The_island_of_Dr._Moreau/chapters/Montgomerys Bank holiday.tex

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 occurred 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,—\emph{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 \emph{I} to join
on? It’s all very well for \emph{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 to-morrow. 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?”

“\emph{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 \emph{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
paraffine 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
lamp-light and the pallid glare of the moon; his eye-sockets were
blotches of black under his stubbly eyebrows.

“You’re a solemn prig, Prendick, a silly ass! You’re always fearing and
fancying. We’re on the edge of things. I’m bound to cut my throat
to-morrow. I’m going to have a damned Bank Holiday to-night.” 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, you brutes! Drink and be men! Damme,
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 insults at me, or giving whatever other vent
this new inspiration of brandy demanded. Presently I heard Montgomery’s
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 paraffine 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,—with 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 my plans. In the morning I would gather some provisions in the
dingey, 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 figure,—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 over 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 my 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 to-morrow’s launch. My movements were slow, and
the time passed quickly. Insensibly the daylight crept upon me.

The chanting died down, giving place to a clamour; then it 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 some one
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 becoming pale and opaque in the luminous blue of
the day. The sky to the eastward was rimmed with red.

Suddenly 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. Montgomery 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, burnt 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.

Then out of the bushes came three Beast People, with hunched shoulders,
protruding heads, misshapen hands awkwardly held, and inquisitive,
unfriendly eyes and advanced towards me with hesitating gestures.