Section 3

The poor brute seemed horribly scared, and
crouched in the bottom of its little cage.

" Overboard with 'em!" bawled the cap-
tain. "Overboard with 'em! We '11 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 Mis-
ter— 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.

38

The Man who had Nowhere to Go.

" 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 com-
panion, 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,
39

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

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 be-
side him, to indicate his powerlessness to help
me.

" I '11 see to you, presently," said the
captain.

Then began a curious three-cornered alter-
cation. 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 damned ! I'm
king here." At last I must confess my voice
suddenly broke in the middle of a vigorous
threat. I felt a gust of hysterical petulance,
and went aft and stared dismally at nothing.
40

The Man who had Nowhere to Go.

Meanwhile the sailors progressed rapidly
with the task of unshipping the packages and
caged animals. A large launch, with two
standing lugs, lay under the lea of the schooner ;
and into this the strange assortment of goods
were swung. I did not then see the hands
from the island that were receiving the packages,
for the hull of the launch was hidden from me
by the side of the schooner. Neither Mont-
gomery nor his companion took the slightest
notice of me, but busied themselves in assisting
and directing the four or five sailors who were
unloading the goods. The captain went for-
ward interfering rather than assisting. I was
alternately despairful and desperate. Once or
twice as I stood waiting there for things to
accomplish themselves, I could not resist an
impulse to laugh at my miserable quandary. I
felt all the wretcheder for the lack of a break-
fast. Hunger and a lack of blood-corpuscles
take all the manhood from a man. I perceived
pretty clearly that I had not the stamina either
to resist what the captain chose to do to expel
me, or to force myself upon Montgomery and
his companion. So I waited passively upon

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

fate ; and the work of transferring Montgomery's
possessions to the launch went on as if I did
not exist.

Presently that work was finished, and then
came a struggle. I was hauled, resisting weakly
enough, to the gangway. Even then I noticed
the oddness of the brown faces of the men who
were with Montgomery in the launch ; but the
launch was now fully laden, and was shoved
off hastily. A broadening gap of green
water appeared under me, and I pushed back
with all my strength to avoid falling headlong.
The hands in the launch shouted derisively,
and I heard Montgomery curse at them ;
and then the captain, the mate, and one of
the seamen helping him, ran me aft towards
the stern.

The dingey of the " Lady Vain " had been
towing behind ; it was half full of water, had
no oars, and was quite unvictualled. I refused
to go aboard her, and flung myself full length
on the deck. In the end, they swung me into
her by a rope (for they had no stern ladder),
and then they cut me adrift. I drifted slowly
from the schooner. In a kind of stupor I
42

The Man who had Nowhere to Go.

watched all hands take to the rigging, and slowly
but surely she came round to the wind ; the
sails fluttered, and then bellied out as the wind
came into them. I stared at her weather-beaten
side heeling steeply towards me ; and then she
passed out of my range of view.

I did not turn my head to follow her. At
first I could scarcely believe what had happened.
I crouched in the bottom of the dingey, stunned,
and staring blankly at the vacant, oily sea.
Then I realized that I was in that little hell of
mine again, now half swamped ; and looking
back over the gunwale, I saw the schooner
standing away from me, with the red-haired
captain mocking at me over the taffrail, and
turning towards the island saw the launch grow-
ing smaller as she approached the beach.

Abruptly the cruelty of this desertion became
clear to me. I had no means of reaching the
land unless I should chance to drift there. I
was still weak, you must remember, from my
exposure in the boat ; I was empty and very
faint, or I should have had more heart. But
as it was I suddenly began to sob and weep, as
I had never done since I was a little child.
43

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

The tears ran down my face. In a passion of
despair I struck with my fists at the water in
the bottom of the boat, and kicked savagely at
the gunwale. I prayed aloud for God to let
me die.

44

VI.

THE EVIL-LOOKING BOATMEN.

OUT the islanders, seeing that I was really
*-* adrift, took pity on me. I drifted very
slowly to the eastward, approaching the island
slantingly ; and presently I saw, with hysterical
relief, the launch come round and return towards
me. She was heavily laden, and I could make
out as she drew nearer Montgomery's white-
haired, broad-shouldered companion sitting
cramped up with the dogs and several packing-
cases in the stern sheets. This individual stared
fixedly at me without moving or speaking.
The black-faced cripple was glaring at me as
fixedly in the bows near the puma. There
were three other men besides, — three strange
brutish-looking fellows, at whom the staghounds
were snarling savagely. Montgomery, who
was steering, brought the boat by me, and rising,
caught and fastened my painter to the tiller to
tow me, for there was no room aboard.

45

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

I had recovered from my hysterical phase by
this time, and answered his hail, as he approached,
bravely enough. I told him the dingey was
nearly swamped, and he reached me a piggin.
I was jerked back as the rope tightened between
the boats. For some time I was busy baling.

It was not until I had got the water under
(for the water in the dingey had been shipped ;
the boat was perfectly sound) that I had leisure
to look at the people in the launch again.

The white-haired man I found was still re-
garding me steadfastly, but with an expression,
as I now fancied, of some perplexity. When
my eyes met his, he looked down at the stag-
hound that sat between his knees. He was a
powerfully-built man, as I have said, with a
fine forehead and rather heavy features ; but his
eyes had that odd drooping of the skin above
the lids which often comes with advancing years,
and the fall of his heavy mouth at the corners
gave him an expression of pugnacious resolution.
He talked to Montgomery in a tone too low
for me to hear.

From him my eyes travelled to his three
men ; and a strange crew they were. I saw
46

The Evil-looking Boatmen.

only their faces, yet there was something in
their faces — I knew not what — that gave me
a queer spasm of disgust. I looked steadily at
them, and the impression did not pass, though I
failed to see what had occasioned it. They
seemed to me then to be brown men ; but their
limbs were oddly swathed in some thin, dirty,
white stuff down even to the fingers and feet :
I have never seen men so wrapped up before,
and women so only in the East. They wore
turbans too, and thereunder peered out their
elfin faces at me, — faces with protruding lower-
jaws and bright eyes. They had lank black
hair, almost like horsehair, and seemed as they
sat to exceed in stature any race of men I have
seen. The white-haired man, who I knew was
a good six feet in height, sat a head below any
one of the three. I found afterwards that really
none were taller than myself; but their bodies
were abnormally long, and the thigh-part of
the leg short and curiously twisted. At any
rate, they were an amazingly ugly gang, and
over the heads of them under the forward lug
peered the black face of the man whose eyes
were luminous in the dark. As I stared at
47

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

them, they met my gaze ; and then first one
and then another turned away from my direct
stare, and looked at me in an odd, furtive man-
ner. It occurred to me that I was perhaps
annoying them, and I turned my attention to
the island we were approaching.

It was low, and covered with thick vegeta-
tion, — chiefly a kind of palm, that was new
to me. From one point a thin white thread of
vapour rose slantingly to an immense height,
and then frayed out like a down feather. We
were now within the embrace of a broad bay
flanked on either hand by a low promontory.
The beach was of dull-grey sand, and sloped
steeply up to a ridge, perhaps sixty or seventy
feet above the sea-level, and irregularly set
with trees and undergrowth. Half way up
was a square enclosure of some greyish stone,
which I found subsequently was built partly of
coral and partly of pumiceous lava. Two
thatched roofs peeped from within this enclosure.
A man stood awaiting us at the water's edge.
I fancied while we were still far off that I saw
some other and very grotesque-looking creatures
scuttle into the bushes upon the slope ; but I
48

The Evil-looking Boatmen.

saw nothing of these as we drew nearer. This
man was of a moderate size, and with a black
negroid face. He had a large, almost lipless,
mouth, extraordinary lank arms, long thin feet,
and bow-legs, and stood with his heavy face
thrust forward staring at us. He was dressed
like Montgomery and his white-haired compan-
ion, in jacket and trousers of blue serge. As
we came still nearer, this individual began to
run to and fro on the beach, making the most
grotesque movements.

At a word of command from Montgomery,
the four men in the launch sprang up, and with
singularly awkward gestures struck the lugs.
Montgomery steered us round and into a nar-
row little dock excavated in the beach. Then
the man on the beach hastened towards us.
This dock, as I call it, was really a mere ditch
just long enough at this phase of the tide to
take the longboat. I heard the bows ground in
the sand, staved the dingey off the rudder of
the big boat with my piggin, and freeing the
painter, landed. The three muffled men, with
the clumsiest movements, scrambled out upon
the sand, and forthwith set to landing the cargo,
4 49

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

assisted by the man on the beach. I was struck
especially by the curious movements of the legs
of the three swathed and bandaged boatmen, —
not stiff they were, but distorted in some odd
way, almost as if they were jointed in the wrong
place. The dogs were still snarling, and strained
at their chains after these men, as the white-
haired man landed with them. The three big
fellows spoke to one another in odd guttural
tones, and the man who had waited for us on
the beach began chattering to them excitedly —
a foreign language, as I fancied — as they laid
hands on some bales piled near the stern.
Somewhere I had heard such a voice before,
and I could not think where. The white-
haired man stood, holding in a tumult of six
dogs, and bawling orders over their din.
Montgomery, having unshipped the rudder,
landed likewise, and all set to work at unload-
ing. I was too faint, what with my long fast
and the sun beating down on my bare head, to
offer any assistance.

Presently the white-haired man seemed to
recollect my presence, and came up to me.

"You look," said he, "as though you had

5°

The Evil-looking Boatmen.

scarcely breakfasted." His little eyes were a
brilliant black under his heavy brows. "I
must apologise for that. Now you are our
guest, we must make you comfortable, — though
you are uninvited, you know." He looked
keenly into my face. " Montgomery says you
are an educated man, Mr. Prendick ; says you
know something of science. May I ask what
that signifies ? ' '

I told him I had spent some years at the Royal
College of Science, and had done some researches
in biology under Huxley. He raised his eye-
brows slightly at that.

" That alters the case a little, Mr. Prendick,"
he said, with a trifle more respect in his man-
ner. "As it happens, we are biologists here.
This is a biological station — of a sort." His
eye rested on the men in white who were busily
hauling the puma, on rollers, towards the walled
yard. "I and Montgomery, at least," he
added. Then, "When you will be able to
get away, I can't say. We're off the track to
anywhere. We see a ship once in a twelve-
month or so."

He left me abruptly, and went up the beach

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

past this group, and I think entered the enclos-
ure. The other two men were with Mont-
gomery, erecting a pile of smaller packages on a
low-wheeled truck. The llama was still on the
launch with the rabbit hutches ; the staghounds
were still lashed to the thwarts. The pile of
things completed, all three men laid hold of the
truck and began shoving the ton-weight or so
upon it after the puma. Presently Montgomery
left them, and coming back to me held out his
hand.

"I'm glad," said he, "for my own part.
That captain was a silly ass. He ' d have made
things lively for you."

"It was you," said I, "that saved me
again."

"That depends. You '11 find this island an
infernally rum place, I promise you. I 'd watch
my goings carefully, if I were you. He — "
He hesitated, and seemed to alter his mind about
what was on his lips. "I wish you'd help
me with these rabbits," he said.

His procedure with the rabbits was singular.
I waded in with him, and helped him lug one
of the hutches ashore. No sooner was that

52

The Evil-looking Boatmen.

done than he opened the door of it, and tilting
the thing on one end turned its living contents
out on the ground. They fell in a struggling
heap one on the top of the other. He clapped
his hands, and forthwith they went off with
that hopping run of theirs, fifteen or twenty of
them I should think, up the beach.

"Increase and multiply, my friends," said
Montgomery. " Replenish the island. Hith-
erto we 've had a certain lack of meat here."

As I watched them disappearing, the white-
haired man returned with a brandy-flask and
some biscuits. "Something to go on with,
Prendick," said he, in a far more familiar tone
than before. I made no ado, but set to work
on the biscuits at once, while the white-haired
man helped Montgomery to release about a score
more of the rabbits. Three big hutches, how-
ever, went up to the house with the puma.
The brandy I did not touch, for I have been
an abstainer from my birth.