H. Wells - The Greatest Sci-Fi Works of H. G. Wells

Presently the ground gave, rich and oozy, under my feet; but I was desperate, and went headlong into it, struggled through knee-deep, and so came to a winding path among tall canes. The noise of my pursuers passed away to my left. In one place three strange pink hopping animals, about the size of cats, bolted before my footsteps. This pathway ran up-hill, across another open space covered with white incrustation, and plunged into a cane-brake again.

Then suddenly it turned parallel with the edge of a steep walled gap which came without warning like the haha of an English park — turned with unexpected abruptness. I was still running with all my might, and I never saw this drop until I was flying headlong through the air.

I fell on my forearms and head, among thorns, and rose with a torn ear and bleeding face. I had fallen into a precipitous ravine, rocky and thorny, full of a hazy mist that drifted about me in wisps, and with a narrow streamlet, from which this mist came, meandering down the centre. I was astonished at this thin fog in the full blaze of daylight, but I had no time to stand wondering then. I turned to my right downstream, hoping to come to the sea in that direction, and so have my way open to drown myself. It was only later I found that I had dropped my nailed stick in my fall.

Presently the ravine grew narrower for a space, and carelessly I stepped into the stream. I jumped out again pretty quickly for the water was almost boiling. I noticed, too, there was a thin sulphurous scum driving upon its coiling water. Almost immediately came a turn in the ravine and the indistinct blue horizon. The nearer sea was flashing the sun from a myriad facts. I saw my death before me.

But I was hot and panting. I felt more than a touch of exultation, too, at having distanced my pursuers. It was not in me then to go out and drown myself. My blood was too warm.

I stared back the way I had come. I listened. Save for the hum of the gnats and the chirp of some small insects that hopped among the thorns, the air was absolutely still.

Then came the yelp of a dog, very faint, and a chattering and gibbering, the snap of a whip and voices. They grew louder, then fainter again. The noise receded up the stream and faded away. For a while the chase was over.

But I knew now how much hope for me lay in the Beast People.

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I turned again and went on down towards the sea. I found the hot stream broadened out to a shallow weedy sand, in which an abundance of crabs, and long-bodied, many-legged creatures started from my footfall. I walked to the very edge of the salt water, and then I felt I was safe. I turned and stared — arms akimbo — at the thick green behind me, into which the streamy ravine cut like a smoking gash. But as I say, I was too full of excitement, and — a true saying, though those who have never known danger may doubt it — too desperate to die.

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 aa 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 a chance of getting a price for my life.

So I turned to the westward and walked along by the water’s edge. The setting sun flashed his blinding heat into my eyes. The slight Pacific tide was running in with a gentle ripple.

Presently the shore fell away southward and the sun came round upon my right hand. Then suddenly, far in front of me, I saw first one and then several figures emerging from the bushes — Moreau with his grey staghound, then Montgomery, and two others. At that I stopped.

They saw me and began gesticulating and advancing. I stood watching them approach. The two Beast Men came running forward to cut me off from the undergrowth inland. Montgomery came running also, but straight towards me. Moreau followed slower with the dog.

At last I roused myself from inaction, and turning seaward walked straight into the water. The water was very shallow at first. I was thirty yards out before the waves reached to my waist. Dimly I could see the intertidal creatures darting away from my feet.

`What are you doing, man?’ cried Montgomery.

I turned, standing waist-deep, and stared at them.

Montgomery stood panting at the margin of the water. His face was bright red with exertion, his long flaxen hair blown about his head, and his dropping nether lip showed his irregular teeth. Moreau was just coming up, his face pale and firm, and the dog at his hand barked at me. Both men had heavy whips. Further up the beach stared the Beast Men.

`What am I doing? — I am going to drown myself,’ said I.

Montgomery and Moreau looked at one another. `Why?’ asked Moreau.

`Because that is better than being tortured by you.’

`I told you so,’ said Montgomery, and Moreau said something in a low tone.

`What makes you think I shall torture you?’ asked Moreau.

`What I saw,’ I said. `And those — yonder.’

`Hush!’ said Moreau, and held up his hand.

`I will not,’ said I; `they were men: what are they now? I at least will not be like them.’ I looked past my interlocutors. Up the beach were M’ling, Montgomery’s attendant, and one of the white swathed brutes from the boat. Further up, in the shadow of the trees, I saw my little Ape Man, and behind him some other dim figures.

`Who are these creatures?’ said I, pointing to them, and raising my voice more and more that it might reach them. `They were men — men like yourselves, whom you have infected with some bestial taint, men whom you have enslaved, and whom you still fear. — You who listen,’ I cried, pointing now to Moreau, and shouting past him to the Beast Man, `You who listen! Do you not see these men still fear you, go in dread of you? Why then do you fear them? You are many — ‘

`For God’s sake,’ cried Montgomery, `stop that, Prendick!’

`Prendick!’ cried Moreau.

They both shouted together as if to drown my voice. And behind them lowered the staring faces of the Beast Men, wondering, their deformed hands hanging down, their shoulders hunched up. They seemed, as I fancied then, to be trying to understand me, to remember something of their human past.

I went on shouting, I scarcely remember what. That Moreau and Montgomery could be killed; that they were not to be feared: that was the burthen of what I put into the heads of the Beast People to my own ultimate undoing. I saw the green-eyed man in the dark rags, who had met me on the evening of my arrival, come out from among the trees, and others followed him to hear me better.

At last for want of breath I paused.

`Listen to me for a moment,’ said the steady voice of Moreau, `and then say what you will.’

`Well?’ said I.

He coughed, thought, then shouted: `Latin, Prendick! bad Latin! Schoolboy Latin! But try and understand. Hi non sunt homines, sunt animalia qui nos habemus… vivisected. A humanising process. I will explain. Come ashore.’

I laughed. `A pretty story,’ said I. `They talk, build houses, cook. They were men. It’s likely I’ll come ashore.’

`The water just beyond where you stand is deep… and full of sharks.’

`That’s my way,’ said I. `Short and sharp. Presently.’

`Wait a minute.’ He took something out of his pocket that flashed back the sun, and dropped the object at his feet. `That’s a loaded revolver,’ said he. `Montgomery here will do the same. Now we are going up the beach until you are satisfied the distance is safe. Then come and take the revolvers.’