Island of Dr. Moreau

by H. G. Wells

  For a space no one spoke. Then Montgomery hiccoughed, ‘Who… said he was dead?’

  The Ape Man looked guiltily at the Hairy Grey Thing. ‘He is dead,’ said this monster. ‘They saw.’

  There was nothing threatening about this detachment at any rate. They seemed awe-stricken and puzzled. ‘Where is he?’ said Montgomery.

  ‘Beyond,’ and the grey creature pointed.

  ‘Is there a Law now?’ asked the Ape Man. ‘Is it still to be this and that? Is he dead indeed?’ ‘Is there a Law?’ repeated the man in white. ‘Is there a Law, thou Other with the whip? He is dead,’ said the Hairy Grey Thing. And they all stood watching us.

  ‘Prendick,’ said Montgomery, turning his dull eyes to me. ‘He’s dead – evidently.’

  I had been standing behind him during this colloquy. I began to see how things lay with them. I suddenly stepped in front of him and lifted up my voice: ‘Children of the Law,’ I said, ‘he is not dead.’

  M’ling turned his sharp eyes on me. ‘He has changed his shape – he has changed his body,’ I went on. ‘For a time you will not see him. He is… there’ – I pointed upward – ‘where he can watch you. You cannot see him. But he can see you. Fear the Law.’

  I looked at them squarely. They flinched. ‘He is great, he is good,’ said the Ape Man, peering fearfully upward among the dense trees.

  ‘And the other Thing?’ I demanded.

  ‘The Thing that bled and ran screaming and sobbing – that is dead, too,’ said the Grey Thing, still regarding me.

  ‘That’s well,’ grunted Montgomery.

  ‘The Other with the whip,’ began the Grey Thing.

  ‘Well?’ said I.

  ‘Said he was dead.’

  But Montgomery was still sober enough to understand my motive in denying Moreau’s death. ‘He is not dead,’ he said slowly. ‘Not dead at all. No more dead than me.’

  ‘Some,’ said I, ‘have broken the Law. They will die. Some have died. Show us now where his old body lies. The body he cast away because he had no more need of it.’

  ‘It is this way, Man who walked in the Sea,’ said the Grey Thing.

  And with these six creatures guiding us, we went through the tumult of ferns and creepers and tree stems towards the north-west. Then came a yelling, a crashing among the branches, and a little pink homunculus rushed by us shrieking. Immediately after appeared a feral monster in headlong pursuit, blood-bedabbled, who was amongst us almost before he could stop his career. The Grey Thing leapt aside; M’ling with a snarl flew at it, and was struck aside; Montgomery fired and missed, bowed his head, threw up his arm, and turned to run. I fired, and the thing still came on; fired again point-blank into its ugly face. I saw its features vanish in a flash. Its face was driven in. Yet it passed me, gripped Montgomery, and holding him, fell headlong beside him, and pulled him sprawling upon itself – in its death-agony.

  I found myself alone with M’ling, the dead brute, and the prostrate man. Montgomery raised himself slowly and stared in a muddled way at the shattered Beast Man beside him. It more than half sobered him. He scrambled to his feet. Then I saw the Grey Thing returning cautiously through the trees.

  ‘See,’ said I, pointing to the dead brute. ‘Is the Law not alive? This came of breaking the Law.’

  He peered at the body. ‘He sends the Fire that kills,’ said he in his deep voice, repeating part of the ritual.

  The others gathered round and stared for a space.

  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 further found at last what we sought. He lay face downward in a trampled space in a cane-brake. 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 him 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 occured 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 ass 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, Prendick? 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, Prendick. 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 tomorrow. 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 asses of themselves sooner or later. We can’t massacre 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. ‘Damnation!’ 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 paraffin 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 damned!’ 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, Prendick.’

  ‘For God’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 lamplight and the pallid glare of the moon; his eye-sockets were blotches of black under his stubbly eyebrows. ‘You’re a solemn prig, Pr
endick, a silly ass! You’re always fearing and fancying. We’re on the edge of things. I’m bound to cut my throat tomorrow. I’m going to have a damned good bank holiday tonight.’

  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, ye brutes! Drink, and be men. Dammy, 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 Prendick,”… That’s right. Now, again: “Confound old Prendick.” ’

  The black group broke up into five separate figures and wound slowly away from me along the band of shining beach. Each went howling at his own sweet will, yelping insult at me, or giving whatever other vent this new inspiration of brandy demanded.

  Presently I heard Montgomery’s remote voice shouting, ‘Right turn!’ and they passed 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 glass and crystals) flashed and shone like a beach of diamonds. Behind me the paraffin 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 – his massive 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 plans in my mind.

  In the morning I would gather some provisions in the dinghy, 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, passing 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 flicker, and turned sharply.

  Behind me lay the yard, vividly black and white in the moonlight, and the pile of wood and faggots on which Moreau and his mutilated victims lay, one on another. They seemed to be gripping one another in one last revengeful grapple. His wounds gaped black as night, and the blood that had dripped lay in black patches upon the sand. Then I saw, without understanding, the cause of the phantom, a ruddy glow that came and danced and went upon the wall opposite. I misinterpreted this, fancied it was a reflection of my flickering lamp, and turned again to the stores in the shed. I went on rummaging among them as well as a one-armed man could, finding this convenient thing and that, and putting them aside for tomorrow’s launch. My movements were slow, and the time passed quickly. Presently the daylight crept upon me.

  The chanting died down, gave place to a clamour, then began again, and suddenly broke into a tumult. I heard cries of ‘More, more!’ a sound like quarrelling, and a sudden wild shriek. The quality of the sounds changed so greatly that it arrested my attention. I went out into the yard and listened. Then, cutting like a knife across the confusion, came the crack of a revolver.

  I rushed at once through my room to the little doorway. As I did so I heard some of the packing-cases behind me go sliding down and smash together, with a clatter of glass on the floor of the shed. But I did not heed these. I flung the door open and looked out.

  Up the beach by the boathouse a bonfire was burning, raining up sparks into the indistinctness of the dawn. Around this struggled a mass of black figures. I heard Montgomery call my name. I began to run at once towards this fire, revolver in hand. I saw the pink tongue of Montgomery’s pistol lick out once, close to the ground. He was down. I shouted with all my strength and fired into the air.

  I heard someone cry ‘The Master!’ The knotted black struggle broke into scattering units, the fire leapt and sank down. The crowd of Beast People fled in sudden panic before me up the beach. In my excitement I fired at their retreating backs as they disappeared among the bushes. Then I turned to the black heaps upon the ground.

  Montgomery lay on his back with the hairy grey Beast Man sprawling across his body. The brute was dead, but still gripping Montgomery’s throat with its curving claws. Near by lay M’ling on his face, and quite still, his neck bitten open, and the upper part of the smashed brandy bottle in his hand. Two other figures lay near the fire, the one motionless, the other groaning fitfully, every now and then raising its head slowly, then dropping it again.

  I caught hold of the Grey Man and pulled him off Montgomery’s body; his claws drew down the torn coat reluctantly as I dragged him away.

  Montgomery was dark in the face and scarcely breathing. I splashed sea-water on his face, and pillowed his head on my rolled-up coat. M’ling was dead. The wounded creature by the fire – it was a Wolf Brute with a bearded grey face – lay, I found, with the fore part of its body upon the still glowing timber. The wretched thing was injured so dreadfully that in mercy I blew its brains out at once. The other brute was one of the Bull Men swathed in white. He, too, was dead.

  The rest of the Beast People had vanished from the beach. I went to Montgomery again and knelt beside him, cursing my ignorance of medicine.

  The fire beside me had sunk down, and only charred beams of timber glowing at the central ends, and mixed with a grey ash of brushwood, remained. I wondered casually where Montgomery had got his wood. Then I saw that the dawn was upon us. The sky had grown brighter, the setting moon was growing pale and opaque in the luminous blue of the day. The sky to the eastward was rimmed with red.

  Then I heard a thud and a hissing behind me, and, looking round, sprang to my feet with a cry of horror. Against the warm dawn great tumultuous masses of black smoke were boiling up out of the enclosure, and through their stormy darkness shot flickering threads of blood-red flame. Then the thatched roof caught. I saw the curving charge of the flames across the sloping straw. A spurt of fire jetted from the window of my room.

  I knew at once what had happened. I remembered the crash I had heard. When I had rushed out to Montgomery’s assistance I had overturned the lamp.

  The hopelessness of saving any of the contents of the enclosure stared me in the face. My mind came back to my plan of flight, and turning swiftly I looked to see where the two boats lay upon the beach. They were gone! Two axes lay upon the sands beside me, chips and splinters were scattered broadcast, and the ashes of the bonfire were blackening and smoking under the dawn. He had burnt the boats to revenge himself upon me and prevent our
return to mankind.

  A sudden convulsion of rage shook me. I was almost moved to batter his foolish head in as he lay there helpless at my feet. Then suddenly his hand moved, so feebly, so pitifully, that my wrath vanished. He groaned and opened his eyes for a minute.

  I knelt down beside him and raised his head. He opened his eyes again, staring silently at the dawn, and then they met mine. The lids fell. ‘Sorry,’ he said presently, with an effort. He seemed trying to think. ‘The last,’ he murmured, ‘the last of this silly universe. What a mess—’

  I listened. His head fell helplessly to one side. I thought some drink might revive him, but there was neither drink nor vessel in which to bring drink at hand. He seemed suddenly heavier. My heart went cold.

  I bent down to his face, put my hand through the rent in his blouse. He was dead; and even as he died a line of white heat, the limb of the sun, rose eastward beyond the projection of the bay, splashing its radiance across the sky and turning the dark sea into a weltering tumult of dazzling light. It fell like a glory upon his death-shrunken face.

  I let his head fall gently upon the rough pillow I had made for him, and stood up. Before me was the glittering desolation of the sea, the awful solitude upon which I had already suffered so much; behind me the island, hushed under the dawn, its Beast People silent and unseen. The enclosure with all its provisions and ammunition burned noisily with sudden gusts of flame, a fitful crackling, and now and then a crash. The heavy smoke drove up the beach away from me, rolling low over the distant tree tops towards the huts in the ravine. Beside me were the charred vestiges of the boats and these five dead bodies.