The_island_of_Dr._Moreau/chapters/The Finding of Moreau.tex

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 \emph{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.

“\emph{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 \emph{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.