by H. G. Wells
XIX. MONTGOMERY'S "BANK HOLIDAY."
WHEN this was accomplished, and we had washed and eaten,Montgomery and I went into my little room and seriously discussedour 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 ofhis nature in the ten or more monotonous years he had spent on the island.He talked vaguely, answered my questions crookedly, wandered intogeneral questions.
"This silly ass of a world," he said; "what a muddle it all is!I haven't had any life. I wonder when it's going to begin.Sixteen years being bullied by nurses and schoolmasters attheir own sweet will; five in London grinding hard at medicine,bad food, shabby lodgings, shabby clothes, shabby vice, a blunder,--Ididn't know any better,--and hustled off to this beastly island.Ten years here! What's it all for, Prendick? Are we bubbles blown bya baby?"
It was hard to deal with such ravings. "The thing we have to thinkof now," said I, "is how to get away from this island."
"What's the good of getting away? I'm an outcast.Where am _I_ to join on? It's all very well for _you_, Prendick.Poor old Moreau! We can't leave him here to have his bones picked.As it is--And besides, what will become of the decent part of theBeast Folk?"
"Well," said I, "that will do to-morrow. I've been thinking we might makethe brushwood into a pyre and burn his body--and those other things.Then what will happen with the Beast Folk?"
"_I_ don't know. I suppose those that were made of beasts of prey willmake silly asses of themselves sooner or later. We can't massacrethe lot--can we? I suppose that's what _your_ humanity would suggest?But they'll change. They are sure to change."
He talked thus inconclusively until at last I felt my temper going.
"Damnation!" he exclaimed at some petulance of mine; "can't you see I'min a worse hole than you are?" And he got up, and went for the brandy."Drink!" he said returning, "you logic-chopping, chalky-faced saintof an atheist, drink!"
"Not I," said I, and sat grimly watching his face under the yellowparaffine flare, as he drank himself into a garrulous misery.
I have a memory of infinite tedium. He wandered into a maudlindefence of the Beast People and of M'ling. M'ling, he said,was the only thing that had ever really cared for him.And suddenly an idea came to him.
"I'm damned!" said he, staggering to his feet and clutchingthe brandy bottle.
By some flash of intuition I knew what it was he intended."You don't give drink to that beast!" I said, rising and facing him.
"Beast!" said he. "You're the beast. He takes his liquorlike a Christian. Come out of the way, Prendick!"
"For God's sake," said I.
"Get--out of the way!" he roared, and suddenly whipped out his revolver.
"Very well," said I, and stood aside, half-minded to fall upon himas he put his hand upon the latch, but deterred by the thoughtof my useless arm. "You've made a beast of yourself,--to the beastsyou may go."
He flung the doorway open, and stood half facing me betweenthe yellow lamp-light and the pallid glare of the moon;his eye-sockets were blotches of black under his stubbly eyebrows.
"You're a solemn prig, Prendick, a silly ass! You're always fearingand fancying. We're on the edge of things. I'm bound to cut mythroat to-morrow. I'm going to have a damned Bank Holiday to-night."He turned and went out into the moonlight. "M'ling!" he cried;"M'ling, old friend!"
Three dim creatures in the silvery light came along the edgeof the wan beach,--one a white-wrapped creature, the other twoblotches of blackness following it. They halted, staring.Then I saw M'ling's hunched shoulders as he came round the cornerof the house.
"Drink!" cried Montgomery, "drink, you brutes! Drink and be men!Damme, I'm the cleverest. Moreau forgot this; this is the last touch.Drink, I tell you!" And waving the bottle in his hand he startedoff at a kind of quick trot to the westward, M'ling ranging himselfbetween him and the three dim creatures who followed.
I went to the doorway. They were already indistinct in the mistof the moonlight before Montgomery halted. I saw him administera dose of the raw brandy to M'ling, and saw the five figures meltinto one vague patch.
"Sing!" I heard Montgomery shout,--"sing all together, 'Confoundold Prendick!' That's right; now again, 'Confound old Prendick!'"
The black group broke up into five separate figures,and wound slowly away from me along the band of shining beach.Each went howling at his own sweet will, yelping insults at me,or giving whatever other vent this new inspiration of brandy demanded.Presently I heard Montgomery's voice shouting, "Right turn!"and they passed with their shouts and howls into the blacknessof the landward trees. Slowly, very slowly, they recededinto silence.
The peaceful splendour of the night healed again.The moon was now past the meridian and travelling down the west.It was at its full, and very bright riding through the empty blue sky.The shadow of the wall lay, a yard wide and of inky blackness, at my feet.The eastward sea was a featureless grey, dark and mysterious;and between the sea and the shadow the grey sands (of volcanicglass and crystals) flashed and shone like a beach of diamonds.Behind me the paraffine lamp flared hot and ruddy.
Then I shut the door, locked it, and went into the enclosure whereMoreau lay beside his latest victims,--the staghounds and the llamaand some other wretched brutes,--with his massive face calm evenafter his terrible death, and with the hard eyes open, staring atthe dead white moon above. I sat down upon the edge of the sink,and with my eyes upon that ghastly pile of silvery light and ominousshadows began to turn over my plans. In the morning I would gathersome provisions in the dingey, and after setting fire to the pyrebefore me, push out into the desolation of the high sea once more.I felt that for Montgomery there was no help; that he was, in truth,half akin to these Beast Folk, unfitted for human kindred.
I do not know how long I sat there scheming. It must have beenan hour or so. Then my planning was interrupted by the return ofMontgomery to my neighbourhood. I heard a yelling from many throats,a tumult of exultant cries passing down towards the beach,whooping and howling, and excited shrieks that seemed to come to a stopnear the water's edge. The riot rose and fell; I heard heavy blowsand the splintering smash of wood, but it did not trouble me then.A discordant chanting began.
My thoughts went back to my means of escape. I got up, brought the lamp,and went into a shed to look at some kegs I had seen there.Then I became interested in the contents of some biscuit-tins, andopened one. I saw something out of the tail of my eye,--a redfigure,--and turned sharply.
Behind me lay the yard, vividly black-and-white in the moonlight,and the pile of wood and faggots on which Moreau and his mutilatedvictims lay, one over another. They seemed to be gripping one anotherin one last revengeful grapple. His wounds gaped, black as night,and the blood that had dripped lay in black patches upon the sand.Then I saw, without understanding, the cause of my phantom,--aruddy glow that came and danced and went upon the wall opposite.I misinterpreted this, fancied it was a reflection of myflickering lamp, and turned again to the stores in the shed.I went on rummaging among them, as well as a one-armed man could,finding this convenient thing and that, and putting themaside for to-morrow's launch. My movements were slow,and the time passed quickly. Insensibly the daylight creptupon me.
The chanting died down, giving place to a clamour; then itbegan again, and suddenly broke into a tumult. I heard cries of,"More! more!" a sound like quarrelling, and a sudden wild shriek.The quality of the sounds changed so greatly that it arrestedmy attention. I went out into the yard and listened.Then cutting like a knife across the confusion came the crack ofa revolver.
I rushed at once through my room to the little doorway.As I did so I heard some of the packing-cases behind me go sliding downand smash together with a clatter of glass on the floor of the shed.But I did not heed thes
e. I flung the door open and looked out.
Up the beach by the boathouse a bonfire was burning, raining upsparks into the indistinctness of the dawn. Around this struggleda mass of black figures. I heard Montgomery call my name.I began to run at once towards this fire, revolver in hand. I saw the pinktongue of Montgomery's pistol lick out once, close to the ground.He was down. I shouted with all my strength and fired into the air.I heard some one cry, "The Master!" The knotted black strugglebroke into scattering units, the fire leapt and sank down.The crowd of Beast People fled in sudden panic before me, up the beach.In my excitement I fired at their retreating backs as theydisappeared among the bushes. Then I turned to the black heaps uponthe ground.
Montgomery lay on his back, with the hairy-grey Beast-mansprawling across his body. The brute was dead, but stillgripping Montgomery's throat with its curving claws.Near by lay M'ling on his face and quite still, his neck bittenopen and the upper part of the smashed brandy-bottle in his hand.Two other figures lay near the fire,--the one motionless, the othergroaning fitfully, every now and then raising its head slowly,then dropping it again.
I caught hold of the grey man and pulled him off Montgomery's body;his claws drew down the torn coat reluctantly as I dragged him away.Montgomery was dark in the face and scarcely breathing. I splashedsea-water on his face and pillowed his head on my rolled-up coat.M'ling was dead. The wounded creature by the fire--it was a Wolf-brutewith a bearded grey face--lay, I found, with the fore part of itsbody upon the still glowing timber. The wretched thing was injuredso dreadfully that in mercy I blew its brains out at once.The other brute was one of the Bull-men swathed in white.He too was dead. The rest of the Beast People had vanished fromthe beach.
I went to Montgomery again and knelt beside him, cursing my ignoranceof medicine. The fire beside me had sunk down, and only charredbeams of timber glowing at the central ends and mixed with a greyash of brushwood remained. I wondered casually where Montgomeryhad got his wood. Then I saw that the dawn was upon us.The sky had grown brighter, the setting moon was becoming paleand opaque in the luminous blue of the day. The sky to the eastwardwas rimmed with red.
Suddenly I heard a thud and a hissing behind me, and, looking round,sprang to my feet with a cry of horror. Against the warm dawngreat tumultuous masses of black smoke were boiling up out ofthe enclosure, and through their stormy darkness shot flickeringthreads of blood-red flame. Then the thatched roof caught.I saw the curving charge of the flames across the sloping straw.A spurt of fire jetted from the window of my room.
I knew at once what had happened. I remembered the crash I had heard.When I had rushed out to Montgomery's assistance, I had overturnedthe lamp.
The hopelessness of saving any of the contents of the enclosurestared me in the face. My mind came back to my plan of flight,and turning swiftly I looked to see where the two boats lay uponthe beach. They were gone! Two axes lay upon the sands beside me;chips and splinters were scattered broadcast, and the ashesof the bonfire were blackening and smoking under the dawn.Montgomery had burnt the boats to revenge himself upon me and prevent ourreturn to mankind!
A sudden convulsion of rage shook me. I was almost moved to batterhis foolish head in, as he lay there helpless at my feet.Then suddenly his hand moved, so feebly, so pitifully, that mywrath vanished. He groaned, and opened his eyes for a minute.I knelt down beside him and raised his head. He opened hiseyes again, staring silently at the dawn, and then they met mine.The lids fell.
"Sorry," he said presently, with an effort. He seemed trying to think."The last," he murmured, "the last of this silly universe.What a mess--"
I listened. His head fell helplessly to one side. I thought some drinkmight revive him; but there was neither drink nor vessel in which tobring drink at hand. He seemed suddenly heavier. My heart went cold.I bent down to his face, put my hand through the rent in his blouse.He was dead; and even as he died a line of white heat, the limbof the sun, rose eastward beyond the projection of the bay,splashing its radiance across the sky and turning the dark sea intoa weltering tumult of dazzling light. It fell like a glory upon hisdeath-shrunken face.
I let his head fall gently upon the rough pillow I had made for him,and stood up. Before me was the glittering desolation of the sea,the awful solitude upon which I had already suffered so much; behind methe island, hushed under the dawn, its Beast People silent and unseen.The enclosure, with all its provisions and ammunition, burnt noisily,with sudden gusts of flame, a fitful crackling, and now and then a crash.The heavy smoke drove up the beach away from me, rolling lowover the distant tree-tops towards the huts in the ravine.Beside me were the charred vestiges of the boats and these fivedead bodies.
Then out of the bushes came three Beast People, with hunched shoulders,protruding heads, misshapen hands awkwardly held, and inquisitive,unfriendly eyes and advanced towards me with hesitating gestures.