The Island of Doctor Moreau (16 page)

I dismissed my three serfs with a wave of the hand, and went up
the beach into the thickets. I carried my pistol in my hand,
my whip thrust with the hatchets in the sling of my arm.
I was anxious to be alone, to think out the position in which I
was now placed. A dreadful thing that I was only beginning
to realise was, that over all this island there was now no safe
place where I could be alone and secure to rest or sleep.
I had recovered strength amazingly since my landing, but I was still
inclined to be nervous and to break down under any great stress.
I felt that I ought to cross the island and establish myself
with the Beast People, and make myself secure in their confidence.
But my heart failed me. I went back to the beach, and turning
eastward past the burning enclosure, made for a point where a shallow
spit of coral sand ran out towards the reef. Here I could sit down
and think, my back to the sea and my face against any surprise.
And there I sat, chin on knees, the sun beating down upon my head
and unspeakable dread in my mind, plotting how I could live on against
the hour of my rescue (if ever rescue came). I tried to review the whole
situation as calmly as I could, but it was difficult to clear the thing
of emotion.

I began turning over in my mind the reason of Montgomery's despair.
"They will change," he said; "they are sure to change." And Moreau,
what was it that Moreau had said? "The stubborn beast-flesh grows
day by day back again." Then I came round to the Hyena-swine. I
felt sure that if I did not kill that brute, he would kill me.
The Sayer of the Law was dead: worse luck. They knew now that we
of the Whips could be killed even as they themselves were killed.
Were they peering at me already out of the green masses of ferns
and palms over yonder, watching until I came within their spring?
Were they plotting against me? What was the Hyena-swine telling them?
My imagination was running away with me into a morass of unsubstantial
fears.

My thoughts were disturbed by a crying of sea-birds hurrying
towards some black object that had been stranded by the waves
on the beach near the enclosure. I knew what that object was,
but I had not the heart to go back and drive them off.
I began walking along the beach in the opposite direction,
designing to come round the eastward corner of the island and so
approach the ravine of the huts, without traversing the possible
ambuscades of the thickets.

Perhaps half a mile along the beach I became aware of one of my three
Beast Folk advancing out of the landward bushes towards me. I was now
so nervous with my own imaginings that I immediately drew my revolver.
Even the propitiatory gestures of the creature failed to disarm me.
He hesitated as he approached.

"Go away!" cried I.

There was something very suggestive of a dog in the cringing attitude
of the creature. It retreated a little way, very like a dog being
sent home, and stopped, looking at me imploringly with canine
brown eyes.

"Go away," said I. "Do not come near me."

"May I not come near you?" it said.

"No; go away," I insisted, and snapped my whip. Then putting
my whip in my teeth, I stooped for a stone, and with that threat
drove the creature away.

So in solitude I came round by the ravine of the Beast People,
and hiding among the weeds and reeds that separated this
crevice from the sea I watched such of them as appeared,
trying to judge from their gestures and appearance how the death
of Moreau and Montgomery and the destruction of the House of Pain
had affected them. I know now the folly of my cowardice.
Had I kept my courage up to the level of the dawn, had I not
allowed it to ebb away in solitary thought, I might have grasped
the vacant sceptre of Moreau and ruled over the Beast People.
As it was I lost the opportunity, and sank to the position of a mere
leader among my fellows.

Towards noon certain of them came and squatted basking in the hot sand.
The imperious voices of hunger and thirst prevailed over my dread.
I came out of the bushes, and, revolver in hand, walked down towards
these seated figures. One, a Wolf-woman, turned her head and stared
at me, and then the others. None attempted to rise or salute me.
I felt too faint and weary to insist, and I let the moment pass.

"I want food," said I, almost apologetically, and drawing near.

"There is food in the huts," said an Ox-boar-man, drowsily,
and looking away from me.

I passed them, and went down into the shadow and odours of the almost
deserted ravine. In an empty hut I feasted on some specked
and half-decayed fruit; and then after I had propped some branches
and sticks about the opening, and placed myself with my face
towards it and my hand upon my revolver, the exhaustion of the last
thirty hours claimed its own, and I fell into a light slumber,
hoping that the flimsy barricade I had erected would cause
sufficient noise in its removal to save me from surprise.

IN this way I became one among the Beast People in the Island
of Doctor Moreau. When I awoke, it was dark about me. My arm ached
in its bandages. I sat up, wondering at first where I might be.
I heard coarse voices talking outside. Then I saw that my
barricade had gone, and that the opening of the hut stood clear.
My revolver was still in my hand.

I heard something breathing, saw something crouched together
close beside me. I held my breath, trying to see what it was.
It began to move slowly, interminably. Then something soft and warm
and moist passed across my hand. All my muscles contracted. I snatched
my hand away. A cry of alarm began and was stifled in my throat.
Then I just realised what had happened sufficiently to stay my fingers on
the revolver.

"Who is that?" I said in a hoarse whisper, the revolver still pointed.

"I—Master."

"Who are you?"

"They say there is no Master now. But I know, I know. I carried the
bodies into the sea, O Walker in the Sea! the bodies of those you slew.
I am your slave, Master."

"Are you the one I met on the beach?" I asked.

"The same, Master."

The Thing was evidently faithful enough, for it might have fallen
upon me as I slept. "It is well," I said, extending my hand for
another licking kiss. I began to realise what its presence meant,
and the tide of my courage flowed. "Where are the others?"
I asked.

"They are mad; they are fools," said the Dog-man. "Even now they
talk together beyond there. They say, 'The Master is dead.
The Other with the Whip is dead. That Other who walked in the Sea is
as we are. We have no Master, no Whips, no House of Pain, any more.
There is an end. We love the Law, and will keep it; but there
is no Pain, no Master, no Whips for ever again.' So they say.
But I know, Master, I know."

I felt in the darkness, and patted the Dog-man's head. "It is well,"
I said again.

"Presently you will slay them all," said the Dog-man.

"Presently," I answered, "I will slay them all,—after certain
days and certain things have come to pass. Every one of them save
those you spare, every one of them shall be slain."

"What the Master wishes to kill, the Master kills," said the Dog-man
with a certain satisfaction in his voice.

"And that their sins may grow," I said, "let them live in their folly
until their time is ripe. Let them not know that I am the Master."

"The Master's will is sweet," said the Dog-man, with the ready tact
of his canine blood.

"But one has sinned," said I. "Him I will kill, whenever I may meet him.
When I say to you, 'That is he,' see that you fall upon him.
And now I will go to the men and women who are assembled together."

For a moment the opening of the hut was blackened by the exit of
the Dog-man. Then I followed and stood up, almost in the exact spot
where I had been when I had heard Moreau and his staghound pursuing me.
But now it was night, and all the miasmatic ravine about me was black;
and beyond, instead of a green, sunlit slope, I saw a red fire,
before which hunched, grotesque figures moved to and fro.
Farther were the thick trees, a bank of darkness, fringed above
with the black lace of the upper branches. The moon was just riding
up on the edge of the ravine, and like a bar across its face drove
the spire of vapour that was for ever streaming from the fumaroles of
the island.

"Walk by me," said I, nerving myself; and side by side we walked
down the narrow way, taking little heed of the dim Things that peered
at us out of the huts.

None about the fire attempted to salute me. Most of them
disregarded me, ostentatiously. I looked round for the Hyena-swine,
but he was not there. Altogether, perhaps twenty of the Beast
Folk squatted, staring into the fire or talking to one another.

"He is dead, he is dead! the Master is dead!" said the voice
of the Ape-man to the right of me. "The House of Pain—there
is no House of Pain!"

"He is not dead," said I, in a loud voice. "Even now he watches us!"

This startled them. Twenty pairs of eyes regarded me.

"The House of Pain is gone," said I. "It will come again.
The Master you cannot see; yet even now he listens among you."

"True, true!" said the Dog-man.

They were staggered at my assurance. An animal may be ferocious
and cunning enough, but it takes a real man to tell a lie.

"The Man with the Bandaged Arm speaks a strange thing,"
said one of the Beast Folk.

"I tell you it is so," I said. "The Master and the House of Pain
will come again. Woe be to him who breaks the Law!"

They looked curiously at one another. With an affectation of indifference
I began to chop idly at the ground in front of me with my hatchet.
They looked, I noticed, at the deep cuts I made in the turf.

Then the Satyr raised a doubt. I answered him. Then one of the dappled
things objected, and an animated discussion sprang up round the fire.
Every moment I began to feel more convinced of my present security.
I talked now without the catching in my breath, due to the intensity
of my excitement, that had troubled me at first. In the course of about
an hour I had really convinced several of the Beast Folk of the truth
of my assertions, and talked most of the others into a dubious state.
I kept a sharp eye for my enemy the Hyena-swine, but he never appeared.
Every now and then a suspicious movement would startle me, but my
confidence grew rapidly. Then as the moon crept down from the zenith,
one by one the listeners began to yawn (showing the oddest teeth in
the light of the sinking fire), and first one and then another retired
towards the dens in the ravine; and I, dreading the silence and darkness,
went with them, knowing I was safer with several of them than with
one alone.

In this manner began the longer part of my sojourn upon this
Island of Doctor Moreau. But from that night until the end came,
there was but one thing happened to tell save a series of innumerable
small unpleasant details and the fretting of an incessant uneasiness.
So that I prefer to make no chronicle for that gap of time,
to tell only one cardinal incident of the ten months I spent as an
intimate of these half-humanised brutes. There is much that sticks
in my memory that I could write,—things that I would cheerfully
give my right hand to forget; but they do not help the telling of
the story.

In the retrospect it is strange to remember how soon I fell
in with these monsters' ways, and gained my confidence again.
I had my quarrels with them of course, and could show some of
their teeth-marks still; but they soon gained a wholesome respect
for my trick of throwing stones and for the bite of my hatchet.
And my Saint-Bernard-man's loyalty was of infinite service to me.
I found their simple scale of honour was based mainly on the capacity
for inflicting trenchant wounds. Indeed, I may say—without vanity,
I hope—that I held something like pre-eminence among them.
One or two, whom in a rare access of high spirits I had scarred
rather badly, bore me a grudge; but it vented itself chiefly
behind my back, and at a safe distance from my missiles,
in grimaces.

The Hyena-swine avoided me, and I was always on the alert for him.
My inseparable Dog-man hated and dreaded him intensely.
I really believe that was at the root of the brute's attachment to me.
It was soon evident to me that the former monster had tasted blood,
and gone the way of the Leopard-man. He formed a lair somewhere in
the forest, and became solitary. Once I tried to induce the Beast Folk to
hunt him, but I lacked the authority to make them co-operate for one end.
Again and again I tried to approach his den and come upon him unaware;
but always he was too acute for me, and saw or winded me and got away.
He too made every forest pathway dangerous to me and my ally
with his lurking ambuscades. The Dog-man scarcely dared to leave
my side.

In the first month or so the Beast Folk, compared with their
latter condition, were human enough, and for one or two besides
my canine friend I even conceived a friendly tolerance.
The little pink sloth-creature displayed an odd affection for me,
and took to following me about. The Monkey-man bored me, however;
he assumed, on the strength of his five digits, that he was my equal,
and was for ever jabbering at me,—jabbering the most arrant nonsense.
One thing about him entertained me a little: he had a fantastic trick
of coining new words. He had an idea, I believe, that to gabble
about names that meant nothing was the proper use of speech.
He called it "Big Thinks" to distinguish it from "Little Thinks,"
the sane every-day interests of life. If ever I made a remark
he did not understand, he would praise it very much, ask me to say
it again, learn it by heart, and go off repeating it, with a word
wrong here or there, to all the milder of the Beast People.
He thought nothing of what was plain and comprehensible.
I invented some very curious "Big Thinks" for his especial use.
I think now that he was the silliest creature I ever met;
he had developed in the most wonderful way the distinctive silliness
of man without losing one jot of the natural folly of a monkey.