The sea was
silent, the sky was silent. I was alone with the
night and silence.

So I drifted for three days, eating and drink-
ing sparingly, and meditating upon all that had
happened to me, — not desiring very greatly
then to see men again. One unclean rag was
about me, my hair a black tangle : no doubt
my discoverers thought me a madman.
243

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

It is strange, but I felt no desire to return to
mankind. I was only glad to be quit of the
foulness of the Beast People. And on the third
day I was picked up by a brig from Apia to
San Francisco. Neither the captain nor the
mate would believe my story, judging that soli-
tude and danger had made me mad ; and fear-
ing their opinion might be that of others, I
refrained from telling my adventure further, and
professed to recall nothing that had happened to
me between the loss of the "Lady Vain" and
the time when I was picked up again, — the
space of a year.

I had to act with the utmost circumspection
to save myself from the suspicion of insanity.
My memory of the Law, of the two dead
sailors, of the ambuscades of the darkness, of
the body in the canebrake, haunted me ; and,
unnatural as it seems, with my return to man-
kind came, instead of that confidence and sym-
pathy I had expected, a strange enhancement of
the uncertainty and dread I had experienced
during my stay upon the island. No one
would believe me ; I was almost as queer to
men as I had been to the Beast People. I may
244

The Man Alone.

have caught something of the natural wildness
of my companions. They say that terror is a
disease, and anyhow I can witness that for sev-
eral years now a restless fear has dwelt in my
mind, — such a restless fear as a half-tamed lion
cub may feel.

My trouble took the strangest form. I could
not persuade myself that the men and women I
met were not also another Beast People, animals
half wrought into the outward image of human
souls, and that they would presently begin to
revert, — to show first this bestial mark and
then that. But I have confided my case to a
strangely able man, — a man who had known
Moreau, and seemed half to credit my story ;
a mental specialist, — and he has helped me
mightily, though I do not expect that the terror
of that island will ever altogether leave me.
At most times it lies far in the back of my mind,
a mere distant cloud, a memory, and a faint dis-
trust ; but there are times when the little cloud
spreads until it obscures the whole sky. Then
I look about me at my fellow -men ; and I go in
fear. I see faces, keen and bright ; others, dull
or dangerous ; others, unsteady, insincere, —
245

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

none that have the calm authority of a reason-
able soul. I feel as though the animal was
surging up through them ; that presently the
degradation of the Islanders will be played over
again on a larger scale. I know this is an illu-
sion ; that these seeming men and women about
me are indeed men and women, — men and
women for ever, perfectly reasonable creatures,
full of human desires and tender solicitude,
emancipated from instinct and the slaves of no
fantastic Law, — beings altogether different from
the Beast Folk. Yet I shrink from them, from
their curious glances, their inquiries and assist-
ance, and long to be away from them and alone.
For that reason I live near the broad free down-
land, and can escape thither when this shadow
is over my soul ; and very sweet is the empty
downland then, under the wind-swept sky.

When I lived in London the horror was well-
nigh insupportable. I could not get away from
men : their voices came through windows ;
locked doors were flimsy safeguards. I would
go out into the streets to fight with my delusion,
and prowling women would mew after me ;
furtive, craving men glance jealously at me ;
246

The Man Alone.

weary, pale workers go coughing by me with
tired eyes and eager paces, like wounded deer
dripping blood ; old people, bent and dull, pass
murmuring to themselves ; and, all unheeding,
a ragged tail of gibing children. Then I would
turn aside into some chapel, — and even there,
such was my disturbance, it seemed that the
preacher gibbered " Big Thinks," even as the
Ape-man had done ; or into some library, and
there the intent faces over the books seemed
but patient creatures waiting for prey. Particu-
larly nauseous were the blank, expressionless
faces of people in trains and omnibuses ; they
seemed no more my fellow-creatures than dead
bodies would be, so that I did not dare to
travel unless I was assured of being alone. And
even it seemed that I too was not a reasonable
creature, but only an animal tormented with
some strange disorder in its brain which sent
it to wander alone, like a sheep stricken
with gid.

This is a mood, however, that comes to me
now, I thank God, more rarely. I have with-
drawn myself from the confusion of cities and
multitudes, and spend my days surrounded by
247

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

wise books, — bright windows in this life of
ours, lit by the shining souls of men. I see few
strangers, and have but a small household. My
days I devote to reading and to experiments in
chemistry, and I spend many of the clear nights
in the study of astronomy. There is — though
I do not know how there is or why there is —
a sense of infinite peace and protection in the
glittering hosts of heaven. There it must be,
I think, in the vast and eternal laws of matter,
and not in the daily cares and sins and troubles
of men, that whatever is more than animal
within us must find its solace and its hope. I
hope, or I could not live.

And so, in hope and solitude, my story ends.
EDWARD PRENDICK.

248

NOTE.

The substance of the chapter entitled " Doctor
Moreau explains," which contains the essential
idea of the story, appeared as a middle article in the
€t Saturday Review " in January, 1895. This
is the only portion of this story that has been pre-
viously published, and it has been entirely recast
to adapt it to the narrative form.

249

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