The Island of Doctor Moreau (3 page)

We remained talking on the quarter deck until the sky was thick
with stars. Except for an occasional sound in the yellow-lit forecastle
and a movement of the animals now and then, the night was very still.
The puma lay crouched together, watching us with shining eyes, a black
heap in the corner of its cage. Montgomery produced some cigars.
He talked to me of London in a tone of half-painful reminiscence,
asking all kinds of questions about changes that had taken place.
He spoke like a man who had loved his life there, and had been
suddenly and irrevocably cut off from it. I gossiped as well as I
could of this and that. All the time the strangeness of him was
shaping itself in my mind; and as I talked I peered at his odd,
pallid face in the dim light of the binnacle lantern behind me. Then I
looked out at the darkling sea, where in the dimness his little island
was hidden.

This man, it seemed to me, had come out of Immensity merely to save
my life. To-morrow he would drop over the side, and vanish again out
of my existence. Even had it been under commonplace circumstances,
it would have made me a trifle thoughtful; but in the first place was
the singularity of an educated man living on this unknown little island,
and coupled with that the extraordinary nature of his luggage.
I found myself repeating the captain's question, What did he want
with the beasts? Why, too, had he pretended they were not his when I
had remarked about them at first? Then, again, in his personal attendant
there was a bizarre quality which had impressed me profoundly.
These circumstances threw a haze of mystery round the man. They laid
hold of my imagination, and hampered my tongue.

Towards midnight our talk of London died away, and we stood
side by side leaning over the bulwarks and staring dreamily
over the silent, starlit sea, each pursuing his own thoughts.
It was the atmosphere for sentiment, and I began upon my gratitude.

"If I may say it," said I, after a time, "you have saved my life."

"Chance," he answered. "Just chance."

"I prefer to make my thanks to the accessible agent."

"Thank no one. You had the need, and I had the knowledge;
and I injected and fed you much as I might have collected a specimen.
I was bored and wanted something to do. If I'd been jaded that day,
or hadn't liked your face, well—it's a curious question where you would
have been now!"

This damped my mood a little. "At any rate," I began.

"It's a chance, I tell you," he interrupted, "as everything is in
a man's life. Only the asses won't see it! Why am I here now,
an outcast from civilisation, instead of being a happy man enjoying
all the pleasures of London? Simply because eleven years ago—I
lost my head for ten minutes on a foggy night."

He stopped. "Yes?" said I.

"That's all."

We relapsed into silence. Presently he laughed.
"There's something in this starlight that loosens one's tongue.
I'm an ass, and yet somehow I would like to tell you."

"Whatever you tell me, you may rely upon my keeping to myself—if
that's it."

He was on the point of beginning, and then shook his head, doubtfully.

"Don't," said I. "It is all the same to me. After all, it is better
to keep your secret. There's nothing gained but a little relief
if I respect your confidence. If I don't—well?"

He grunted undecidedly. I felt I had him at a disadvantage, had caught
him in the mood of indiscretion; and to tell the truth I was not curious
to learn what might have driven a young medical student out of London.
I have an imagination. I shrugged my shoulders and turned away.
Over the taffrail leant a silent black figure, watching the stars.
It was Montgomery's strange attendant. It looked over its shoulder
quickly with my movement, then looked away again.

It may seem a little thing to you, perhaps, but it came like a sudden
blow to me. The only light near us was a lantern at the wheel.
The creature's face was turned for one brief instant out of the dimness
of the stern towards this illumination, and I saw that the eyes
that glanced at me shone with a pale-green light. I did not know then
that a reddish luminosity, at least, is not uncommon in human eyes.
The thing came to me as stark inhumanity. That black figure with its
eyes of fire struck down through all my adult thoughts and feelings,
and for a moment the forgotten horrors of childhood came back to my mind.
Then the effect passed as it had come. An uncouth black figure
of a man, a figure of no particular import, hung over the taffrail
against the starlight, and I found Montgomery was speaking
to me.

"I'm thinking of turning in, then," said he, "if you've had enough
of this."

I answered him incongruously. We went below, and he wished me
good-night at the door of my cabin.

That night I had some very unpleasant dreams. The waning
moon rose late. Its light struck a ghostly white beam across
my cabin, and made an ominous shape on the planking by my bunk.
Then the staghounds woke, and began howling and baying;
so that I dreamt fitfully, and scarcely slept until the approach
of dawn.

IN the early morning (it was the second morning after my recovery,
and I believe the fourth after I was picked up), I awoke through an avenue
of tumultuous dreams,—dreams of guns and howling mobs,—and became
sensible of a hoarse shouting above me. I rubbed my eyes and lay
listening to the noise, doubtful for a little while of my whereabouts.
Then came a sudden pattering of bare feet, the sound of heavy objects
being thrown about, a violent creaking and the rattling of chains.
I heard the swish of the water as the ship was suddenly brought round,
and a foamy yellow-green wave flew across the little round
window and left it streaming. I jumped into my clothes and went
on deck.

As I came up the ladder I saw against the flushed sky—for the sun
was just rising—the broad back and red hair of the captain,
and over his shoulder the puma spinning from a tackle rigged on
to the mizzen spanker-boom.

The poor brute seemed horribly scared, and crouched in the bottom
of its little cage.

"Overboard with 'em!" bawled the captain. "Overboard with 'em!
We'll have a clean ship soon of the whole bilin' of 'em."

He stood in my way, so that I had perforce to tap his shoulder
to come on deck. He came round with a start, and staggered back
a few paces to stare at me. It needed no expert eye to tell
that the man was still drunk.

"Hullo!" said he, stupidly; and then with a light coming into his eyes,
"Why, it's Mister—Mister?"

"Prendick," said I.

"Prendick be damned!" said he. "Shut-up,—that's your name.
Mister Shut-up."

It was no good answering the brute; but I certainly did not expect
his next move. He held out his hand to the gangway by which Montgomery
stood talking to a massive grey-haired man in dirty-blue flannels,
who had apparently just come aboard.

"That way, Mister Blasted Shut-up! that way!" roared the captain.

Montgomery and his companion turned as he spoke.

"What do you mean?" I said.

"That way, Mister Blasted Shut-up,—that's what I mean!
Overboard, Mister Shut-up,—and sharp! We're cleaning the ship
out,—cleaning the whole blessed ship out; and overboard you go!"

I stared at him dumfounded. Then it occurred to me that it was
exactly the thing I wanted. The lost prospect of a journey as sole
passenger with this quarrelsome sot was not one to mourn over.
I turned towards Montgomery.

"Can't have you," said Montgomery's companion, concisely.

"You can't have me!" said I, aghast. He had the squarest and most
resolute face I ever set eyes upon.

"Look here," I began, turning to the captain.

"Overboard!" said the captain. "This ship aint for beasts
and cannibals and worse than beasts, any more. Overboard you go,
Mister Shut-up. If they can't have you, you goes overboard.
But, anyhow, you go—with your friends. I've done with this blessed
island for evermore, amen! I've had enough of it."

"But, Montgomery," I appealed.

He distorted his lower lip, and nodded his head hopelessly at
the grey-haired man beside him, to indicate his powerlessness to help me.

"I'll see to
you
, presently," said the captain.

Then began a curious three-cornered altercation.
Alternately I appealed to one and another of the three men,—first
to the grey-haired man to let me land, and then to the drunken
captain to keep me aboard. I even bawled entreaties to the sailors.
Montgomery said never a word, only shook his head.
"You're going overboard, I tell you," was the captain's refrain.
"Law be damned! I'm king here." At last I must confess
my voice suddenly broke in the middle of a vigorous threat.
I felt a gust of hysterical petulance, and went aft and stared dismally
at nothing.

Meanwhile the sailors progressed rapidly with the task of
unshipping the packages and caged animals. A large launch,
with two standing lugs, lay under the lea of the schooner;
and into this the strange assortment of goods were swung.
I did not then see the hands from the island that were receiving
the packages, for the hull of the launch was hidden from me
by the side of the schooner. Neither Montgomery nor his companion
took the slightest notice of me, but busied themselves in assisting
and directing the four or five sailors who were unloading the goods.
The captain went forward interfering rather than assisting.
I was alternately despairful and desperate. Once or twice
as I stood waiting there for things to accomplish themselves,
I could not resist an impulse to laugh at my miserable quandary.
I felt all the wretcheder for the lack of a breakfast.
Hunger and a lack of blood-corpuscles take all the manhood from a man.
I perceived pretty clearly that I had not the stamina
either to resist what the captain chose to do to expel me,
or to force myself upon Montgomery and his companion.
So I waited passively upon fate; and the work of transferring
Montgomery's possessions to the launch went on as if I did
not exist.

Presently that work was finished, and then came a struggle.
I was hauled, resisting weakly enough, to the gangway.
Even then I noticed the oddness of the brown faces of the men who were
with Montgomery in the launch; but the launch was now fully laden,
and was shoved off hastily. A broadening gap of green water
appeared under me, and I pushed back with all my strength to avoid
falling headlong. The hands in the launch shouted derisively,
and I heard Montgomery curse at them; and then the captain,
the mate, and one of the seamen helping him, ran me aft towards
the stern.

The dingey of the "Lady Vain" had been towing behind; it was
half full of water, had no oars, and was quite unvictualled.
I refused to go aboard her, and flung myself full length on the deck.
In the end, they swung me into her by a rope (for they had no
stern ladder), and then they cut me adrift. I drifted slowly
from the schooner. In a kind of stupor I watched all hands take
to the rigging, and slowly but surely she came round to the wind;
the sails fluttered, and then bellied out as the wind came into them.
I stared at her weather-beaten side heeling steeply towards me;
and then she passed out of my range of view.

I did not turn my head to follow her. At first I could scarcely
believe what had happened. I crouched in the bottom of the dingey,
stunned, and staring blankly at the vacant, oily sea. Then I realised
that I was in that little hell of mine again, now half swamped;
and looking back over the gunwale, I saw the schooner standing away
from me, with the red-haired captain mocking at me over the taffrail,
and turning towards the island saw the launch growing smaller as she
approached the beach.

Abruptly the cruelty of this desertion became clear to me.
I had no means of reaching the land unless I should chance to drift there.
I was still weak, you must remember, from my exposure in the boat;
I was empty and very faint, or I should have had more heart.
But as it was I suddenly began to sob and weep, as I had never done
since I was a little child. The tears ran down my face. In a passion
of despair I struck with my fists at the water in the bottom of the boat,
and kicked savagely at the gunwale. I prayed aloud for God to let
me die.

BUT the islanders, seeing that I was really adrift, took pity on me.
I drifted very slowly to the eastward, approaching the island slantingly;
and presently I saw, with hysterical relief, the launch come round and
return towards me. She was heavily laden, and I could make out as she
drew nearer Montgomery's white-haired, broad-shouldered companion sitting
cramped up with the dogs and several packing-cases in the stern sheets.
This individual stared fixedly at me without moving or speaking.
The black-faced cripple was glaring at me as fixedly in the bows
near the puma. There were three other men besides,—three strange
brutish-looking fellows, at whom the staghounds were snarling savagely.
Montgomery, who was steering, brought the boat by me, and rising,
caught and fastened my painter to the tiller to tow me, for there was no
room aboard.

I had recovered from my hysterical phase by this time
and answered his hail, as he approached, bravely enough.
I told him the dingey was nearly swamped, and he reached me a piggin.
I was jerked back as the rope tightened between the boats.
For some time I was busy baling.

It was not until I had got the water under (for the water
in the dingey had been shipped; the boat was perfectly sound)
that I had leisure to look at the people in the launch again.

The white-haired man I found was still regarding me steadfastly,
but with an expression, as I now fancied, of some perplexity.
When my eyes met his, he looked down at the staghound that sat
between his knees. He was a powerfully-built man, as I have said,
with a fine forehead and rather heavy features; but his eyes
had that odd drooping of the skin above the lids which often
comes with advancing years, and the fall of his heavy mouth
at the corners gave him an expression of pugnacious resolution.
He talked to Montgomery in a tone too low for me to hear.