his face.
Then I heard the key turn in the lock, and Montgomery's voice
in expostulation.
"Ruin the work of a lifetime," I heard Moreau say.
"He does not understand," said Montgomery. and other things
that were inaudible.
"I can't spare the time yet," said Moreau.
The rest I did not hear. I picked myself up and stood trembling,
my mind a chaos of the most horrible misgivings. Could it be possible,
I thought, that such a thing as the vivisection of men was carried
on here? The question shot like lightning across a tumultuous sky;
and suddenly the clouded horror of my mind condensed into a vivid
realisation of my own danger.
XI - The Hunting of the Man
*
IT came before my mind with an unreasonable hope of escape that
the outer door of my room was still open to me. I was convinced now,
absolutely assured, that Moreau had been vivisecting a human being.
All the time since I had heard his name, I had been trying to link
in my mind in some way the grotesque animalism of the islanders
with his abominations; and now I thought I saw it all.
The memory of his work on the transfusion of blood recurred to me.
These creatures I had seen were the victims of some hideous experiment.
These sickening scoundrels had merely intended to keep me back,
to fool me with their display of confidence, and presently to fall
upon me with a fate more horrible than death,—with torture;
and after torture the most hideous degradation it is possible
to conceive,—to send me off a lost soul, a beast, to the rest of their
Comus rout.
I looked round for some weapon. Nothing. Then with an inspiration I
turned over the deck chair, put my foot on the side of it, and tore
away the side rail. It happened that a nail came away with the wood,
and projecting, gave a touch of danger to an otherwise petty weapon.
I heard a step outside, and incontinently flung open the door and found
Montgomery within a yard of it. He meant to lock the outer door!
I raised this nailed stick of mine and cut at his face;
but he sprang back. I hesitated a moment, then turned and fled,
round the corner of the house. "Prendick, man!" I heard his
astonished cry, "don't be a silly ass, man!"
Another minute, thought I, and he would have had me locked in,
and as ready as a hospital rabbit for my fate. He emerged behind
the corner, for I heard him shout, "Prendick!" Then he began to run
after me, shouting things as he ran. This time running blindly,
I went northeastward in a direction at right angles to my
previous expedition. Once, as I went running headlong up the beach,
I glanced over my shoulder and saw his attendant with him.
I ran furiously up the slope, over it, then turning eastward along
a rocky valley fringed on either side with jungle I ran for perhaps
a mile altogether, my chest straining, my heart beating in my ears;
and then hearing nothing of Montgomery or his man, and feeling
upon the verge of exhaustion, I doubled sharply back towards
the beach as I judged, and lay down in the shelter of a canebrake.
There I remained for a long time, too fearful to move, and indeed
too fearful even to plan a course of action. The wild scene about me
lay sleeping silently under the sun, and the only sound near me was
the thin hum of some small gnats that had discovered me. Presently I
became aware of a drowsy breathing sound, the soughing of the sea upon
the beach.
After about an hour I heard Montgomery shouting my name,
far away to the north. That set me thinking of my plan of action.
As I interpreted it then, this island was inhabited only by these two
vivisectors and their animalised victims. Some of these no doubt
they could press into their service against me if need arose.
I knew both Moreau and Montgomery carried revolvers; and, save for a feeble
bar of deal spiked with a small nail, the merest mockery of a mace,
I was unarmed.
So I lay still there, until I began to think of food and drink;
and at that thought the real hopelessness of my position came home to me.
I knew no way of
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