The Island of Doctor Moreau Part 20

At last we drew near the westward extremity of the island.

We came upon the gnawed and mutilated body of the puma, its shoulder-bone smashed by a bullet, and perhaps twenty yards farther found at last what we sought. Moreau lay face downward in a trampled s.p.a.ce in a canebrake. One hand was almost severed at the wrist and his silvery hair was dabbled in blood.

His head had been battered in by the fetters of the puma.

The broken canes beneath him were smeared with blood.

His revolver we could not find. Montgomery turned him over.

Resting at intervals, and with the help of the seven Beast People (for he was a heavy man), we carried Moreau back to the enclosure.

The night was darkling. Twice we heard unseen creatures howling and shrieking past our little band, and once the little pink sloth-creature appeared and stared at us, and vanished again.

But we were not attacked again. At the gates of the enclosure our company of Beast People left us, M'ling going with the rest.

We locked ourselves in, and then took Moreau's mangled body into the yard and laid it upon a pile of brushwood.

Then we went into the laboratory and put an end to all we found living there.

XIX. MONTGOMERY'S "BANK HOLIDAY."

WHEN this was accomplished, and we had washed and eaten, Montgomery and I went into my little room and seriously discussed our position for the first time. It was then near midnight.

He was almost sober, but greatly disturbed in his mind.

He had been strangely under the influence of Moreau's personality: I do not think it had ever occurred to him that Moreau could die.

This disaster was the sudden collapse of the habits that had become part of his nature in the ten or more monotonous years he had spent on the island.

He talked vaguely, answered my questions crookedly, wandered into general questions.

"This silly a.s.s of a world," he said; "what a muddle it all is!

I haven't had any life. I wonder when it's going to begin.

Sixteen years being bullied by nurses and schoolmasters at their own sweet will; five in London grinding hard at medicine, bad food, shabby lodgings, shabby clothes, shabby vice, a blunder,--I didn't know any better,--and hustled off to this beastly island.

Ten years here! What's it all for, Prend.i.c.k? Are we bubbles blown by a baby?"

It was hard to deal with such ravings. "The thing we have to think of now," said I, "is how to get away from this island."

"What's the good of getting away? I'm an outcast.

Where am _I_ to join on? It's all very well for _you_, Prend.i.c.k.

Poor old Moreau! We can't leave him here to have his bones picked.

As it is--And besides, what will become of the decent part of the Beast Folk?"

"Well," said I, "that will do to-morrow. I've been thinking we might make the brushwood into a pyre and burn his body--and those other things.

Then what will happen with the Beast Folk?"

"_I_ don't know. I suppose those that were made of beasts of prey will make silly a.s.ses of themselves sooner or later. We can't ma.s.sacre the lot--can we? I suppose that's what _your_ humanity would suggest?

But they'll change. They are sure to change."

He talked thus inconclusively until at last I felt my temper going.

"d.a.m.nation!" he exclaimed at some petulance of mine; "can't you see I'm in a worse hole than you are?" And he got up, and went for the brandy.

"Drink!" he said returning, "you logic-chopping, chalky-faced saint of an atheist, drink!"

"Not I," said I, and sat grimly watching his face under the yellow paraffine flare, as he drank himself into a garrulous misery.

I have a memory of infinite tedium. He wandered into a maudlin defence of the Beast People and of M'ling. M'ling, he said, was the only thing that had ever really cared for him.

And suddenly an idea came to him.

"I'm d.a.m.ned!" said he, staggering to his feet and clutching the brandy bottle.

By some flash of intuition I knew what it was he intended.

"You don't give drink to that beast!" I said, rising and facing him.

"Beast!" said he. "You're the beast. He takes his liquor like a Christian. Come out of the way, Prend.i.c.k!"

"For G.o.d's sake," said I.

"Get--out of the way!" he roared, and suddenly whipped out his revolver.

"Very well," said I, and stood aside, half-minded to fall upon him as he put his hand upon the latch, but deterred by the thought of my useless arm. "You've made a beast of yourself,--to the beasts you may go."

He flung the doorway open, and stood half facing me between the yellow lamp-light and the pallid glare of the moon; his eye-sockets were blotches of black under his stubbly eyebrows.

"You're a solemn prig, Prend.i.c.k, a silly a.s.s! You're always fearing and fancying. We're on the edge of things. I'm bound to cut my throat to-morrow. I'm going to have a d.a.m.ned Bank Holiday to-night."

He turned and went out into the moonlight. "M'ling!" he cried; "M'ling, old friend!"

Three dim creatures in the silvery light came along the edge of the wan beach,--one a white-wrapped creature, the other two blotches of blackness following it. They halted, staring.

Then I saw M'ling's hunched shoulders as he came round the corner of the house.

"Drink!" cried Montgomery, "drink, you brutes! Drink and be men!

Damme, I'm the cleverest. Moreau forgot this; this is the last touch.

Drink, I tell you!" And waving the bottle in his hand he started off at a kind of quick trot to the westward, M'ling ranging himself between him and the three dim creatures who followed.

I went to the doorway. They were already indistinct in the mist of the moonlight before Montgomery halted. I saw him administer a dose of the raw brandy to M'ling, and saw the five figures melt into one vague patch.

"Sing!" I heard Montgomery shout,--"sing all together, 'Confound old Prend.i.c.k!' That's right; now again, 'Confound old Prend.i.c.k!'"

The black group broke up into five separate figures, and wound slowly away from me along the band of s.h.i.+ning beach.

Each went howling at his own sweet will, yelping insults at me, or giving whatever other vent this new inspiration of brandy demanded.

Presently I heard Montgomery's voice shouting, "Right turn!"

and they pa.s.sed with their shouts and howls into the blackness of the landward trees. Slowly, very slowly, they receded into silence.

The peaceful splendour of the night healed again.

The moon was now past the meridian and travelling down the west.

It was at its full, and very bright riding through the empty blue sky.

The shadow of the wall lay, a yard wide and of inky blackness, at my feet.

The eastward sea was a featureless grey, dark and mysterious; and between the sea and the shadow the grey sands (of volcanic gla.s.s and crystals) flashed and shone like a beach of diamonds.

Behind me the paraffine lamp flared hot and ruddy.

Then I shut the door, locked it, and went into the enclosure where Moreau lay beside his latest victims,--the staghounds and the llama and some other wretched brutes,--with his ma.s.sive face calm even after his terrible death, and with the hard eyes open, staring at the dead white moon above. I sat down upon the edge of the sink, and with my eyes upon that ghastly pile of silvery light and ominous shadows began to turn over my plans. In the morning I would gather some provisions in the dingey, and after setting fire to the pyre before me, push out into the desolation of the high sea once more.

I felt that for Montgomery there was no help; that he was, in truth, half akin to these Beast Folk, unfitted for human kindred.

I do not know how long I sat there scheming. It must have been an hour or so. Then my planning was interrupted by the return of Montgomery to my neighbourhood. I heard a yelling from many throats, a tumult of exultant cries pa.s.sing down towards the beach, whooping and howling, and excited shrieks that seemed to come to a stop near the water's edge. The riot rose and fell; I heard heavy blows and the splintering smash of wood, but it did not trouble me then.

A discordant chanting began.

My thoughts went back to my means of escape. I got up, brought the lamp, and went into a shed to look at some kegs I had seen there.

Then I became interested in the contents of some biscuit-tins, and opened one. I saw something out of the tail of my eye,--a red figure,--and turned sharply.