The_island_of_Dr._Moreau/chapters/A Catastrophe.tex

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.