Bab Bab 18 · A CATASTROPHE.

. A CATASTROPHE.

Scarcely six weeks passed before I had lost every feeling but dislike

and abhorrence for this infamous experiment of Moreau’s. My one idea

was to get away from these horrible caricatures of my Maker’s image,

back to the sweet and wholesome intercourse of men. My

fellow-creatures, from whom I was thus separated, began to assume

idyllic virtue and beauty in my memory. My first friendship with

Montgomery did not increase. His long separation from humanity, his

secret vice of drunkenness, his evident sympathy with the Beast People,

tainted him to me. Several times I let him go alone among them. I

avoided intercourse with them in every possible way. I spent an

increasing proportion of my time upon the beach, looking for some

liberating sail that never appeared,—until one day there fell upon us

an appalling disaster, which put an altogether different aspect upon my

strange surroundings.

It was about seven or eight weeks after my landing,—rather more, I

think, though I had not troubled to keep account of the time,—when this

catastrophe occurred. It happened in the early morning—I should think

about six. I had risen and breakfasted early, having been aroused by

the noise of three Beast Men carrying wood into the enclosure.

After breakfast I went to the open gateway of the enclosure, and stood

there smoking a cigarette and enjoying the freshness of the early

morning. Moreau presently came round the corner of the enclosure and

greeted me. He passed by me, and I heard him behind me unlock and enter

his laboratory. So indurated was I at that time to the abomination of

the place, that I heard without a touch of emotion the puma victim

begin another day of torture. It met its persecutor with a shriek,

almost exactly like that of an angry virago.

Then suddenly something happened,—I do not know what, to this day. I

heard a short, sharp cry behind me, a fall, and turning saw an awful

face rushing upon me,—not human, not animal, but hellish, brown, seamed

with red branching scars, red drops starting out upon it, and the

lidless eyes ablaze. I threw up my arm to defend myself from the blow

that flung me headlong with a broken forearm; and the great monster,

swathed in lint and with red-stained bandages fluttering about it,

leapt over me and passed. I rolled over and over down the beach, tried

to sit up, and collapsed upon my broken arm. Then Moreau appeared, his

massive white face all the more terrible for the blood that trickled

from his forehead. He carried a revolver in one hand. He scarcely

glanced at me, but rushed off at once in pursuit of the puma.

I tried the other arm and sat up. The muffled figure in front ran in

great striding leaps along the beach, and Moreau followed her. She

turned her head and saw him, then doubling abruptly made for the

bushes. She gained upon him at every stride. I saw her plunge into

them, and Moreau, running slantingly to intercept her, fired and missed

as she disappeared. Then he too vanished in the green confusion. I

stared after them, and then the pain in my arm flamed up, and with a

groan I staggered to my feet. Montgomery appeared in the doorway,

dressed, and with his revolver in his hand.

“Great God, Prendick!” he said, not noticing that I was hurt, “that

brute’s loose! Tore the fetter out of the wall! Have you seen them?”

Then sharply, seeing I gripped my arm, “What’s the matter?”

“I was standing in the doorway,” said I.

He came forward and took my arm. “Blood on the sleeve,” said he, and

rolled back the flannel. He pocketed his weapon, felt my arm about

painfully, and led me inside. “Your arm is broken,” he said, and then,

“Tell me exactly how it happened—what happened?”

I told him what I had seen; told him in broken sentences, with gasps of

pain between them, and very dexterously and swiftly he bound my arm

meanwhile. He slung it from my shoulder, stood back and looked at me.

“You’ll do,” he said. “And now?”

He thought. Then he went out and locked the gates of the enclosure. He

was absent some time.

I was chiefly concerned about my arm. The incident seemed merely one

more of many horrible things. I sat down in the deck chair, and I must

admit swore heartily at the island. The first dull feeling of injury in

my arm had already given way to a burning pain when Montgomery

reappeared. His face was rather pale, and he showed more of his lower

gums than ever.

“I can neither see nor hear anything of him,” he said. “I’ve been

thinking he may want my help.” He stared at me with his expressionless

eyes. “That was a strong brute,” he said. “It simply wrenched its

fetter out of the wall.” He went to the window, then to the door, and

there turned to me. “I shall go after him,” he said. “There’s another

revolver I can leave with you. To tell you the truth, I feel anxious

somehow.”

He obtained the weapon, and put it ready to my hand on the table; then

went out, leaving a restless contagion in the air. I did not sit long

after he left, but took the revolver in hand and went to the doorway.

The morning was as still as death. Not a whisper of wind was stirring;

the sea was like polished glass, the sky empty, the beach desolate. In

my half-excited, half-feverish state, this stillness of things

oppressed me. I tried to whistle, and the tune died away. I swore

again,—the second time that morning. Then I went to the corner of the

enclosure and stared inland at the green bush that had swallowed up

Moreau and Montgomery. When would they return, and how? Then far away

up the beach a little grey Beast Man appeared, ran down to the water’s

edge and began splashing about. I strolled back to the doorway, then to

the corner again, and so began pacing to and fro like a sentinel upon

duty. Once I was arrested by the distant voice of Montgomery bawling,

“Coo-ee—Moreau!” My arm became less painful, but very hot. I got

feverish and thirsty. My shadow grew shorter. I watched the distant

figure until it went away again. Would Moreau and Montgomery never

return? Three sea-birds began fighting for some stranded treasure.

Then from far away behind the enclosure I heard a pistol-shot. A long

silence, and then came another. Then a yelling cry nearer, and another

dismal gap of silence. My unfortunate imagination set to work to

torment me. Then suddenly a shot close by. I went to the corner,

startled, and saw Montgomery,—his face scarlet, his hair disordered,

and the knee of his trousers torn. His face expressed profound

consternation. Behind him slouched the Beast Man, M’ling, and round

M’ling’s jaws were some queer dark stains.

“Has he come?” said Montgomery.

“Moreau?” said I. “No.”

“My God!” The man was panting, almost sobbing. “Go back in,” he said,

taking my arm. “They’re mad. They’re all rushing about mad. What can

have happened? I don’t know. I’ll tell you, when my breath comes.

Where’s some brandy?”

Montgomery limped before me into the room and sat down in the deck

chair. M’ling flung himself down just outside the doorway and began

panting like a dog. I got Montgomery some brandy-and-water. He sat

staring in front of him at nothing, recovering his breath. After some

minutes he began to tell me what had happened.

He had followed their track for some way. It was plain enough at first

on account of the crushed and broken bushes, white rags torn from the

puma’s bandages, and occasional smears of blood on the leaves of the

shrubs and undergrowth. He lost the track, however, on the stony ground

beyond the stream where I had seen the Beast Man drinking, and went

wandering aimlessly westward shouting Moreau’s name. Then M’ling had

come to him carrying a light hatchet. M’ling had seen nothing of the

puma affair; had been felling wood, and heard him calling. They went on

shouting together. Two Beast Men came crouching and peering at them

through the undergrowth, with gestures and a furtive carriage that

alarmed Montgomery by their strangeness. He hailed them, and they fled

guiltily. He stopped shouting after that, and after wandering some time

farther in an undecided way, determined to visit the huts.

He found the ravine deserted.

Growing more alarmed every minute, he began to retrace his steps. Then

it was he encountered the two Swine-men I had seen dancing on the night

of my arrival; blood-stained they were about the mouth, and intensely

excited. They came crashing through the ferns, and stopped with fierce

faces when they saw him. He cracked his whip in some trepidation, and

forthwith they rushed at him. Never before had a Beast Man dared to do

that. One he shot through the head; M’ling flung himself upon the

other, and the two rolled grappling. M’ling got his brute under and

with his teeth in its throat, and Montgomery shot that too as it

struggled in M’ling’s grip. He had some difficulty in inducing M’ling

to come on with him. Thence they had hurried back to me. On the way,

M’ling had suddenly rushed into a thicket and driven out an under-sized

Ocelot-man, also blood-stained, and lame through a wound in the foot.

This brute had run a little way and then turned savagely at bay, and

Montgomery—with a certain wantonness, I thought—had shot him.

“What does it all mean?” said I.

He shook his head, and turned once more to the brandy.