The Island of Doctor Moreau. Герберт Уэллс

a prominent editor, a cousin of the temporary laboratory-assistant, appealed to the conscience of the nation. It was not the first time that conscience has turned against the methods of research. The doctor was simply howled out of the country. It may be that he deserved to be; but I still think that the tepid support of his fellow-investigators and his desertion by the great body of scientific workers was a shameful thing. Yet some of his experiments, by the journalist's account, were wantonly cruel. He might perhaps have purchased his social peace by abandoning his investigations; but he apparently preferred the latter, as most men would who have once fallen under the overmastering spell of research. He was unmarried, and had indeed nothing but his own interest to consider.

      I felt convinced that this must be the same man. Everything pointed to it. It dawned upon me to what end the puma and the other animals – which had now been brought with other luggage into the enclosure behind the house – were destined; and a curious faint odour, the halitus of something familiar, an odour that had been in the background of my consciousness hitherto, suddenly came forward into the forefront of my thoughts. It was the antiseptic odour of the dissecting-room. I heard the puma growling through the wall, and one of the dogs yelped as though it had been struck.

      Yet surely, and especially to another scientific man, there was nothing so horrible in vivisection as to account for this secrecy; and by some odd leap in my thoughts the pointed ears and luminous eyes of Montgomery's attendant came back again before me with the sharpest definition. I stared before me out at the green sea, frothing under a freshening breeze, and let these and other strange memories of the last few days chase one another through my mind.

      What could it all mean? A locked enclosure on a lonely island, a notorious vivisector, and these crippled and distorted men?

      VIII. THE CRYING OF THE PUMA

      MONTGOMERY interrupted my tangle of mystification and suspicion about one o'clock, and his grotesque attendant followed him with a tray bearing bread, some herbs and other eatables, a flask of whiskey, a jug of water, and three glasses and knives. I glanced askance at this strange creature, and found him watching me with his queer, restless eyes. Montgomery said he would lunch with me, but that Moreau was too preoccupied with some work to come.

      “Moreau!” said I. “I know that name.”

      “The devil you do!” said he. “What an ass I was to mention it to you! I might have thought. Anyhow, it will give you an inkling of our – mysteries. Whiskey?”

      “No, thanks; I'm an abstainer.”

      “I wish I'd been. But it's no use locking the door after the steed is stolen. It was that infernal stuff which led to my coming here, – that, and a foggy night. I thought myself in luck at the time, when Moreau offered to get me off. It's queer—”

      “Montgomery,” said I, suddenly, as the outer door closed, “why has your man pointed ears?”

      “Damn!” he said, over his first mouthful of food. He stared at me for a moment, and then repeated, “Pointed ears?”

      “Little points to them,” said I, as calmly as possible, with a catch in my breath; “and a fine black fur at the edges?”

      He helped himself to whiskey and water with great deliberation. “I was under the impression – that his hair covered his ears.”

      “I saw them as he stooped by me to put that coffee you sent to me on the table. And his eyes shine in the dark.”

      By this time Montgomery had recovered from the surprise of my question. “I always thought,” he said deliberately, with a certain accentuation of his flavouring of lisp, “that there was something the matter with his ears, from the way he covered them. What were they like?”

      I was persuaded from his manner that this ignorance was a pretence. Still, I could hardly tell the man that I thought him a liar. “Pointed,” I said; “rather small and furry, – distinctly furry. But the whole man is one of the strangest beings I ever set eyes on.”

      A sharp, hoarse cry of animal pain came from the enclosure behind us. Its depth and volume testified to the puma. I saw Montgomery wince.

      “Yes?” he said.

      “Where did you pick up the creature?”

      “San Francisco. He's an ugly brute, I admit. Half-witted, you know. Can't remember where he came from. But I'm used to him, you know. We both are. How does he strike you?”

      “He's unnatural,” I said. “There's something about him – don't think me fanciful, but it gives me a nasty little sensation, a tightening of my muscles, when he comes near me. It's a touch – of the diabolical, in fact.”

      Montgomery had stopped eating while I told him this. “Rum!” he said. “I can't see it.” He resumed his meal. “I had no idea of it,” he said, and masticated. “The crew of the schooner must have felt it the same. Made a dead set at the poor devil. You saw the captain?”

      Suddenly the puma howled again, this time more painfully. Montgomery swore under his breath. I had half a mind to attack him about the men on the beach. Then the poor brute within gave vent to a series of short, sharp cries.

      “Your men on the beach,” said I; “what race are they?”

      “Excellent fellows, aren't they?” said he, absentmindedly, knitting his brows as the animal yelled out sharply.

      I said no more. There was another outcry worse than the former. He looked at me with his dull grey eyes, and then took some more whiskey. He tried to draw me into a discussion about alcohol, professing to have saved my life with it. He seemed anxious to lay stress on the fact that I owed my life to him. I answered him distractedly.

      Примечания

      1

      Daily News, March 17, 1887.