XII. THE SAYERS OF THE LAW.
THEN something cold touched my hand. I started violently,and saw close to me a dim pinkish thing, looking more like a flayedchild than anything else in the world. The creature had exactlythe mild but repulsive features of a sloth, the same low foreheadand slow gestures.
As the first shock of the change of light passed, I saw about memore distinctly. The little sloth-like creature was standing andstaring at me. My conductor had vanished. The place was a narrowpassage between high walls of lava, a crack in the knotted rock,and on either side interwoven heaps of sea-mat, palm-fans, and reedsleaning against the rock formed rough and impenetrably dark dens.The winding way up the ravine between these was scarcely three yards wide,and was disfigured by lumps of decaying fruit-pulp and other refuse,which accounted for the disagreeable stench of the place.
The little pink sloth-creature was still blinking at me when myApe-man reappeared at the aperture of the nearest of these dens,and beckoned me in. As he did so a slouching monster wriggled outof one of the places, further up this strange street, and stood up infeatureless silhouette against the bright green beyond, staring at me.I hesitated, having half a mind to bolt the way I had come; and then,determined to go through with the adventure, I gripped my nailed stickabout the middle and crawled into the little evil-smelling lean-toafter my conductor.
It was a semi-circular space, shaped like the half of a bee-hive;and against the rocky wall that formed the inner side of it was a pileof variegated fruits, cocoa-nuts among others. Some rough vesselsof lava and wood stood about the floor, and one on a rough stool.There was no fire. In the darkest corner of the hut sat a shapelessmass of darkness that grunted "Hey!" as I came in, and my Ape-manstood in the dim light of the doorway and held out a split cocoa-nutto me as I crawled into the other corner and squatted down.I took it, and began gnawing it, as serenely as possible, in spite of acertain trepidation and the nearly intolerable closeness of the den.The little pink sloth-creature stood in the aperture of the hut,and something else with a drab face and bright eyes came staring overits shoulder.
"Hey!" came out of the lump of mystery opposite. "It is a man."
"It is a man," gabbled my conductor, "a man, a man, a five-man,like me."
"Shut up!" said the voice from the dark, and grunted.I gnawed my cocoa-nut amid an impressive stillness.
I peered hard into the blackness, but could distinguish nothing.
"It is a man," the voice repeated. "He comes to live with us?"
It was a thick voice, with something in it--a kind of whistlingovertone--that struck me as peculiar; but the English accent wasstrangely good.
The Ape-man looked at me as though he expected something.I perceived the pause was interrogative. "He comes to live with you,"I said.
"It is a man. He must learn the Law."
I began to distinguish now a deeper blackness in the black,a vague outline of a hunched-up figure. Then I noticedthe opening of the place was darkened by two more black 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 figuresin the doorway echoed this, with a threat in the tone of their voices.
I realised that I had to repeat this idiotic formula; and thenbegan the insanest ceremony. The voice in the dark began intoninga mad litany, line by line, and I and the rest to repeat it.As they did so, they swayed from side to side in the oddest way,and beat their hands upon their knees; and I followed their example.I could have imagined I was already dead and in another world.That dark hut, these grotesque dim figures, just flecked here andthere by a glimmer of light, and all of them swaying in unison andchanting,
"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 Fish or Flesh; that is the Law. Are we not Men? "Not to claw the 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 fervour fell on all of us; we gabbledand swayed faster and faster, repeating this amazing Law.Superficially the contagion of these brutes was upon me, but deepdown within me the laughter and disgust struggled together.We ran through a long list of prohibitions, and then the chant swunground 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 incomprehensiblegibberish to me about _Him_, whoever he might be. I could have fanciedit 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 animalisingthese men, had infected their dwarfed brains with a kind ofdeification of himself. However, I was too keenly aware of whiteteeth and strong claws about me to stop my chanting on that account.
"_His_ are the stars in the sky."
At last that song ended. I saw the Ape-man's face shiningwith 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 greyhair almost like a Skye-terrier. What was it? What were they all?Imagine yourself surrounded by all the most horrible cripplesand maniacs it is possible to conceive, and you may understanda little of my feelings with these grotesque caricatures of humanityabout me.
"He is a five-man, a five-man, a five-man--like me," said the Ape-man.
I held out my hands. The grey 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 cameforward and peered at my nails, came forward into the light ofthe opening of the hut and I saw with a quivering disgust that itwas like the face of neither man nor beast, but a mere shockof grey hair, with three shadowy over-archings to mark the eyesand mouth.
"He has little nails," said this grisly creature in his hairy beard."It is well."
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 grey figure. "Here comeall that be new to learn the Law. I sit in the darkness and saythe 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 one another.
"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 grey 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 grey Sayer of the Law."What you will want we do not know; we shall know. Some wantto 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 or Fish; that is the Law. Are wenot Men?'"
"None escape," said a dappled brute standing in the doorway.
"For every one the want is bad," said the grey Sayer of the Law."Some want to go tearing with teeth and hands into the roots of things,snuf
fing 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 anew 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 some one, who I think was one of the two Swine Men Ihad seen, thrust his head over the little pink sloth-creatureand shouted something excitedly, something that I did not catch.Incontinently those at the opening of the hut vanished; my Ape-manrushed out; the thing that had sat in the dark followed him(I only observed that it was big and clumsy, and covered with silveryhair), and I was left alone. Then before I reached the aperture I heardthe yelp of a staghound.
In another moment I was standing outside the hovel, my chair-railin my hand, every muscle of me quivering. Before me were the clumsybacks of perhaps a score of these Beast People, their misshapen headshalf 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 throughthe haze under the trees beyond the end of the passage of dens the darkfigure and awful white face of Moreau. He was holding the leapingstaghound back, and close behind him came Montgomery revolverin hand.
For a moment I stood horror-struck. I turned and saw the passagebehind me blocked by another heavy brute, with a huge greyface and twinkling little eyes, advancing towards me.I looked round and saw to the right of me and a half-dozen yardsin front of me a narrow gap in the wall of rock through which a rayof light slanted into the shadows.
"Stop!" cried Moreau as I strode towards this, and then, "Hold him!"
At that, first one face turned towards me and then others.Their bestial minds were happily slow. I dashed my shoulderinto a clumsy monster who was turning to see what Moreau meant,and flung him forward into another. I felt his hands fly round,clutching at me and missing me. The little pink sloth-creaturedashed at me, and I gashed down its ugly face with the nailin my stick and in another minute was scrambling up a steepside pathway, a kind of sloping chimney, out of the ravine.I heard a howl behind me, and cries of "Catch him!" "Hold him!"and the grey-faced creature appeared behind me and jammedhis huge bulk into the cleft. "Go on! go on!" they howled.I clambered up the narrow cleft in the rock and came out uponthe sulphur on the westward side of the village of the Beast Men.
That gap was altogether fortunate for me, for the narrow chimney,slanting obliquely upward, must have impeded the nearer pursuers.I ran over the white space and down a steep slope,through a scattered growth of trees, and came to a low-lyingstretch of tall reeds, through which I pushed into a dark,thick undergrowth that was black and succulent under foot.As I plunged into the reeds, my foremost pursuers emerged from the gap.I broke my way through this undergrowth for some minutes.The air behind me and about me was soon full of threatening cries.I heard the tumult of my pursuers in the gap up the slope, then thecrashing of the reeds, and every now and then the crackling crashof a branch. Some of the creatures roared like excited beasts of prey.The staghound yelped to the left. I heard Moreau and Montgomery shoutingin the same direction. I turned sharply to the right. It seemedto me even then that I heard Montgomery shouting for me to run formy life.
Presently the ground gave rich and oozy under my feet; but I wasdesperate and went headlong into it, struggled through kneedeep,and so came to a winding path among tall canes. The noise of mypursuers 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 coveredwith white incrustation, and plunged into a canebrake again.Then suddenly it turned parallel with the edge of a steep-walled gap,which came without warning, like the ha-ha of an English park,--turnedwith an unexpected abruptness. I was still running with allmy might, and I never saw this drop until I was flying headlong throughthe air.
I fell on my forearms and head, among thorns, and rose with a tornear and bleeding face. I had fallen into a precipitous ravine,rocky and thorny, full of a hazy mist which drifted about me in wisps,and with a narrow streamlet from which this mist came meanderingdown the centre. I was astonished at this thin fog in the fullblaze of daylight; but I had no time to stand wondering then.I turned to my right, down-stream, hoping to come to the seain that direction, and so have my way open to drown myself.It was only later I found that I had dropped my nailed stick inmy fall.
Presently the ravine grew narrower for a space, and carelesslyI stepped into the stream. I jumped out again pretty quickly,for the water was almost boiling. I noticed too there was a thinsulphurous scum drifting upon its coiling water. Almost immediatelycame a turn in the ravine, and the indistinct blue horizon.The nearer sea was flashing the sun from a myriad facets.I saw my death before me; but I was hot and panting, with the warmblood oozing out on my face and running pleasantly through my veins.I felt more than a touch of exultation too, at having distancedmy pursuers. It was not in me then to go out and drown myself yet.I stared back the way I had come.
I listened. Save for the hum of the gnats and the chirp of some smallinsects 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 chasewas over; but I knew now how much hope of help for me lay in theBeast People.