Chapter 14 Chapter 13 Negotiation

I turned around again and continued down towards the sea.I found that the steaming stream widened and widened until it reached a shallow weedy beach.There, wherever I went, many crabs and long-bodied, many-legged things arose.I went as far as the edge of the salty sea water, and only then did I feel safe.I turned around, put my hands on my hips, and stared at the lush vegetation behind me. A misty smoke in the vegetation was like a crack coming from a steaming mountain stream.As I said, I was too excited, and to tell the truth, perhaps those who have never known danger will not believe that I was so desperate that I didn't even want to die.

Then, it suddenly occurred to me that there was an opportunity in front of me.Why couldn't I circle the beach and go around to their paddocks when Moreau and Montgomery and their ragtag bunch of orcs were chasing me across the island? —actually go sideways behind his door, and then maybe wrestle a stone out of the loosely packed stone wall, break the lock on the little door, and see what you can find—knife, pistol Or something like that--when they come back, wrestle them with these guys?It's always an opportunity anyway, and death has a price.So, I walked west along the seaside again.The afterglow of the setting sun dazzled my eyes.The slight tide on the Pacific Ocean ripples gently.

After a while, the coast turned and extended to the south, and the setting sun shone on my right again.Then, far ahead, suddenly and in the distance I saw a head, and then several figures, out of the bushes—Moreau with his gray deerhound, and then Montgomery and two others. guy.Seeing this, I stopped. They saw me and started gesturing forward.I stood there and watched them approach me.The two orcs came running from the bushes inland.Cut off my retreat.Montgomery came running too, and he ran straight for me.Moreau pulled the dog a little slower and followed behind. I finally woke up from my stupor, turned towards the sea, and walked straight into the water.At first the water was very shallow.Thirty yards ahead, the waves were up to my waist.I dimly saw the swimmers in the beach area above the low-tide mark scurrying away from under my feet.

"What are you doing? Huh?" cried Montgomery. I turned around and stood in waist-deep water, staring at them. Montgomery stood at the edge of the water, panting.His face was flushed with exhaustion, his long flaxen hair was blown tousled, and his drooping lower lip showed intertwined teeth.Only then did Moreau come forward, pale and determined, with the dog on his lead barking at me.Both held heavy whips in their hands.A little further away, some orcs stood on the sand and stared blankly. "What am I doing?—I'm drowning myself," I said. Montgomery and Moreau glanced at each other.

"Why?" Moreau asked. "Because it's better than being tortured by you." "Let me tell you that's what it is," said Montgomery.Moreau also said something in a low voice. "What made you think I was going to torture you?" Moreau asked. "I see," I said, "and those—the ones standing over there." "Hush!" Moreau hissed, raising his hand. "I don't," I said. "They're people, and what have they become? At least I don't want to be like them." I look over my interlocutor into the distance.On the far side of the sand stood Mling—Montgomery's squire—and a white-clothed monster that had once disembarked.Farther away, in the shade of the trees, I saw the little ape-man and other vague figures behind him.

"What are these monsters?" I said, pointing to them, and raising my voice more and more so that they could all hear. "They were men once—people like you, people you infected with the scent of beasts, people you kept as slaves, people you still fear—listen, you," I said. cried, pointing to Moreau, and shouting over him to the orcs, "Listen, you guys! Don't you see that these people are still afraid of you? Are they still afraid of you? Why, then, are you afraid of them? So many of you—" "For God's sake," cried Montgomery, "stop talking, Prendick!"

"Prandik!" cried Moreau. They both shouted together, as if trying to drown out my voice.Behind them, the orcs lowered their staring faces, lowered their deformed hands in amazement, and shrugged their shoulders.I figured they were all trying to understand me, trying to remember something about their past as humans.I kept yelling and I couldn't remember what I was yelling.What Morrow and Montgomery might be killed; what need not fear them.Even if I myself will eventually be destroyed, I still want to instill these points in the minds of these orcs.I saw the green-eyed man wrapped in pieces of tattered black canvas that I had met the night I arrived on the island come out of the bushes, and the others followed him to hear me more clearly.

Finally, I had to stop because I needed to catch my breath. "Listen to me first," said Moreau in a firm voice, "and then you can say whatever you want." "What?" I said. He coughed, thought for a while, and then exclaimed: "In Latin, Prendick! Poor Latin! Schoolboy Latin! But try to understand it. They're not people, they're animals we keep?? Vivisected. A method of humanizing .I'll explain. Come ashore." [① These two sentences are said in Latin. 】 I smiled. "A wonderful story," I said. "They talk, they build houses, they cook. They're human beings. When you say that, it's like I'm going to go ashore."

"Just a little further from where you're standing, the water gets deep?? And there are sharks everywhere." "This is exactly where I'm going," I said, "a short but wonderful life. Now." "Wait a minute." He took something out of his pocket, glistening in the sun's rays, and dropped it at his feet. "It was a loaded pistol," he said. "Here, Montgomery will do the same. Now we'll walk farther down the beach until you're satisfied at a safe distance. Then you go ashore and take these two pistols." "I didn't take it. There was a third pistol between the two of you."

"I want you to think about it, Prendick. First, I never invited you to this island. Second, we gave you medicine last night. Did we mean to hurt you? And now you The initial panic is over, you can think for a moment - here, is Montgomery like the kind of person you describe? We are chasing you for your own good. Because this island is full of ?? unfriendly incidents. Why did we shoot you when you drowned yourself just now?" Why did you let me go when I was in that cave? ?Are you guys chasing me? " "We felt sure of catching you and saving you from danger. We stopped following after that—for your own good."

I mused.It does appear that this is possible.But I remembered some more "But I saw," I said, "in the paddock—" "That's a mountain leopard." "I say, Prendick," said Montgomery. "You're a fool. Get out of the water and grab those pistols. We can't do any more then than we do now." I must admit, at the time, I did feel that way all the time, I didn't believe and was afraid of Moreau, but Montgomery was a man I knew. "You go to the beach," I said, and after thinking about it, I added, "Hands up." "It can't be done," said Montgomery, nodding his head in that direction explaining. "It's so disrespectful." "Then go out to the woods," I said, "if you will." "It's a fucking stupid ritual," Montgomery said. Both of them turned around and faced the six or seven monsters. These monsters stood there firmly in the sun, cast oblique shadows on the ground, and moved. Unbelievable.Montgomery cracked his whip at them, and they all turned and fled in dismay into the woods.When I judged that Montgomery and Moreau had gone far enough, I made my way to the shore, picked up two pistols, and examined them carefully.To reassure myself against a false trick, I fired a shot at the round pile of lava, and was satisfied to see the stones shattered, and the beach spattered with splinters. But I still hesitated for a while. "I'll take the risk," I said at last, and walked up the sand, a gun in one hand, toward them. "That's right," said Moreau unabashedly, "and just like that, you're wasting the best part of my day with your unfounded fantasies." He and Montgomery turned and walked silently in front of me, with a little contempt that humiliated me. The group of orcs, still astonished, retreated into the woods.I walked past them as calmly as I could.One of the orcs stepped behind me, but Montgomery snapped his whip and he backed away.The rest of the orcs stood silently watching.They may have been animals at one time, but I've never seen an animal before and tried to think.