Section 8

I fell on my forearms and head, among
thorns, and rose with a torn ear and bleeding
face. I had fallen into a precipitous ravine,
rocky and thorny, full of a hazy mist which
drifted about me in wisps, and with a narrow
streamlet from which this mist came meandering
down the centre. I was astonished at this thin
fog in the full blaze of daylight ; but I had no
time to stand wondering then. I turned to my
right, down-stream, hoping to come to the sea
in that direction, and so have my way open to
drown myself. It was only later I found that
I had dropped my nailed stick in my fall.

Presently the ravine grew narrower for a
space, and carelessly I stepped into the stream.
I jumped out again pretty quickly, for the water
was almost boiling. I noticed too there was a
thin sulphurous scum drifting upon its coiling
water. Almost immediately came a turn in the
116

The Sayers of the Law.

ravine, and the indistinct blue horizon. The
nearer sea was flashing the sun from a myriad
facets. I saw my death before me ; but I was
hot and panting, with the warm blood oozing
out on my face and running pleasantly through
my veins. I felt more than a touch of exulta-
tion too, at having distanced my pursuers. It
was not in me then to go out and drown
myself yet. I stared back the way I had
come.

I listened. Save for the hum of the gnats
and the chirp of some small insects that hopped
among the thorns, the air was absolutely still.
Then came the yelp of a dog, very faint, and a
chattering and gibbering, the snap of a whip,
and voices. They grew louder, then fainter
again. The noise receded up the stream and
faded away. For a while the chase was over ;
but I knew now how much hope of help for
me lay in the Beast People.

117

XIII.

A PARLEY.

T TURNED again and went on down to-
* wards the sea. I found the hot stream
broadened out to a shallow, weedy sand, in
which an abundance of crabs and long-bodied,
many-legged creatures started from my footfall.
I walked to the very edge of the salt water, and
then I felt I was safe. I turned and stared,
arms akimbo, at the thick green behind me, into
which the steamy ravine cut like a smoking gash.
But, as I say, I was too full of excitement and
(a true saying, though those who have never
known danger may doubt it) too desperate to
die.

Then it came into my head that there was
one chance before me yet. While Moreau and
Montgomery and their bestial rabble chased me
through the island, might I not go round the
beach until I came to their enclosure, — make a
flank march upon them, in fact, and then with
118

A Parley.

a rock lugged out of their loosely-built wall,
perhaps, smash in the lock of the smaller door
and see what I could find (knife, pistol, or
what not) to fight them with when they re-
turned ? It was at any rate something to try.

So I turned to the westward and walked
along by the water's edge. The setting sun
flashed his blinding heat into my eyes. The
slight Pacific tide was running in with a gende
ripple. Presently the shore fell away south-
ward, and the sun came round upon my right
hand. Then suddenly, far in front of me, I
saw first one and then several figures emerging
from the bushes, — Moreau, with his grey stag-
hound, then Montgomery, and two others. At
that I stopped.

They saw me, and began gesticulating and
advancing. I stood watching them approach.
The two Beast Men came running forward to
cut me off from the undergrowth, inland.
Montgomery came, running also, but straight to-
wards me. Moreau followed slower with the
dog.

At last I roused myself from my inaction,
and turning seaward walked straight into the
119

*au.

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

water. The water was very shallow at first.
I was thirty yards out before the waves reached
to my waist. Dimly I could see the intertidal
creatures darting away from my feet.

" What are you doing, man ? " cried Mont-
gomery.

I turned, standing waist deep, and stared at
them. Montgomery stood panting at the margin
of the water. His face was bright-red with
exertion, his long flaxen hair blown about his
head, and his dropping nether lip showed his
irregular teeth. Moreau was just coming up,
his face pale and firm, and the dog at his hand
barked at me. Both men had heavy whips.
Farther up the beach stared the Beast Men.

"What am I doing? I am going to drown
myself," said I.

Montgomery and Moreau looked at each
other. "Why?" asked Moreau.

" Because that is better than being tortured
by you."

" I told you so," said Montgomery, and
Moreau said something in a low tone.

" What makes you think I shall torture you ? "
asked Moreau.

I2O

A Parley.

"What I saw," I said. "And those —
yonder."

" Hush ! " said Moreau, and held up his hand.

"I will not," said I. "They were men:
what are they now ? I at least will not be
like them."

I looked past my interlocutors. Up the
beach were M'ling, Montgomery's attendant,
and one of the white-swathed brutes from the
boat. Farther up, in the shadow of the trees,
I saw my little Ape-man, and behind him some
other dim figures.

" Who are these creatures ? ' ' said I, point-
ing to them and raising my voice more and
more that it might reach them. " They were
men, men like yourselves, whom you have
infected with some bestial taint, — men whom
you have enslaved, and whom you still fear.
You who listen," I cried, pointing now to
Moreau and shouting past him to the Beast Men,
— f ' You who listen ! Do you not see these
men still fear you, go in dread of you ? Why,
then, do you fear them ? You are many — "

"For God's sake," cried Montgomery,
" stop that, Prendick ! "

121

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

" Prendick ! " cried Moreau.

They both shouted together, as if to drown
my voice ; and behind them lowered the staring
faces of the Beast Men, wondering, their de-
formed hands hanging down, their shoulders
hunched up. They seemed, as I fancied, to
be trying to understand me, to remember, I
thought, something of their human past.

I went on shouting, I scarcely remember
what, — that Moreau and Montgomery could be
killed, that they were not to be feared : that
was the burden of what I put into the heads of
the Beast People. I saw the green-eyed man
in the dark rags, who had met me on the even-
ing of my arrival, come out from among the
trees, and others followed him, to hear me
better. At last for want of breath I paused.

"Listen to me for a moment," said the
steady voice of Moreau ; " and then say what
you will."

"Well?" said I.

He coughed, thought, then shouted : " Latin,
Prendick ! bad Latin, schoolboy Latin ; but try
and understand. Hi non sunt homines; sunt
animalia qui nos babemus — vivisected. A

122

A Parley.

humanising process. I will explain. Come
ashore.'*

I laughed. " A pretty story," said I.
"They talk, build houses. They were men.
It's likely I'll come ashore."

"The water just beyond where you stand is
deep — and full of sharks. ' '

"That's my way," said I. "Short and
sharp. Presently."

" Wait a minute." He took something out
of his pocket that flashed back the sun, and
dropped the object at his feet. " That 's a
loaded revolver," said he. " Montgomery here
will do the same. Now we are going up the
beach until you are satisfied the distance is safe.
Then come and take the revolvers."

"Not I ! You have a third between
you."

" I want you to think over things, Prendick.
In the first place, I never asked you to come
upon this island. If we vivisected men, we
should import men, not beasts. In the next,
we had you drugged last night, had we wanted
to work you any mischief; and in the next,
now your first panic is over and you can think
123

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

a little, is Montgomery here quite up to the
character you give him ? We have chased you
for your good. Because this island is full of
— inimical phenomena. Besides, why should
we want to shoot you when you have just
offered to drown yourself?"

" Why did you set — your people onto me
when I was in the hut?"

" We felt sure of catching you, and bringing
you out of danger. Afterwards we drew away
from the scent, for your good."

I mused. It seemed just possible. Then I
remembered something again. "But I saw,"
said I, " in the enclosure — "

" That was the puma."

"Look here, Prendick," said Montgomery,
"you 're a silly ass! Come out of the water
and take these revolvers, and talk. We can't do
anything more than we could do now."

I will confess that then, and indeed always,
I distrusted and dreaded Moreau ; but Mont-
gomery was a man I felt I understood.

" Go up the beach," said I, after thinking,
and added, " holding your hands up."

" Can't do that," said Montgomery, with
124

A Parley.

an explanatory nod over his shoulder. " Un-
dignified."

"Go up to the trees, then," said I, "as
you please."

"It's a damned silly ceremony," said
Montgomery.

Both turned and faced the six or seven gro-
tesque creatures, who stood there in the sunlight,
solid, casting shadows, moving, and yet so in-
credibly unreal. Montgomery cracked his whip
at them, and forthwith they all turned and fled
helter-skelter into the trees; and when Mont-
gomery and Moreau were at a distance I judged
sufficient, I waded ashore, and picked up and
examined the revolvers. To satisfy myself
against the subtlest trickery, I discharged one at
a round lump of lava, and had the satisfaction of
seeing the stone pulverised and the beach splashed
with lead. Still I hesitated for a moment.

"I '11 take the risk," said I, at last; and with
a revolver in each hand I walked up the beach
towards them.

"That's better," said Moreau, without
affectation. " As it is, you have wasted the
best part of my day with your confounded
125

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

imagination." And with a touch of contempt
which humiliated me, he and Montgomery
turned and went on in silence before me.

The knot of Beast Men, still wondering,
stood back among the trees. I passed them as
serenely as possible. One started to follow me,
but retreated again when Montgomery cracked
his whip. The rest stood silent — watching.
They may once have been animals ; but I never
before saw an animal trying to think.

126

XIV.

DOCTOR MOREAU EXPLAINS.

" A ND now, Prendick, I will explain,' * said
**• Doctor Moreau, so soon as we had
eaten and drunk. "I must confess that you
are the most dictatorial guest I ever entertained.
I warn you that this is the last I shall do to
oblige you. The next thing you threaten to
commit suicide about, I sha'n't do, — even at
some personal inconvenience."

He sat in my deck chair, a cigar half con-
sumed in his white, dexterous-looking fingers.
The light of the swinging lamp fell on his white
hair ; he stared through the little window out at
the starlight. I sat as far away from him as pos-
sible, the table between us and the revolvers to
hand. Montgomery was not present. I did
not care to be with the two of them in such a
little room.

"You admit that the vivisected human being,
as you called it, is, after all, only the puma?"
127

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

said Moreau. He had made me visit that
horror in the inner room, to assure myself
of its inhumanity.

" It is the puma," I said, " still alive, but
so cut and mutilated as I pray I may never see
living flesh again. Of all vile — "

"Never mind that," said Moreau; "at
least, spare me those youthful horrors. Mont-
gomery used to be just the same. You admit
that it is the puma. Now be quiet, while I
reel off my physiological lecture to you."

And forthwith, beginning in the tone of a
man supremely bored, but presently warming
a little, he explained his work to me. He was
very simple and convincing. Now and then
there was a touch of sarcasm in his voice.
Presently I found myself hot with shame at our
mutual positions.

The creatures I had seen were not men, had
never been men. They were animals, human-
ised animals, — triumphs of vivisection.

" You forget all that a skilled vivisector can

do with living things," said Moreau. "For

my own part, I 'm puzzled why the things

I have done here have not been done before.

128

Doctor Moreau explains.

Small efforts, of course, have been made, —
amputation, tongue-cutting, excisions. Of course
you know a squint may be induced or cured by
surgery ? Then in the case of excisions you
have all kinds of secondary changes, pigmentary
disturbances, modifications of the passions, altera-
tions in the secretion of fatty tissue. I have no
doubt you have heard of these things ? "

"Of course," said I. "But these foul
creatures of yours — J '

"All in good time," said he, waving his
hand at me; "I am only beginning. Those
are trivial cases of alteration. Surgery can do
better things than that. There is building up
as well as breaking down and changing. You
have heard, perhaps, of a common surgical
operation resorted to in cases where the nose
has been destroyed : a flap of skin is cut from
the forehead, turned down on the nose, and
heals in the new position. This is a kind of
grafting in a new position of part of an animal
upon itself. Grafting of freshly obtained mate-
rial from another animal is also possible, — the
case of teeth, for example. The grafting of skin
and bone is done to facilitate healing : the sur-
9 129

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

geon places in the middle of the wound pieces
of skin snipped from another animal, or fragments
of bone from a victim freshly killed. Hunter's
cock-spur — possibly you have heard of that —
flourished on the bull's neck ; and the rhinoceros
rats of the Algerian zouaves are also to be thought
of, — monsters manufactured by transferring a
slip from the tail of an ordinary rat to its snout,
and allowing it to heal in that position."

" Monsters manufactured ! " said I. « Then
you mean to tell me — "

" Yes. These creatures you have seen are
animals carven and wrought into new shapes.
To that, to the study of the plasticity of living
forms, my life has been devoted. I have studied
for years, gaining in knowledge as I go. I see
you look horrified, and yet I am telling you noth-
ing new. It all lay in the surface of practical
anatomy years ago, but no one had the temerity
to touch it. It's not simply the outward form
of an animal which I can change. The physi-
ology, the chemical rhythm of the creature, may
also be made to undergo an enduring modifica-
tion, — of which vaccination and other methods
of inoculation with living or dead matter are
130

Doctor Moreau explains.

examples that will, no doubt, be familiar to
you. A similar operation is the transfusion of
blood, — with which subject, indeed, I began.
These are all familiar cases. Less so, and
probably far more extensive, were the operations
of those mediaeval practitioners who made dwarfs
and beggar-cripples, show-monsters, — some ves-
tiges of whose art still remain in the preliminary
manipulation of the young mountebank or con-
tortionist. Victor Hugo gives an account of
them in 'L'Homme qui Rit.' — But perhaps
my meaning grows plain now. You begin to
see that it is a possible thing to transplant tissue
from one part of an animal to another, or from
one animal to another ; to alter its chemical re-
actions and methods of growth ; to modify the
articulations of its limbs ; and, indeed, to change
it in its most intimate structure.

" And yet this extraordinary branch of knowl-
edge has never been sought as an end, and sys-
tematically, by modern investigators until I took
it up ! Some of such things have been hit upon
in the last resort of surgery ; most of the kindred
evidence that will recur to your mind has been
demonstrated as it were by accident, — by

The Island of Doctor Moreau.

tyrants, by criminals, by the breeders of horses
and dogs, by all kinds of untrained clumsy-handed
men working for their own immediate ends. I
was the first man to take up this question armed
with antiseptic surgery, and with a really scien-
tific knowledge of the laws of growth. Yet
one would imagine it must have been practised
in secret before. Such creatures as the Siamese
Twins — And in the vaults of the Inquisition.
No doubt their chief aim was artistic torture,
but some at least of the inquisitors must have
had a touch of scientific curiosity."