CHAPTER 19

       MONTGOMERY’S `BANK HOLIDAY’

       Table of Contents

      When this was accomplished, and we had washed and eaten, Montgomery and I went into my little room and seriously discussed our 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 of his nature in the ten or more monotonous years he had spent on the island. He talked vaguely, answered my questions crookedly, wandered into general 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 at their own sweet will, five in London grinding hard at medicine — bad food, shabby lodgings, shabby clothes, shabby vice — a blunder — I didn’t know any better — and hustled off to this beastly island. Ten years here! What’s it all for, Prendick? Are we bubbles blown by a baby?’

      It was hard to deal with such ravings. `The thing we have to think of 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 the Beast Folk?’

      `Well,’ said I. `That will do tomorrow. I’ve been thinking we might make the 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 will make silly asses of themselves sooner or later. We can’t massacre the 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’m in a worse hole than you are?’ And he got up and went for the brandy. `Drink,’ he said, returning. `You logic-chopping, chalky-faced saint of an atheist, drink.’

      `Not I,’ said I, and sat grimly watching his face under the yellow paraffin flare as he drank himself into a garrulous misery. I have a memory of infinite tedium. He wandered into a maudlin defence of the Beast People and of M’ling. M’ling, he said, was the only thing that had every really cared for him. And suddenly an idea came to him.

      `I’m damned!’ said he, staggering to his feet, and clutching the 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 liquor like 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 him as he put his hand upon the latch, but deterred by the thought of my useless arm. `You’ve made a beast of yourself. To the beasts you may go.

      He flung the doorway open and stood, half facing me, between the yellow lamplight and the pallid glare of the moon; his eye-sockets were blotches of black under his stubbly eyebrows. `You’re a solemn pig, Prendick, a silly ass! You’re always fearing and fancying. We’re on the edge of things. I’m bound to cut my throat tomorrow. I’m going to have a damned good bank holiday tonight.’

      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 edge of the wan beach, one a white-wrapped creature, the other two blotches of blackness following it. They halted, staring. Then I saw M’ling’s hunched shoulders as he came round the corner of the house.

      `Drink,’ cried Montgomery; `drink, ye brutes! Drink, and be men. Dammy, I’m the cleverest. Moreau forgot this. This is the last touch. Drink, I tell you.’ And waving the bottle in his hand, he started off at a kind of quick trot to the westward, M’ling ranging himself between him and the three dim creatures who followed.

      I went to the doorway. They were already indistinct in the mist of the moonlight before Montgomery halted. I saw him administer a dose of the raw brandy to M’ling, and saw the five figures melt into one vague patch. `Sing,’ I heard Montgomery shout; `sing all together, “Confound old 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 insult at me, or giving whatever other vent this new inspiration of brandy demanded.

      Presently I heard Montgomery’s remote voice shouting, `Right turn!’ and they passed with their shouts and howls into the blackness of the landward trees. Slowly, very slowly, they receded into silence.

      The peaceful splendour of the night healed again. The moon was now past the meridian and travelling down the vent. 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 volcanic glass and crystals), flashed and shone like a beach of diamonds. Behind me the paraffin lamp flared hot and ruddy.

      Then I shut the door, locked it, and went into the enclosure where Moreau lay beside his latest victims — the staghounds and the llama, and some other wretched brutes — his massive face, calm even after his terrible death, and with the hard eyes open, staring at the 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 ominous shadows, began to turn over plans in my mind.

      In the morning I would gather some provisions in the dinghy, and after setting fire to the pyre before 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 been an hour or so. Then my planning was interrupted by the return of Montgomery 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 stop near the water’s edge. The riot rose and fell; I heard heavy blows and 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, and opened one. I saw something out of the tail of my eye, a red flicker, 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 mutilated victims lay, one on another. They seemed to be gripping one another in one last revengeful grapple.