Chương Chương 19 · THE FINDING OF MOREAU.

. THE FINDING OF MOREAU.

When I saw Montgomery swallow a third dose of brandy, I took it upon

myself to interfere. He was already more than half fuddled. I told him

that some serious thing must have happened to Moreau by this time, or

he would have returned before this, and that it behoved us to ascertain

what that catastrophe was. Montgomery raised some feeble objections,

and at last agreed. We had some food, and then all three of us started.

It is possibly due to the tension of my mind, at the time, but even now

that start into the hot stillness of the tropical afternoon is a

singularly vivid impression. M’ling went first, his shoulder hunched,

his strange black head moving with quick starts as he peered first on

this side of the way and then on that. He was unarmed; his axe he had

dropped when he encountered the Swine-man. Teeth were _his_ weapons,

when it came to fighting. Montgomery followed with stumbling footsteps,

his hands in his pockets, his face downcast; he was in a state of

muddled sullenness with me on account of the brandy. My left arm was in

a sling (it was lucky it was my left), and I carried my revolver in my

right. Soon we traced a narrow path through the wild luxuriance of the

island, going northwestward; and presently M’ling stopped, and became

rigid with watchfulness. Montgomery almost staggered into him, and then

stopped too. Then, listening intently, we heard coming through the

trees the sound of voices and footsteps approaching us.

“He is dead,” said a deep, vibrating voice.

“He is not dead; he is not dead,” jabbered another.

“We saw, we saw,” said several voices.

“_Hul_-lo!” suddenly shouted Montgomery, “Hullo, there!”

“Confound you!” said I, and gripped my pistol.

There was a silence, then a crashing among the interlacing vegetation,

first here, then there, and then half-a-dozen faces appeared,—strange

faces, lit by a strange light. M’ling made a growling noise in his

throat. I recognised the Ape-man: I had indeed already identified his

voice, and two of the white-swathed brown-featured creatures I had seen

in Montgomery’s boat. With these were the two dappled brutes and that

grey, horribly crooked creature who said the Law, with grey hair

streaming down its cheeks, heavy grey eyebrows, and grey locks pouring

off from a central parting upon its sloping forehead,—a heavy, faceless

thing, with strange red eyes, looking at us curiously from amidst the

green.

For a space no one spoke. Then Montgomery hiccoughed, “Who—said he was

dead?”

The Monkey-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 awestricken and puzzled.

“Where is he?” said Montgomery.

“Beyond,” and the grey creature pointed.

“Is there a Law now?” asked the Monkey-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 Montgomery 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 I am.”

“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 northwest. Then came a

yelling, a crashing among the branches, and a little pink homunculus

rushed by us shrieking. Immediately after appeared a 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 farther found at last what we

sought. Moreau lay face downward in a trampled space 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.