Section 6

The Thing in the Forest.

the handkerchief as I did so. As I turned, the
Thing, which had been running on all-fours,
rose to its feet, and the missile fell fair on its
left temple. The skull rang loud, and the
animal-man blundered into me, thrust me back
with its hands, and went staggering past me to
fall headlong upon the sand with its face in the
water ; and there it lay still.

I could not bring myself to approach that
black heap. I left it there, with the water
rippling round it, under the still stars, and giv-
ing it a wide berth pursued my way towards
the yellow glow of the house ; and presently,
with a positive effect of relief, came the pitiful
moaning of the puma, the sound that had origi-
nally driven me out to explore this mysterious
island. At that, though I was faint and hor-
ribly fatigued, I gathered together all my
strength, and began running again towards the
light. I thought I heard a voice calling me.

X.

THE CRYING OF THE MAN.

A S I drew near the house I saw that the light
**• shone from the open door of my room ;
and then I heard coming from out of the dark-
ness at the side of that orange oblong of light,
the voice of Montgomery shouting, " Pren-
dick!" I continued running. Presently I
heard him again. I replied by a feeble
"Hullo!" and in another moment had stag-
gered up to him.

" Where have you been ? " said he, holding
me at arm's length, so that the light from the
door fell on my face. " We have both been
so busy that we forgot you until about half an
hour ago." He led me into the room and set
me down in the deck chair. For awhile I was
blinded by the light. " We did not think you
would start to explore this island of ours with-
out telling us," he said; and then, "I was
afraid — But — what — Hullo ! ' '
86

The Crying of the Man.

My last remaining strength slipped from me,
and my head fell forward on my chest. I
think he found a certain satisfaction in giving
me brandy.

" For God's sake," said I," fasten that door."

"You've been meeting some of our curi-
osities, eh ? " said he.

He locked the door and turned to me again.
He asked me no questions, but gave me some
more brandy and water and pressed me to eat.
I was in a state of collapse. He said some-
thing vague about his forgetting to warn me,
and asked me briefly when I left the house and
what I had seen.

I answered him as briefly, in fragmentary
sentences. "Tell me what it all means,"
said I, in a state bordering on hysterics.

"It's nothing so very dreadful," said he.
" But I think you have had about enough for
one day." The puma suddenly gave a sharp
yell of pain. At that he swore under his
breath. "I'm damned," said he, "if this
place is not as bad as Gower Street, with its
cats."

"Montgomery," said I, "what was that

87

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

thing that came after me ? Was it a beast or
was it a man? "

"If you don't sleep to-night/' he said,
"you'll be off your head to-morrow."

I stood up in front of him. " What was
that thing that came after me?" I asked.

He looked me squarely in the eyes, and
twisted his mouth askew. His eyes, which had
seemed animated a minute before, went dull.
"From your account," said he, "I'm think-
ing it was a bogle."

I felt a gust of intense irritation, which
passed as quickly as it came. I flung myself
into the chair again, and pressed my hands on
my forehead. The puma began once more.

Montgomery came round behind me and
put his hand on my shoulder. " Look here,
Prendick," he said, "I had no business to let
you drift out into this silly island of ours. But
it 's not so bad as you feel, man. Your nerves
are worked to rags. Let me give you some-
thing that will make you sleep. That — will
keep on for hours yet. You must simply get
to sleep, or I won't answer for it."

I did not reply. I bowed forward, and
88

The Crying of the Man.

covered my face with my hands. Presently he
returned with a small measure containing a dark
liquid. This he gave me. I took it unresist-
ingly, and he helped me into the hammock.

When I awoke, it was broad day. For a
little while I lay flat, staring at the roof above
me. The rafters, I observed, were made out
of the timbers of a ship. Then I turned my
head, and saw a meal prepared for me on the
table. I perceived that I was hungry, and
prepared to clamber out of the hammock,
which, very politely anticipating my intention,
twisted round and deposited me upon all-fours
on the floor.

I got up and sat down before the food. I
had a heavy feeling in my head, and only the
vaguest memory at first of the things that had
happened over night. The morning breeze
blew very pleasantly through the unglazed
window, and that and the food contributed to
the sense of animal comfort which I expe-
rienced. Presently the door behind me — the
door inward towards the yard of the enclosure
— opened. I turned and saw Montgomery's
face.

89

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

"All right/' said he. "I'm frightfully
busy." And he shut the door.

Afterwards I discovered that he forgot to re-
lock it. Then I recalled the expression of his
face the previous night, and with that the
memory of all I had experienced reconstructed
itself before me. Even as that fear came back
to me came a cry from within ; but this time
it was not the cry of a puma. I put down the
mouthful that hesitated upon my lips, and lis-
tened. Silence, save for the whisper of the
morning breeze. I began to think my ears had
deceived me.

After a long pause I resumed my meal, but
with my ears still vigilant. Presently I heard
something else, very faint and low. I sat as if
frozen in my attitude. Though it was faint and
low, it moved me more profoundly than all that
I had hitherto heard of the abominations behind
the wall. There was no mistake this time in
the quality of the dim, broken sounds ; no
doubt at all of their source. For it was groan-
ing, broken by sobs and gasps of anguish. It
was no brute this time ; it was a human being
in torment!

90

The Crying of the Man.

As I realised this I rose, and in three steps had
crossed the room, seized the handle of the door
into the yard, and flung it open before me.

" Prendick, man ! Stop ! " cried Mont-
gomery, intervening.

A startled deerhound yelped and snarled.
There was blood, I saw, in the sink, — brown,
and some scarlet, — and I smelt the peculiar
smell of carbolic acid. Then through an open
doorway beyond, in the dim light of the shadow,
I saw something bound painfully upon a frame-
work, scarred, red, and bandaged ; and then
blotting this out appeared the face of old
Moreau, white and terrible. In a moment he
had gripped me by the shoulder with a hand
that was smeared red, had twisted me off my
feet, and flung me headlong back into my own
room. He lifted me as though I was a little
child. I fell at full length upon the floor, and
the door slammed and shut out the passionate
intensity of his face. Then I heard the key
turn in the lock, and Montgomery's voice in
expostulation.

" Ruin the work of a lifetime," I heard
Moreau say.

9*

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

" He does not understand,' ' said Montgomery,
and other things that were inaudible.

"I can't spare the time yet," said Moreau.

The rest I did not hear. I picked myself
up and stood trembling, my mind a chaos of the
most horrible misgivings. Could it be possible,
I thought, that such a thing as the vivisection
of men was carried on here ? The question
shot like lightning across a tumultuous sky ;
and suddenly the clouded horror of my mind
condensed into a vivid realisation of my own
danger.

92

XI.

THE HUNTING OF THE MAN.

TT came before my mind with an unreason-
* able hope of escape that the outer door of
my room was still open to me. I was con-
vinced now, absolutely assured, that Moreau
had been vivisecting a human being. All the
time since I had heard his name, I had been
trying to link in my mind in some way the
grotesque animalism of the islanders with his
abominations ; and now I thought I saw it all.
The memory of his work on the transfusion of
blood recurred to me. These creatures I had
seen were the victims of some hideous experi-
ment. These sickening scoundrels had merely
intended to keep me back, to fool me with
their display of confidence, and presently to fall
upon me with a fate more horrible than death,

— with torture ; and after torture the most
hideous degradation it was possible to conceive,

— to send me off a lost soul, a beast, to the rest
of their Comus rout.

93

nfViino

The Island of Doctor Morcau.

I looked round for some weapon. Nothing.
Then with an inspiration I turned over the
deck chair, put my foot on the side of it, and
tore away the side rail. It happened that a
nail came away with the wood, and projecting,
gave a touch of danger to an otherwise petty
weapon. I heard a step outside, and incon-
tinently flung open the door and found Mont-
gomery within a yard of it. He meant to
lock the outer door ! I raised this nailed stick
of mine and cut at his face ; but he sprang
back. I hesitated a moment, then turned and
fled round the corner of the house. " Prendick,
man !" I heard his astonished cry, "don't be
a silly ass, man ! "

Another minute, thought I, and he would
have had me locked in, and as ready as a
hospital rabbit for my fate. He emerged
behind the corner, for I heard him shout,
"Prendick!" Then he began to run after
me, shouting things as he ran. This time run-
ning blindly, I went northeastward in a direc-
tion at right angles to my previous expedition.
Once, as I went running headlong up the beach,
I glanced over my shoulder and saw his attend-
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The Hunting of the Man.

ant with him. I ran furiously up the slope, over
it, then turning eastward along a rocky valley
fringed on either side with jungle I ran for per-
haps a mile altogether, my chest straining, my
heart beating in my ears; and then hearing
nothing of Montgomery or his man, and feeling
upon the verge of exhaustion, I doubled sharply
back towards the beach as I judged, and lay
down in the shelter of a canebrake. There I
remained for a long time, too fearful to move,
and indeed too fearful even to plan a course of
action. The wild scene about me lay sleeping
silently under the sun, and the only sound near
me was the thin hum of some small gnats that
had discovered me. Presently I became aware
of a drowsy breathing sound, the soughing of
the sea upon the beach.

After about an hour I heard Montgomery
shouting my name, far away to the north.
That set me thinking of my plan of action.
As I interpreted it then, this island was in-
habited only by these two vivisectors and their
animalised victims. Some of these no doubt
they could press into their service against me if
need arose. I knew both Moreau and Mont-

95

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

gomery carried revolvers ; and, save for a feeble
bar of deal spiked with a small nail, the merest
mockery of a mace, I was unarmed.

So I lay still there, until I began to think of
food and drink ; and at that thought the real
hopelessness of my position came home to me.
I knew no way of getting anything to eat. I
was too ignorant of botany to discover any resort
of root or fruit that might lie about me ; I had
no means of trapping the few rabbits upon the
island. It grew blanker the more I turned the
prospect over. At last in the desperation of my
position, my mind turned to the animal men I
had encountered. I tried to find some hope in
what I remembered of them. In turn I recalled
each one I had seen, and tried to draw some
augury of assistance from my memory.

Then suddenly I heard a stag-hound bay,
and at that realised a new danger. I took little
time to think, or they would have caught me
then, but snatching up my nailed stick, rushed
headlong from my hiding-place towards the
sound of the sea. I remember a growth of
thorny plants, with spines that stabbed like pen-
knives. I emerged bleeding and with torn

The Hunting of the Man.

clothes upon the lip of a long creek opening
northward. I went straight into the water
without a minute's hesitation, wading up the
creek, and presently finding myself kneedeep in
a little stream. I scrambled out at last on the
westward bank, and with my heart beating
loudly in my ears, crept into a tangle of ferns
to await the issue. I heard the dog (there was
only one) draw nearer, and yelp when it came
to the thorns. Then I heard no more, and
presently began to think I had escaped.

The minutes passed ; the silence lengthened
out, and at last after an hour of security my
courage began to return to me. By this time
I was no longer very much terrified or very
miserable. I had, as it were, passed the limit
of terror and despair. I felt now that my life
was practically lost, and that persuasion made
me capable of daring anything. I had even a
certain wish to encounter Moreau face to face ;
and as I had waded into the water, I remem-
bered that if I were too hard pressed at least one
path of escape from torment still lay open to
me, — they could not very well prevent my
drowning myself. I had half a mind to drown
7 97

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

myself then ; but an odd wish to see the whole
adventure out, a queer, impersonal, spectacular
interest in myself, restrained me. I stretched
my limbs, sore and painful from the pricks of
the spiny plants, and stared around me at the
trees ; and, so suddenly that it seemed to jump
out of the green tracery about it, my eyes lit
upon a black face watching me. I saw that it
was the simian creature who had met the launch
upon the beach. He was clinging to the oblique
stem of a palm-tree. I gripped my stick, and
stood up facing him. He began chattering.
"You, you, you," was all I could distinguish
at first. Suddenly he dropped from the tree,
and in another moment was holding the fronds
apart and staring curiously at me.

I did not feel the same repugnance towards
this creature which I had experienced in my
encounters with the other Beast Men. " You,
he said, "in the boat." He was a man, then,
— at least as much of a man as Montgomery's
attendant, — for he could talk.

" Yes," I said, " I came in the boat. From
the ship."

"Oh! " he said, and his bright, restless eyes

The Hunting of the Man.

travelled over me, to my hands, to the stick I
carried, to my feet, to the tattered places in my
coat, and the cuts and scratches I had received
from the thorns. He seemed puzzled at some-
thing. His eyes came back to my hands. He
held his own hand out and counted his digits
slowly, " One, two, three, four, five — eigh ?"

I did not grasp his meaning then ; afterwards
I was to find that a great proportion of these
Beast People had malformed hands, lacking
sometimes even three digits. But guessing this
was in some way a greeting, I did the same
thing by way of reply. He grinned with
immense satisfaction. Then his swift roving
glance went round again ; he made a swift
movement — and vanished. The fern fronds
he had stood between came swishing together-

I pushed out of the brake after him, and was
astonished to find him swinging cheerfully by
one lank arm from a rope of creeper that looped
down from the foliage overhead. His back was
to me.

"Hullo!" said I.

He came down with a twisting jump, and
stood facing me.

99

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

"I say," said I, "where can I get some-
thing to eat ? "

" Eat! " he said. " Eat Man's food, now."
And his eye went back to the swing of ropes.
"At the huts."

" But where are the huts ? "

"Oh!"

"I Jm new, you know."

At that he swung round, and set off at a
quick walk. All his motions were curiously
rapid. "Come along," said he.