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Inroduction
On Feburuary the the First 1887, the Lady Vain was lost by collision with a derelict when about the latitude 1'S. and longitude 107'W -
Introduction
On January the Fifth, 1888- the eleven and four days after my uncle, Edward Prendick , a private gentleman, who certainly went aboard the Lady Vain at Callao. Who was considered drwoned was picked up in latitude 5'3"S and longitude 101'W in a samll boat which name was illegible, but which is supposed to have belonged to the mising schooner Ipecacuanha. -
(I) In the Dingey of the Lady Vain
I would not draw lots however and the night the sailor came around to him. Again, and I sat in the bows with my clasp-knife in my hand though I doubt if I had the stuff in me to fight and they grappled upon the gunwale and rolled overboard together. -
(II) The Man Who Was Going Nowhere
"You was picked up in a boat, starving. The name of the boat was Lady Vain, and there were spots of blood on the gunwale." At the same time my eye caught my hand, thin so that it looked like a dirty skin-purse full of loose bones, and all the business of the boat came back to me. "Have some of this," said he, and gave me a dose of some scarlet stuff, iced. It tasted like blood, and it made me feel stronger. "You were in luck." said he, "to get picked up by a ship with a medical man aboard." -
(III) The Strange Face
"That man's a passgenger," said Montgomery. "I 'd advise you to keep your hands off him." "Go to hell!" said the captain loudly. He suddenly turned and staggered towards the side. "Do what I like on my own ship," he said. -
(IV) At the Schooner's Rail
That night I had some very unpleasant dreams. The waning moon rose late. Its light struck 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 buying; so that I dreamt fitfully, and scarcely slept until the approach of dawn. -
(V.) The Man Who Had Nowhere to Go
As I came up the ladder I saw 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 from a trackle rigged on to the mizzen spanker-boom. The poor brute seemed horribly scared, and crouched in the bottom of its little cage. "Overboard wiht ' em!" Bawled the captain. -
(VI.) The Evil-Looking Boatmen
But the islanders,seeing that I was really adrift, took pity on me. I drifted 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- shoulders companion sitting cramped up with the dogs and several packing- cases in the stern sheets. -
(VII.) The locked Door
I turned and saw that the launch had now been unloaded, run out again, and was being beached, and the white- haired man was walking toward us. He addressed Montgomery. "And now comes the problem of this uninvited guest. "What are we to do with him?" He knows something of sicence," said Montgomery. -
(IX.) The Thing in the Forest
I strode through the undergrowth that clothed the ridge behind the house, scarely heeding whither I went; passed on through the shadow of a thick cluster of striaght-stemmed trees beyond it, and so presently found myself some way on the other side of the ridge, and descending towards a streamlet that ran through a narrow valley. -
(X) The Crying of the Man
As I drew near the house I saw that the light shone from the open door of my room; and then I heard coming from out of the darkness at the side of that orange oblong of light, the voice of Montgomery shouting, "Prendick!" I continued running. Presently I heard him again. I replied by a feeble "Hullo!" and in another moment had staggered up to him. "Where have you been?" said he, holding me at arm's length. -
(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. -
(XII) The Sayers of the Law
Then something cold touched my hand. I started violently, and saw close to me a dim pinkish thing, looking more like a flayed child than anything else in the world. The creature had exactly the mild but repulisive features of a sloth, the same low forehead and slow gestures. -
(XIII.) The Parley
Then it came into my head that there was one chance before me yet. While Moreau and Montgomery and their bestial rabble chased me through the island, might I not go round the beach until I came to their enclosure,—make a flank march upon them, in fact, and then with a rock lugged out of their loosely-built wall, perhaps, smash in the lock of the smaller door and see what I could find (knife, pistol, or what not) to fight them with when they returned? It was at any rate something to try. -
(XIV.) Doctor Moreau
“AND now, Prendick, I will explain,” said Doctor Moreau, so soon as we had eaten and drunk. “I must confess that you are the most dictatorial guest I ever entertained. I warn you that this is the last I shall do to oblige you. The next thing you threaten to commit suicide about, I shan’t do,—even at some personal inconvenience.”
He sat in my deck chair, a cigar half consumed in his white, dexterous-looking fingers. The light of the swinging lamp fell on his white hair; he stared through -
(XV.) Concerning the Beast Folk
I WOKE early. Moreau’s explanation stood before my mind, clear and definite, from the moment of my awakening. I got out of the hammock and went to the door to assure myself that the key was turned. Then I tried the window-bar, and found it firmly fixed. That these man-like creatures were in truth only bestial monsters, mere grotesque travesties of men, filled me with a vague uncertainty of their possibilities which was far worse than any definite fear. -
(XVI.) How the Beast Folk Taste Blood
MY inexperience as a writer betrays me, and I wander from the thread of my story. After I had breakfasted with Montgomery, he took me across the island to see the fumarole and the source of the hot spring into whose scalding waters I had blundered on the previous day. Both of us carried whips and loaded revolvers. While going through a leafy jungle on our road thither, we heard a rabbit squealing. We stopped and listened, but we heard no more; and presently we went on our way. -
(XVII.) A Catastrope
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. -
(XVIII) The Finding of Moreau
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 no -
(XIX.)
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. -
(XX.) Alone with the Beast Folk
I FACED these people, facing my fate in them, single-handed now,—literally single-handed, for I had a broken arm. In my pocket was a revolver with two empty chambers. Among the chips scattered about the beach lay the two axes that had been used to chop up the boats. The tide was creeping in behind me. There was nothing for it but courage. I looked squarely into the faces of the advancing monsters. They avoided my eyes, and their quivering nostrils investigated the bodies that lay beyond me. -
(XXI.) The Reversion of the Beast Folks
IN this way I became one among the Beast People in the Island of Doctor Moreau. When I awoke, it was dark about me. My arm ached in its bandages. I sat up, wondering at first where I might be. I heard coarse voices talking outside. Then I saw that my barricade had gone, and that the opening of the hut stood clear. My revolver was still in my hand.I heard something breathing, saw something crouched together close beside me. I held my breath, trying to see what it was. It began to move slowly. -
(XXII.) The Man Alone
IN the evening I started, and drove out to sea before a gentle wind from the southwest, slowly, steadily; and the island grew smaller and smaller, and the lank spire of smoke dwindled to a finer and finer line against the hot sunset. The ocean rose up around me, hiding that low, dark patch from my eyes. The daylight, the trailing glory of the sun, went streaming out of the sky, was drawn aside like some luminous curtain, and at last I looked into the blue gulf of immensity which the sunshine.
