Page 140 - THE ISLAND OF DR MOREAU

The Island of Doctor Moreau

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 Moreau, 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 dense green jungle
that marked the morass through which I had run on the
previous day. Then at three or four points on the edge of
the sulphurous 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 Moreau 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 hoofs. After
him from the brake came 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 in her peaked red
face, and then others,—all hurrying eagerly. As they came
forward they began to cringe towards Moreau and chant,
quite regardless of one another, fragments of the latter half

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