H G Wells Omnibus, page 729
I began to distinguish now a deeper blackness in the black, a vague outline of a hunched-up figure. Then I noticed the opening of the place was darkened by two more heads. My hand tightened on my stick. The thing in the dark repeated in a louder tone, “Say the words.” I had missed its last remark. “Not to go on all-Fours; that is the Law”—it repeated in a kind of sing-song.
I was puzzled. “Say the words,” said the Ape Man, repeating, and the figures in the doorway echoed this with a threat in the tone of their voices. I realized I had to repeat this idiotic formula. And then began the insanest ceremony. The voice in the dark began intoning a mad litany, line by line, and I and the rest to repeat it. As they did so, they swayed from side to side, and beat their hands upon their knees, and I followed their example. I could have imagined I was already dead and in another world. The dark hut, these grotesque dim figures, just flecked here and there by a glimmer of light, and all of them swaying in unison and chanting:
“Not to go on all-Fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?”
“Not to suck up Drink; that is the Law. Are we not Men?”
“Not to eat Flesh or Fish; that is the Law. Are we not Men?”
“Not to claw Bark of Trees; that is the Law. Are we not Men?”
“Not to chase other Men; that is the Law. Are we not Men?”
And so from the prohibition of these acts of folly, on to the prohibition of what I thought then were the maddest, most impossible and most indecent things one could well imagine. A kind of rhythmic fervor fell on all of us; we gabbled and swayed faster and faster, repeating this amazing law. Superficially the contagion of these brute men was upon me, but deep down within me laughter and disgust struggled together. We ran through a long list of prohibitions, and then the chant swung round to a new formula:
“His is the House of Pain.
“His is the Hand that makes.
“His is the Hand that wounds.
“His is the Hand that heals.
And so on for another long series, mostly quite incomprehensible gibberish to me, about Him, whoever he might be. I could have fancied it was a dream, but never before have I heard chanting in a dream.
“His is the lightning-flash,” we sang. “His is the deep salt sea.”
A horrible fancy came into my head that Moreau, after animalizing these men, had infected their dwarfed brains with a kind of deification of himself. However, I was too keenly aware of white teeth and strong claws about me to stop my chanting on the account. “His are the stars in the sky.”
At last that song ended. I saw the Ape Man’s face shining with perspiration, and my eyes being now accustomed to the darkness, I saw more distinctly the figure in the corner from which the voice came. It was the size of a man, but it seemed covered with a dull gray hair almost like a Skye terrier. What was it? What were they all? Imagine yourself surrounded by all the most horrible cripples and maniacs it is possible to conceive, and you may understand a little of my feelings with these grotesque caricatures of humanity about me.
“He is a five-man, a five-man, a five-man… like me,” said the Ape Man.
I held out my hands. The gray creature in the corner leant forward. “Not to run on all-Fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?” he said. He put out a strangely distorted talon, and gripped my fingers. The thing was almost like the hoof of a deer produced into claws. I could have yelled with surprise and pain. His face came forward and peered at my nails, came forward into the light of the opening of the hut, and I saw with a quivering disgust that it was like the face of neither man nor beast, but a mere shock of gray hair, with three shadowy overarchings to mark the eyes and mouth.
“He has little nails,” said the grisly creature in his hairy beard. “It is well. Many are troubled with big nails.”
He threw my hand down, and instinctively I gripped my stick.
“Eat roots and herbs—it is His will,” said the Ape Man.
“I am the Sayer of the Law,” said the gray figure. “Here come all that be new, to learn the Law. I sit in the darkness and say the Law.”
“It is even so,” said one of the beasts in the doorway.
“Evil are the punishments of those who break the Law. None escape.”
“None escape,” said the Beast folk, glancing furtively at each other.
“None, none,” said the Ape Man. “None escape. See! I did a little thing, a wrong thing once. I jabbered, jabbered, stopped talking. None could understand. I am burnt, branded in the hand. He is great, he is good!”
“None escape,” said the great creature in the corner.
“None escape,” said the Beast People, looking askance at one another.
“For every one the want that is bad,” said the gray Sayer of the Law. “What you will want, we do not know. We shall know. Some want to follow things that move, to watch and slink and wait and spring, to kill and bite, bite deep and rich, sucking the blood… It is bad. ‘Not to chase other Men; that is the Law. Are we not Men? Not to eat Flesh nor Fish: that is the Law. Are we not Men?’ ”
“None escape,” said a dappled brute standing in the doorway.
“For every one the want that is bad,” said the gray Sayer of the Law. “Some want to go tearing with teeth and hands into the roots of things, snuffing into the earth… It is bad.”
“None escape,” said the men in the door.
“Some go clawing trees, some go scratching at the graves of the dead; some go fighting with foreheads or feet or claws; some bite suddenly, none giving occasion; some love uncleanness.”
“None escape,” said the Ape Man, scratching his calf.
“None escape,” said the little pink sloth creature.
“Punishment is sharp and sure. Therefore learn the Law. Say the words,” and incontinently he began again the strange litany of the Law, and again I and all these creatures began singing and swaying. My head reeled with this jabbering and the close stench of the place, but I kept on, trusting to find presently some chance of a new development. “Not to go on all-Fours; that is the Law. Are We Not Men?”
We were making such a noise that I noticed nothing of a tumult outside, until someone, who, I think was one of the two Swine Men I had seen, thrust his head over the little pink sloth creature and shouted something excitedly, something that I did not catch. Incontinently those at the opening of the hut vanished, my Ape man rushed out, the thing that had sat in the dark followed him—I only observed it was big and clumsy, and covered with silvery hair, and I was left alone.
Then before I reached the aperture I heard the yelp of a staghound.
In another moment I was standing outside the hovel, my chair-rail in my hand, every muscle of me quivering. Before me were the clumsy backs of perhaps a score of these Beast People, their misshapen heads half-hidden by their shoulder-blades. They were gesticulating excitedly. Other half-animal faces glared interrogation out of the hovels. Looking in the direction in which they faced I saw coming through the haze under the trees beyond the end of the passage of dens the dark figure and awful white face of Moreau. He was holding the leaping staghound back, and close behind him came Montgomery, revolver in hand.
For a moment I stood horror-struck.
* * * * *
First to arrive was the Satyr, strangely unreal for all that he cast a shadow, and tossed the dust with his hoofs; after him from the brake came a monstrous lout, a thing of horse and rhinoceros, chewing a straw as it came; and then appeared the Swine Woman and two Wolf Women; then the Fox-Bear Witch with her red eyes in her peaked red face, and then others—all hurrying eagerly. As they came forward they began to cringe towards Moreau and chant, quite regardless of one another, fragments of the latter half of the litany of the Law: “His is the Hand that wounds, His is the Hand that heals,” and so forth.
As soon as they had approached within a distance of perhaps thirty yards they halted, and bowing on knees and elbows, began flinging the white dust upon their heads. Imagine the scene if you can. We three blue-clad men, with our misshapen black-faced attendant, standing in a wide expanse of sunlit yellow dust under the blazing blue sky, and surrounded by this circle of crouching and gesticulating monstrosities, some almost human save in their subtle expression and gestures, some like cripples, some so strangely distorted as to resemble nothing but the denizens of our wildest dreams. And beyond, the reedy lines of a cane brake in one direction and a dense tangle of palm-trees on the other, separating us from the ravine with the huts, and to the north the hazy horizon of the Pacific Ocean.
“Sixty-two, sixty-three,” counted Moreau. “There are four more.”
“I do not see the Leopard Man,” said I.
Presently Moreau sounded the great horn again, and at the sound of it all the Beast People writhed and groveled in the dust. Then, slinking out of the cane brake, stooping near the ground, and trying to join the dust-throwing circle behind Moreau’s back, came the Leopard man. And I saw that his forehead was bruised. The last of the Beast People to arrive was the little Ape Man. The earlier animals, hot and weary with their groveling, shot vicious glances at him.
“Cease,” said Moreau, in his firm loud voice, and the Beast People sat back upon their hams and rested from their worshipping.
“Where is the Sayer of the Law?” said Moreau, and the hairy gray monster bowed his face in the dust.
“Say the words,” said Moreau, and forthwith all in the kneeling assembly, swaying from side to side and dashing up the sulphur with their hands, first the right hand and a puff of dust, and then the left, began once more to chant their strange litany.
When they reached “Not to eat Flesh or Fish; that is the Law,” Moreau held up his lank white hand. “Stop!” he cried, and there fell absolute silence upon them all.
I think they all knew and dreaded what was coming. I looked round at their strange faces. When I saw their wincing attitudes and the furtive dread in their bright eyes, I wondered that I had ever believed them to be men.
“That Law has been broken,” said Moreau.
“None escape,” from the faceless creature with the Silvery Hair. “None escape,” repeated the kneeling circle of Beast People.
“Who is he?” cried Moreau, and looked round at their faces, cracking his whip. I fancied the Hyaena-Swine looked dejected, so too did the Leopard Man. Moreau stopped, facing this creature, who cringed towards him with the memory and dread of infinite torment. “Who is he?’ repeated Moreau, in a voice of thunder.
“Evil is he who breaks the Law,” chanted the Sayer of the Law.
Moreau looked into the eyes of the Leopard Man, and seemed to be dragging the very soul out of the creature.
“Who breaks the Law—” said Moreau, taking his eyes off his victim and turning towards us. It seemed to me there was a touch of exultation in his voice.
“—goes back to the House of Pain,” they all clamored; “goes back to the House of Pain, O Master!”
“Back to the House of Pain—back to the House of Pain,” gabbled the Ape Man, as though the idea was sweet to him.
“Do you hear?” said Moreau, turning back to the criminal, “my friend… Hullo!”
For the Leopard man, released from Moreau’s eye, had risen straight from his knees, and now, with eyes aflame and his huge feline tusks flashing out from under his curling lips, leapt towards his tormentor. I am convinced that only the madness of unendurable fear could have prompted this attack. The whole circle of three-score monsters seemed to rise about us. I drew my revolver. The two figures collided. I saw Moreau reeling back from the Leopard Man’s blow. There was a furious yelling and howling all about us. Everyone was moving rapidly. For a moment I thought it was a general revolt.
The furious face of the Leopard Man flashed by mine, with M’ling close in pursuit. I saw the yellow eyes of the Hyaena-Swine blazing with excitement, his attitude as if he were half-resolved to attack me. The Satyr, too, glared at me over the Hyaena-Swine’s hunched shoulders. I heard the crack of Moreau’s pistol, and saw the pink flash dart across the tumult. The whole crowd seemed to swing round in the direction of the glint of fire, and I, too, was swung round by the magnetism of the movement. In another second I was running, one of the tumultuous shouting crowd, in pursuit of the escaping Leopard Man.
That is all I can tell definitely. I saw the Leopard man strike Moreau, and then everything spun about me, until I was running headlong.
M’ling was ahead, close in pursuit of the fugitive. Behind, their tongues already lolling out, ran the Wolf-Women in great leaping strides. The Swine-Folk followed, squealing with excitement, and the two Bull Men in their swathings of white. Then came Moreau in a cluster of the Beast People, his wide-brimmed straw hat blown off, his revolver in hand, and his lank white hair streaming out. The Hyaena-Swine ran beside me, keeping pace with me, and glancing furtively at me out of his feline eyes, and the others came pattering and shouting behind us.
The Leopard Man went bursting his way through the long canes, which sprang back as he passed and rattled in M’ling’s face. We others in the rear found a trampled path for us when we reached the brake. The chase lay through the brake for perhaps a quarter of a mile, and then plunged into a dense thicket that retarded our movements exceedingly, though we went through it in a crowd together—fronds flicking into our faces, ropy creepers catching us under the chin, or gripping our ankles, thorny plants hooking into the tearing cloth and flesh together.
“He has gone on all-fours though this,” panted Moreau, now just ahead of me.
“None escape,” said the Wolf-Bear, laughing into my face with the exultation of hunting.
We burst out again among rocks, and saw the quarry ahead, running lightly on all-fours, and snarling at us over his shoulder. At that the Wolf-Folk howled with delight. The thing was still clothed, and, at a distance, its face still seemed human, but the carriage of its four limbs was feline, and the furtive droop of its shoulder was distinctly that of a hunted animal. It leapt over some thorny yellow flowering bushes and was hidden. M’ling was half-way across the space.
Most of us now had lost the first speed of the chase, and had fallen into a longer and steadier stride. I saw, as we traversed the open, that the pursuit was now spreading from a column into a line. The Hyaena-Swine still ran close to me, watching me as it ran, every now and then puckering its muzzle with a snarling laugh.
At the edge of the rocks the Leopard Man, realizing he was making for the projecting cape upon which he had stalked me on the night of my arrival, had doubled in the undergrowth. But Montgomery had seen the maneuver, and turned him again.
So, panting, tumbling against rocks, torn by brambles, impeded by ferns and reeds, I helped to pursue the Leopard Man who had broken the Law, and the Hyaena-Swine ran, laughing savagely, by my side. I staggered on, my head reeling, and my heart beating against my ribs, tired almost to death, and yet not daring to lose sight of the chase, lest I should be left alone with this horrible companion. I staggered on in spite of infinite fatigue and the dense heat of the tropical afternoon.
And at last the fury of the hunt slackened. We had pinned the wretched brute into a corner of the island. Moreau, whip in hand, marshaled us all into an irregular line, and we advanced now slowly, shouting to one another as we advanced, and tightening the cordon about our victim. He lurked, noiseless and invisible, in the bushes through which I had run from him during the midnight pursuit.
“Steady!’ cried Moreau; “steady!” as the ends of the line crept round the tangle of undergrowth, and hemmed the brute in.
“ ’Ware a rush!” came the voice of Montgomery from beyond the thicket.
I was on the slope above the bushes. Montgomery and Moreau beat along the beach beneath. Slowly we pushed in among the fretted network of branches and leaves. The quarry was silent.
“Back to the House of Pain, the House of Pain, the House of Pain!” yelped the voice of the Ape Man, some twenty yards to the right.
When I heard that I forgave the poor wretch all the fear he had inspired in me.
I heard the twigs snap and the boughs swish aside before the heavy tread of the Horse-rhinoceros upon my right. Then suddenly, through a polygon of green, in the half-darkness under the luxuriant growth, I saw the creature we were hunting. I halted. He was crouched together into the smallest possible compass, his luminous green eyes turned over his shoulder regarding me.
It may seem a strange contradiction in me—I cannot explain the fact—but now, seeing the creature there in a perfectly animal attitude, with the light gleaming in its eyes, and its imperfectly human face distorted with terror, I realized again the fact of its humanity. In another moment other of its pursuers would see it, and it would be overpowered and captured, to experience once more the horrible tortures of the enclosure. Abruptly I slipped out my revolver, aimed between his terror-struck eyes and fired.
As I did so the Hyaena-Swine saw the thing, and flung itself upon it with an eager cry, thrusting thirsty teeth into its neck. All about me the green masses of the thicket were swaying and cracking as the Beast People came rushing together. One face and then another appeared.
“Don’t kill it, Prendick!” cried Moreau. “Don’t kill it!” and I saw him stooping as he pushed through the under fronds of the big ferns.
In another moment he had beaten off the Hyaena-Swine with the handle of his whip, and he and Montgomery were keeping away the excited carnivorous Beast People, and particularly M’ling from the still quivering body. The Hairy Gray Thing came sniffing at the corpse under my arm. The other animals, in their animal ardor, jostled me to get a nearer view.
“Confound you, Prendick!” said Moreau. “I wanted him.”
“I’m sorry,” said I, though I was not. “It was the impulse of the moment.” I felt sick with exertion and excitement. Turning, I pushed my way out of the crowding Beast People and went on alone up the slope towards the higher part of the headland. Under the shouted instructions of Moreau, I heard the three white-swathed Bull Men begin dragging the victim down towards the water.
It was easy now for me to be alone. The Beast People manifested a quite human curiosity about the dead body, and followed it in a thick knot, sniffing and growling at it, as the Bull Men dragged it down the beach. I went to the headland, and watched the Bull Men, black against the evening sky, as they carried the weighted dead body out to sea, and, like a wave across my mind, came the realization of the unspeakable aimlessness of things upon the island.
