第40章 XVIII. THE FINDING OF MOREAU.(2)

"For a time you will not see him. He is--there," I pointed upward, "where he can watch you. You cannot see him, but he can see you.

Fear the Law!"

I looked at them squarely. They flinched.

"He is great, he is good," said the Ape-man, peering fearfully upward among the dense trees.

"And the other Thing?" I demanded.

"The Thing that bled, and ran screaming and sobbing,--that is dead too,"said the grey Thing, still regarding me.

"That's well," grunted Montgomery.

"The Other with the Whip--" began the grey Thing.

"Well?" said I.

"Said he was dead."

But Montgomery was still sober enough to understand my motive in denying Moreau's death. "He is not dead," he said slowly, "not dead at all.

No more dead than I am."

"Some," said I, "have broken the Law: they will die. Some have died.

Show us now where his old body lies,--the body he cast away because he had no more need of it.""It is this way, Man who walked in the Sea," said the grey Thing.

And with these six creatures guiding us, we went through the tumult of ferns and creepers and tree-stems towards the northwest.

Then came a yelling, a crashing among the branches, and a little pink homunculus rushed by us shrieking. Immediately after appeared a monster in headlong pursuit, blood-bedabbled, who was amongst us almost before he could stop his career. The grey Thing leapt aside.

M'ling, with a snarl, flew at it, and was struck aside. Montgomery fired and missed, bowed his head, threw up his arm, and turned to run.

I fired, and the Thing still came on; fired again, point-blank, into its ugly face. I saw its features vanish in a flash: its face was driven in. Yet it passed me, gripped Montgomery, and holding him, fell headlong beside him and pulled him sprawling upon itself in its death-agony.

I found myself alone with M'ling, the dead brute, and the prostrate man.

Montgomery raised himself slowly and stared in a muddled way at the shattered Beast Man beside him. It more than half sobered him.

He scrambled to his feet. Then I saw the grey Thing returning cautiously through the trees.

"See," said I, pointing to the dead brute, "is the Law not alive?

This came of breaking the Law."

He peered at the body. "He sends the Fire that kills,"said he, in his deep voice, repeating part of the Ritual.

The others gathered round and stared for a space.

At last we drew near the westward extremity of the island.

We came upon the gnawed and mutilated body of the puma, its shoulder-bone smashed by a bullet, and perhaps twenty yards farther found at last what we sought. Moreau lay face downward in a trampled space in a canebrake. One hand was almost severed at the wrist and his silvery hair was dabbled in blood.

His head had been battered in by the fetters of the puma.

The broken canes beneath him were smeared with blood.

His revolver we could not find. Montgomery turned him over.

Resting at intervals, and with the help of the seven Beast People (for he was a heavy man), we carried Moreau back to the enclosure.

The night was darkling. Twice we heard unseen creatures howling and shrieking past our little band, and once the little pink sloth-creature appeared and stared at us, and vanished again.

But we were not attacked again. At the gates of the enclosure our company of Beast People left us, M'ling going with the rest.

We locked ourselves in, and then took Moreau's mangled body into the yard and laid it upon a pile of brushwood.

Then we went into the laboratory and put an end to all we found living there.