Classic Adventure Books - Daily
16 - The Island of Dr Moreau - H G Wells
https://www.solgoodmedia.com Listen to hundreds of audiobooks, thousands of short stories, and ambient sounds all ad-free! Step into a world of daily intrigue and timeless tales with our Classic Adventure Podcast Series! Each day, we bring to life a new chapter from a beloved classic, inviting you on an exhilarating journey through some of the greatest adventure stories ever written. Imagine unraveling the mysteries with Sherlock Holmes, exploring bizarre landscapes with Alice, or circumnavigating the globe in just eighty days. Why settle for mundane daily commutes or routine chores when you can escape into the thrilling escapades of "Treasure Island" or the eerie encounters in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"? Our podcast transforms your every day into a captivating adventure, perfect for both the literary enthusiast and the casual listener seeking an escape from the ordinary. Join us as we traverse the dark depths of "Heart of Darkness," soar through the imaginative realms of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," and survive the wilds with "Robinson Crusoe." Each episode is crafted to make the classics accessible and exciting, ensuring that whether you're reliving your favorite tales or discovering them for the first time, you're guaranteed a gripping experience. Subscribe to our Classic Adventure Podcast Series today and start your daily adventure! Let us awaken the explorer in you as we delve into these timeless narratives, chapter by chapter, transforming your daily routine into an extraordinary journey through the pages of history's most thrilling adventures. Don't just listen to stories—live them every day with us!
- Duration:
- 33m
- Broadcast on:
- 02 Jul 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
It is Ryan C. Chris here. People always say it's good to unwind, but that's easier said than done. The exception, Chumba Casino. They actually make it easier done than said, or at least the same. Chumba Casino is an online social casino with hundreds of casino-style games like Slots and Blackjack. Play for fun. Play for free for your chance to redeem some serious prizes. Sign up now, collect your free welcome bonus at ChumbaCasino.com. Sponsored by Chumba Casino. No purchase necessary. VGW Group. Void we're prohibited by law. 18-plus terms and conditions apply. Hey there, listeners. Are you ready to unlock a world of captivating stories, soothing sounds, and enlightening lectures? At Solgood Media, we believe in the power of audio to enrich your life, and now we're offering you a chance to experience it all for free. For a limited time, you can get a one-month free trial to our premium, ad-free service. Imagine having unlimited access to over 500 audiobooks, meditative sounds, and exclusive shows, all at your fingertips. Just head over to SolgoodMedia.com and sign up to start your free trial today. No ads, no interruptions, just pure, immersive audio content. Don't miss out. Transform your listening experience with Solgood Media. Visit solgoodmedia.com and start your free trial now. We can't wait for you to join our audio community. Happy listening. 16. How the beast folk taste blood. My experience as a writer betrays me, and I wander from the thread of my story. After I had breakfasted with Montgomery, he took me across the island to see the fumeral in the source of the hot spring into whose scalding waters I had blundered on the previous day. Both of us carried whips in loaded revolvers. While going through a leafy jungle on our road-thither, we heard a rabbit squealing. We stopped and listened, but we heard no more. And presently we went on our way, and the incident dropped out of our minds. Montgomery called my intention to certain little pink animals with long, hind legs that went leaping through the undergrowth. He told me they were creatures made of the offspring of the beast people that Moreau had invented. He had fancied they might serve for meat, but a rabbit-like habit of devouring their young had defeated this intention. I had already encountered some of these creatures, once during my moonlight flight from the leopardman, and once during my pursuit by Moreau on the previous day. By chance one hopping to avoid us leapt into the hole caused by the uprooting of a wind-blown tree. Before it could extricate itself, we managed to catch it. It spat like a cat, scratched and kicked vigorously with its hind legs, and made an attempt to bite, but its teeth were too feeble to inflict more than a painless pinch. It seemed to me rather a pretty little creature. And as Montgomery stated that it never destroyed the turf by burrowing, and was very cleanly in its habits, I should imagine it might prove a convenient substitute for the common rabbit in gentlemen's parks. We also saw on our way the trunk of a tree barked in long strips and splintered deeply. Montgomery called my attention to this. "Not to claw the bark of tree. That is the law," he said. "Much thumb of them care for it." It was after this, I think, that we met the satyr and the ape-man. The satyr was a gleam of classical memory on the part of Moreau. His face o' vying in expression, like the coarser Hebrew type, his voice a harsh bleat, his nether extremities satanic. He was gnawing the husk of a part-like fruit as he passed us. Both of them saluted Montgomery. "Hail," said they, "to the other with the whip." "They're the third with the whip now," said Montgomery. "Thou you'd better mind." "Was he not made?" said the ape-man. "He said, he said, he was made." The satyr man looked curiously at me. "The third with the whip. He that walks, weeping into the sea, has a thin white face." "He has a thin long whip," said Montgomery. "Yes, the day he bled and wept," said the satyr. "You never bleed nor weep. The master does not bleed or weep." "All and doff in beggar," said Montgomery. "You bleed and weep if you don't look out." "He has five fingers. He is a five-man like me," said the ape-man. "Come along, Printock," said Montgomery, taking my arm, and I went on with him. The satyr and the ape-man stood watching us and making other remarks to each other. "He says nothing," said the satyr. "Men have voices." "Yes, the day he asked me of things to eat," said the ape-man. "He did not know!" Then they spoke inaudible things, and I heard the satyr laughing. It was on our way back that we came upon the dead rabbit. The red body of the wretched little beast was rent to pieces, many of the ribs stripped white and the backbone indisputably gnawed. At that Montgomery stopped. "Good God," said he, stooping down and picking up some of the crushed vertebrae to examine them more closely. "Good God," he repeated, "what can this mean?" "Some carnivore of yours has remembered its old habits," I said after a pause. This backbone has been bitten through. He stood staring with his face white and his lip pulled askew. "I don't like this," he said slowly. "I saw something of the same kind," said I. "The first day I came here." "The devil you did? What was it?" A rabbit with its head twisted off. "The day you came here?" "The day I came here, in the undergrowth at the back of the enclosure, when I went out in the evening, the head was completely rung off." He gave a long, low whistle. "And what is more, I have an idea of which your brutes did the thing. It's only a suspicion, you know." "Before I came on the rabbit, I saw one of your monsters drinking in the stream." "Fucking his drink?" "Yes. Not to thuck your drink, that is the law. Much the brutes care for the law, eh? Would more road not about?" "It was the brute who chased me." "Of course," said Montgomery. "It's just the way with the carnivore. After a kill, they'd drink." "It's the taste of blood, you know." "What was the brute like?" he continued. "Would you know him again?" He glanced about us, standing a stride over the mess of dead rabbit, his eyes roving among the shadows and screens of greenery, the lurking places and ambient scars of the forest that bounded us in. "The taste of blood," he said again. He took out his revolver, examined the cartridges in it, and replaced it. Then he began to pull at his dropping lip. "I think I should know the brute again," I said. I stunned him. He had to have handsome ruse on the forehead of him. "But then we have to prove that he killed the rabbit," said Montgomery. "I whith I'd never brought the thing here." I should have gone on, but he stayed there thinking over the mangled rabbit in a puzzle-headed way. As it was, I went to such a distance that the rabbits' remains were hidden. "Come on," I said. Presently he woken came towards me. "You see," he said, almost in a whisper. "They are all for both to have a fixed idea against eating anything that runs on land. If thumb-brut has by any accident tasted blood." We went on some way in silence. "I wonder what can have happened," he said to himself. "Then after a pause again, I did a foolish thing the other day. A servant of mine, I throwed him how to skin and cook a rabbit. It thawed. I thaw him licking his hands. It never occurred to me." "Then we must put a stop to this. I must tell my role." He could think of nothing else on a homeward journey. Moro took the matter even more seriously than Montgomery, and I need scarcely say that I was affected by their evident consternation. "We must make an example," said Moro. "I've no doubt in my mind that the leopardman was the sinner. But how can we prove it?" "I wish, Montgomery, you had kept your taste for meat in hand, and gone without these exciting novelties. We may find ourselves in a mess yet through it." "I was a thilly-ath," said Montgomery. "But the thing's done now, and you said I might have them, you know." "We must see to the thing at once," said Moro. "I suppose if anything should turn up, Imling can take care of himself." "I'm not so sure of Imling," said Montgomery. "I think I ought to know him." In the afternoon, Moro, Montgomery, myself, and Imling, went across the island to the huts in the ravine. We three were armed. Imling carried the little hatchet he used in chopping firewood and some coils of wire. Moro had a huge coward's horn slung over his shoulder. "You will see a gathering of the beathed people," said Montgomery. "It is a pretty fight." Moro said not a word on the way, but the expression of his heavy, white-fringed face was grimly set. We crossed the ravine down which smoked the stream of hot water, and followed the winding pathway through the cane-brakes until we reached a wide area, covered over with a thick, powdery yellow substance, which I believe was sulfur. Above the shoulder of a weedy bank the sea glittered. We came to a kind of shallow, natural amphitheater, and here the four of us halted. Then Moro sounded the horn, and broke the sleeping stillness of the tropical afternoon. He must have had strong lungs, the hooting note rose and rose amidst its echoes, to at last an ear penetrating intensity. "Ah," said Moro, letting the curved instrument fall to his side again. Immediately there was a crashing through the yellow canes, and a sound of voices from the dinscreen jungle that mocked the morass through which I had run on the previous day. Then at three or four points on the edge of the sulfurous area appeared the grotesque forms of the beast people hurrying towards us. I could not help a creeping horror, as I perceived first one, and then another trot out from the trees or reeds, and come shambling along over the hot dust. But Moro and Montgomery stood calmly enough, and perforce I stuck beside them. First to arrive was the satyr, strangely unreal, for all that he cast a shadow and tossed the dust with his hooves. After him from the break became a monstrous lout, a thing of horse and rhinoceros, chewing a straw as it came, then appeared the swine woman and two wolf-women. Then the fox bear witch with her red eyes and her peaked red face, and then others, all hurrying eagerly. As they came forward they began to cringe towards Moro and chant, quite regardless of one another, fragments of the latter half of the litany of the law. His is the hand that wounds, his is the hand that heals, and so forth. As soon as they had approached within a distance of perhaps thirty yards they halted, and bowing on knees and elbows began flinging the white dust upon their heads. Imagine the scene if you can. We three blue-clad men, with our misshapen black-faced attendant, standing in a wide expanse of sunlit yellow dust under the blazing blue sky, and surrounded by this circle of crouching and just-ticulating monstrosities. Some almost human save in their subtle expression and gestures, some like cripples. Some so strangely distorted as to resemble nothing but the denizens of our wildest dreams. And beyond three delines of a cane-brake-in-one direction, a dense tangle of palm-trees on the other, separating us from the ravine with the huts, and to the north the hazy horizon of the Pacific Ocean. Sixty-two, sixty-three, counted Miro, there are four more. "I do not see the leopard-man," said I. Presently Miro sounded the great horn again, and at the sound of it all the beast people writhed and graveled in the dust. Then, slinking out of the cane-brake, stooping near the ground, and trying to join the dust-throwing circle behind Miro's back came the leopard-man. The last of the beast-people to arrive was the little ape-man. The earlier animals, hot and weary with their groveling, shot vicious glances at him. "Seas!" said Miro, in his firm loud voice, and the beast-people sat back upon their hams and rested from their worshipping. "Where is the sayer of the law?" said Miro, and the hairy-gray monster bowed his face in the dust. "Say the words," said Miro. Fourth with all in the kneeling assembly, swaying from side to side, and dashing up the sulfur with their hands, first the right hand and a puff of dust, and at the left began once more to chant their strange litany. When they reached, not to eat flesh or fish that is the law, Miro held up his lank white hand. "Stop!" he cried, and their foul absolute silence upon them all. I think they all knew and dreaded what was coming. I looked round at their strange faces, when I saw their wincing attitudes and the furtive dread in their bright eyes, I wondered that I had ever believed them to be men. "That law has been broken," said Miro. "None escape," from the faceless creature with the silvery hair. "None escape," repeated the kneeling circle of beast people. "Who is he?" cried Miro, and looked round at their faces, cracking his whip. I fancy the hyena swine looked dejected, so too did the leopardman. Miro stopped, facing this creature who cringed towards him with the memory and dread of infinite torment. "Who is he?" repeated Miro in a voice of thunder. "Even is he who breaks the law?" chanted the sayer of the law. Miro looked into the eyes of the leopardman and seemed to be dragging the very soul out of the creature. "Who breaks the law?" said Miro, taking his eyes off his victim and turning towards us. Seemed to me there was a touch of exultation in his voice. "Goes back to the house of pain!" They all clam it. "Goes back to the house of pain, all master." "Back to the house of pain! Back to the house of pain!" Gabbelled the ape man as though the idea was sweet to him. "Do you hear?" said Miro, turning back to the criminal. "My friend, hello!" For the leopardman, released from Miro's eye, had risen straight from his knees, and now with his eyes aflame and his huge feline tusks flashing out from under his curling lips, leapt towards his tormentor. I am convinced that only the madness of unendurable fear could have prompted this attack. The whole circle of three score monsters seemed to rise about us. I drew my revolver. The two figures collided. My saw Miro reeling back from the leopardman's blow. There was a furious yelling and howling all about us. Everyone was moving rapidly. For a moment I thought it was a general revolt. The furious face of the leopardman flashed by mine with himling close in pursuit. I saw the yellow eyes of the hyena swine blazing with excitement, his attitude as if he were half-resolved to attack me. The satyr, too, glared at me over the hyena swine's hunched shoulders. I heard the crack of Miro's pistol and saw the pink flash dart across the tumult. The whole crowd seemed to swing round in the direction of the glint of fire, and I, too, was swung round by the magnetism of the movement. In another second I was running, one of a tumultuous shouting crowd in pursuit of the escaping leopardman. That is all I can tell, definitely. I saw the leopardman strike Miro, and then everything spun about me until I was running headlong. Imling was ahead, close in pursuit of the fugitive. Behind, their tongues already lolling out, ran the wolf-women in great leaping strides. The swine folk followed, squealing with excitement, and the two bullmen in their swathings of white. Then came Miro in a cluster of the beast-people. His wide-brimmed straw hat blown off, his revolver in hand, and his lank-white hair streaming out. The hyena swine ran beside me, keeping pace with me, and glancing thirdively at me out of his feline eyes, and the others came pattering and shouting behind us. The leopardman went bursting his way through the long canes, which sprang back as he passed, and rattled in Imling's face. We others in the rear found a trampled path for us when we reached the break. The chase lay through the break for perhaps a quarter of a mile, and then plunged into a dense thicket, which retarded our movements exceedingly, though we went through it in a crowd together. France flicking into our faces, ropey creepers catching us under the chin or gripping our ankles. Thorny plant hooking into, and tearing cloth and flash together. "He has gone on all fours through this," panted Miro, now just ahead of me. "None escape," said the wolf bear, laughing into my face with the exaltation of hunting. We burst out again among rocks, and saw the quarry ahead, running lightly on all fours, and snarling at us over his shoulder, at that the wolffolk howled with delight. The thing was still clothed, and at a distance its face still seemed human, but the carriage of its four limbs was feline, and the furtive droop of its shoulder was distinctly that of a hunted animal. It leaped over some thorny yellow flowering bushes, and was hidden. Imling was halfway across the space. Most of us now had lost the first speed of the chase, and had fallen into a longer and steadier stride. I saw as we traversed the open that the pursuit was now spreading from a column into a line. The hyena swine still ran close to me, watching me as it ran, every now and then puckering its muzzle with a snarling laugh. At the edge of the rocks the leopard man, realizing that he was making for the projecting cape upon which he had stalked me on the night of my arrival, had doubled in the undergrowth, but Montgomery had seen the maneuver and turned him again. So panting, tumbling against rocks, torn by brambles, impeded by ferns and reeds, I helped to pursue the leopard man who had broken the law, and the hyena swine ran, laughing savagely by my side. I staggered on, my head reeling and my heart beating against my ribs, tired almost to death, and yet not daring to lose sight of the chase lest I should be left alone with this horrible companion. I staggered on in spite of infinite fatigue and the dense heat of the tropical afternoon. At last the fury of the hunt slackened. We had pinned the wretched brute into a corner of the island. Moreau, whip in hand, marshalled us all into an irregular line, and we advanced now, slowly, shouting to one another as we advanced and tightening the cordon about our victim. He lurked noiseless and invisible in the bushes through which I had run from him during that midnight pursuit. "Steady!" cried Moreau. "Steady," as the ends of the line crept around the tangle of undergrowth and hemmed the brute in. "Where the rush!" came the voice of Montgomery from beyond the thicket. I was on the slope above the bushes. Montgomery and Moreau beat along the beach beneath. Slowly we pushed in among the fretted network of branches and leaves. The quarry was silent. "Back to the house of pain, the house of pain, the house of pain!" yep, the voice of the ape man, some twenty yards to the right. When I heard that I forgave the poor wretch all the fear he had inspired in me. I heard the twig snap and the bow's swish aside before the heavy tread of the horse rhinoceros upon my right. Then suddenly through a polygon of green, in the half-darkness under the luxuriant growth, I saw the creature we were hunting. I halted. He was crouched together into the smallest possible compass. His luminous green eyes turned over his shoulder regarding me. "It may seem a strange contradiction in me. I cannot explain the fact. But now, seeing the creature there in a perfectly animal attitude, with the light gleaming in its eyes and its imperfectly human face distorted with terror, I realized again the fact of its humanity. In another moment other of its pursuers would see it, and it would be overpowered and captured. To experience once more the horrible tortures of the enclosure abruptly I slipped out my revolver aimed between its terror struck eyes and fired. As I did so the hyena swine saw the thing and flung itself upon it with an eager cry, thrusting thirsty teeth into its neck. All about me the green masses of the thicket were swaying and cracking as the beast people came rushing together. One face and then another appeared. "Don't kill it, Prindic!" cried Barrow. "Don't kill it!" And I saw him stooping as he pushed through under the fronds of the big ferns. In another moment he had beaten off the hyena swine with the handle of his whip, and he and Montgomery were keeping away the excited carnivorous beast people, and particularly emling from the still quivering body. The hairy grey thing came sniffing at the corpse under my arm. The other animals in their animal arder jostled me to get a nearer view. "Confound you, Prindic!" said Murrow. "I wanted him!" "I'm sorry," said I, though I was not. It was the impulse of the moment. I felt sick with exertion and excitement. Turning I pushed my way out of the crowding beast people and went on alone up the slope towards the highest part of the headland. Under the shouted directions of Murrow, I heard the three white swathed bullmen begin dragging the victim down towards the water. It was easy now for me to be alone. The beast people manifested a quite human curiosity about the dead body, and followed it in a thick knot, sniffing and growling at it as the bullmen dragged it down the beach. I went to the headland and watched the bullmen black against the evening sky as they carried the weighted dead body out to sea. And like a wave across my mind came the realization of the unspeakable aimlessness of things upon the island. Upon the beach among the rocks beneath me were the eight man, the hyena swine, and several other of the beast people, standing about Montgomery and Murrow. They were all still intensely excited, and all overflowing with noisy expressions of their loyalty to the law. Yet I felt in absolute assurance in my own mind that the hyena swine was implicated in the rabbit killing. A strange persuasion came upon me. That, say, for the grossness of the line, the grotesqueness of the forms, I had here before me the whole balance of human life in miniature. The whole interplay of instinct, reason, and fate in its simplest form. The leopard man had happened to go under. That was all the difference. Paul Brute. Paul Brute's. I began to see the viler aspect of Murrow's cruelty. I had not thought before of the pain and trouble that came to these poor victims after they had passed from Murrow's hands. I had shivered only at the days of actual torment in the enclosure. But now that seemed to me the lesser part. Before the had been beasts, the instincts fitly adapted to their surroundings and happy as living things may be. Now they stumbled in the shackles of humanity, lived in a fear that never died, fretted by a law they could not understand. Their mock human existence begun in an agony was one long internal struggle, one long dread of Murrow. And for what? It was the wantonness of it that stirred me. Had Murrow had any intelligible object, I could have sympathized at least a little with him. I am not so squeamish about pain as that. I could have forgiven him a little even, had his motive been only hate. But he was so irresponsible, so utterly careless. His curiosity, his mad aimless investigations drove him on. And the things were thrown out to live a year or so, to struggle and blunder and suffer, and at last to die painfully. They were wretched in themselves. The old animal hate moved them to trouble one another. The law held them back from a brief hot struggle and a decisive end to their natural animosities. In those days my fear of the beast people went the way of my personal fear of Murrow. I fell indeed into a morbid state, deep and enduring, and alien to fear, which has left permanent scars upon my mind. I must confess that I lost faith in the sanity of the world when I sought suffering the painful disorder of this island. A blind fate, a vast, pitiless mechanism seemed to cut and shape the fabric of existence and I, Murrow, by his passion for research, Montgomery, by his passion for drink. The beast people, with their instincts and mental restrictions, were torn and crushed, ruthlessly, inevitably, amid the infinite complexity of its incessant wheels. But this condition did not come all at once. I think, indeed, that I anticipate a little in speaking of it now. Hello, it is Ryan and I was on a flight the other day playing one of my favorite social spin slot games on Chumbakasino.com. I looked over the person sitting next to me, and you know what they were doing. They were also playing Chumbakasino. Everybody's loving having fun with it. Chumbakasino's home to hundreds of casino style games that you can play for free anytime, anywhere. So sign up now at Chumbakasino.com to claim your free welcome bonus. It's Chumbakasino.com and live the Chumbalites. Sponsored by Chumbakasino, no purchase necessary, VGW Group. Forward, we're prohibited by law, 18 plus terms and conditions apply. Hey there, it's Solomon from Solgood Media. A lot of our listeners have asked how to get ad-free access to our podcast. You asked and we answered, we're offering an exclusive one-month free trial to our ad-free streaming platform packed with over 500 audiobooks, meditation sounds and engaging podcasts. No strings attached, just pure listening pleasure. Sign up today at solgoodmedia.com and dive into a world of stories and sounds that inspire and relax. Don't miss out on this limited time offer. It's your gateway to unlimited audio enjoyment. That's solgoodmedia.com. S-O-L-G-O-O-D-M-E-D-I-A.com. Check it out, we hope to see you over there.