Chapter 16 Chapter Fifteen About Those Orcs

I wake up very early.As soon as he opened his eyes, Moreau's explanation clearly appeared in his mind.I got up from the hammock, went to the door, tried to reassure myself, but the key was still locked.I tried the iron bars on the windows again, and they were all firmly fixed.To think that these human-like creatures are really nothing but bestial monsters, nothing but a grotesque distortion of man.I could not help being filled with an inexpressible sense of wonder and insecurity at what they might do, which was more dreadful than any articulate fear.There was a knocking sound outside the door, and it could be heard that this was Mling—that is, Montgomery's squire—as if speaking with something in his mouth.I pocketed a pistol (and kept one hand on it), and opened the door for him.

"Good morning, Mr. West," he said.This time, in addition to the usual breakfast of herbs, there was a poorly cooked rabbit.Montgomery followed.He noticed the position of my arm and smiled with his lips curled up. That day, the mountain leopard was recuperating.But Moreau, who is alone and lonely, is not with us.I chatted with Montgomery, trying to clear my head and figure out how those orcs lived.I was particularly anxious to know how Moreau and Montgomery prevented the attacks of these inhuman monsters, and how they prevented them from fighting each other. He explained to me that Moreau and himself were considered safer because of the limited range of intelligence of these orcs.Notwithstanding the increase in their intelligence, notwithstanding the resurgent tendencies of their animal instincts, there remained in their minds certain fixed ideas instilled by Moreau, which absolutely bound them. their imagination.They are indeed hypnotized, they are told what is impossible and what cannot be done, and these prohibitions are woven into the fabric of their minds, become part of their thinking, Make it impossible for them to disobey or argue.

In some matters, however, where the old bestial instincts and Moreau's innocence were at odds, the situation was less stable. A series of statements called laws - which I have heard them recite - wrestle violently in their minds with their deep-rooted animal instincts, always yearning for rebellion.I found that while they were repeating this law, they were also repeatedly violating it.Both Montgomery and Moreau were very concerned, and they wanted to keep them from knowing the taste of blood.They dreaded the inevitable catastrophe that would result from that good taste. Montgomery told me that, especially among orcs belonging to the family of cats, this sense of law is strangely weakened at twilight, when the animal's emotions are at their strongest.In the twilight an adventurous spirit aroused in them, and they dared to do things that were unthinkable in daylight.In this regard, I really feel deeply. On the night when I went to the island, I was patronized by that leopard man.However, during the first few days of my stay, they only came to break the law secretly, and only after dusk; as for the daytime, there was generally an atmosphere of respect for the various prohibitions prescribed by the law.

Here, I can perhaps describe a little bit about this island and these orcs.This small island with extremely irregular contours lies low on the vast sea.The total area, by my estimate, is about seven or eight square miles.Originally formed after a volcanic eruption, it is now surrounded by coral reefs on three sides.Some fumaroles on the north side, and a hot spring, are the only traces of the power of the eruption that preceded the formation of the island.Up to now, I still feel the slight tremor of the earthquake from time to time, and sometimes the spiraling smoke will be scattered aside by the sudden burst of steam.But that's all.

[①Charles Edward Prendick Note: This description is exactly consistent with the situation on Noble Island (also known as Noble Island].] According to what Montgomery told me, excluding the smaller, underground, and inhuman deformed monsters, there must be more than sixty residents on the island at present, and of course they are all monsters created by Moreau's skillful hands.Moreau made a total of nearly one hundred and twenty orcs, but many died.As for the others, like the footless monster he once told me about walking twisting like a snake, they all came to a terrible end.In answer to my question, Montgomery said that they actually reproduced, but most of their offspring died.There is no proof yet that the human traits they acquire can be inherited and inherited.While they were alive, Moreau captured them and stamped them with humanoid marks.There are fewer female orcs than male orcs, and although monogamy is legally established, they are used to courting mates secretly, in large numbers, and begging for nothing.

Since my eyes have never been trained in fine observation, and I cannot sketch, I cannot give details of these orcs.Perhaps the most astonishing thing about their general appearance is that the legs of these fellows are so disproportionate to the length of their bodies.However, our concepts of elegance and elegance are relative, so my eyes gradually got used to seeing their strange shapes again, and later I even agreed with them, thinking that my long thighs were ugly. That's it.Another impressive thing was the way their heads were thrown forward, the way their spines were awkwardly bent and unhuman.Even the ape-man lacked that inward curve of the back that gives a manliness to his figure.Most orcs are hulking, hunchbacked, with short forearms hanging timidly at their sides, and few of them are particularly hairy—at least, until I left the island. .Another most conspicuous deformity defect is shown in their faces, the chin is almost always protruding forward, the ears are also grotesquely grown, the large nose is protruding, the hair is very like fur, or very like a bristle brush, and the eyes are often one. A strange color, or a particularly awkward position.None of the orcs laughed, only the ape-man giggled.Apart from these general features, their heads are different from each other, each retains its special species; although they are all crooked and deformed for human signs, they cannot hide their uniqueness. A changed leopard, bull, or sow, or a characteristic of one or more other animals.Their voices are equally varied and very different.Their hands, always ugly, though some surprised me by their unexpectedly humanlikeness, nearly all were crippled, with clumsy claws, and no sense of touch.

Two of the scariest orcs are the leopard man who once stalked me and a guy made of hyenas and pigs.Bigger than those two were the three big bulls who rowed the motorboat into the bay.Then there was the silver-haired eccentric who explained the law, Montgomery's squire--Mring, a monster made of apes and goats, half-human, half-beast like Seth, the satyr god.There are also three pig men and a pig woman, a mare and a rhino.What the other female orcs were made of, I'm not sure.There were also werewolves, a bear-bull man made of bears and bulls, and a dog man like the big dogs raised in the courtyard of Saint-Pennard in Switzerland.As for the ape-man, I have already described it.There's also a particularly hateful (and stinking) old Beastwoman, made of a vixen and a bear, whom I've hated from the start.She is said to be a zealous follower of orc law.There are also some young brindles, and the sloth-like monsters mentioned earlier.That's all, the roster is long enough!

At first I shuddered at the sight of these orcs, always keenly aware that they were still beasts.However, unconsciously, I gradually became a little accustomed to their rational concepts and appearances.In addition, Montgomery's attitude towards them also affected me.He had spent so much time with them that he had come to regard them as almost normal human beings—for him, his days in London had become a glorious past and seemed to be a thing of the past. no more.He made only one trip to Africa, in a year or so, to deal with Moreau's agent, an animal trader there.In that half-Spanish village where sailors were mostly employed, it was difficult for him to meet a noble and elegant person.He once said to me that at first he looked at the people on the ship, just as strange as these orcs seemed to me—the legs were so unnaturally long; the face was so flat; the forehead was so conspicuous; and Still so suspicious and dangerous, even his heart is cold.In fact, he didn't like these people.He felt that he sympathized with me because he had saved my life.

Even then I thought he had in his heart a fondness for certain monstrous orcs, a profoundly immoral sympathy for some of their grotesques, but at first he was in my presence This is also covered up. Mulling, Montgomery's squire, the black-faced man and the first orc I met, lived not on the other side of the island with the other orcs, but in a small shack behind the paddock.This fellow, though not as intelligent as the ape-man, was much tamer, and therefore easier to train, and he was the most human-like of all the orcs.Montgomery had trained him to serve the meals, and indeed to perform the menial chores required.He is a complex monument of Moreau's terrible technique, made of a bear combined with a dog and a bull, the most meticulously crafted of all Moreau's creations.His affection for Montgomery was strange, mild, charitable, and loyal.Sometimes Montgomery would notice him; stroke him lightly; call him by name, half mockingly, half amusingly;Sometimes Montgomery abused him too, especially after he had swigged his whiskey, kicking him, beating him, throwing stones or lighted matches at him.But, whether Montgomery treated him well or not, he loved to be near Montgomery, and nothing could have liked him more.

I said that I was getting used to these orcs, that is to say, countless things that had once seemed so unnatural and so repulsive quickly became natural and common to me.Everything that exists, I suppose, imitates the common colors of our surroundings.Both Montgomery and Moreau are too particular and individual to allow my general impression of human nature to be clearly defined and explained.When I see a stupid bull-like orc trudging through the clutter to drag a motorboat into the water, I find myself asking questions, trying to remember how he and some real farmers went from rough What difference does it make if you are trudging home from work; or, when I met that old beast girl made of a vixen and a bear, and saw her fox-like wily face, in her There was something strangely human in that cunning and thoughtful expression. At this moment, I even imagined that I had met her somewhere in the city before.

However, what cannot be doubted or denied is that at some point, these orcs will get angry and pounce on me.An ugly man, an obviously savage hunchback, crouched and crawled at the mouth of a certain cave, yawning with his arms outstretched, and would suddenly show his incisors like scissor blades and canines like a saber, sharp and sharp. Blinding as a knife.Or in some narrow lane, with a moment's courage, I glance into the eyes of some soft white-clothed female orcs, and I will suddenly see (with convulsive convulsions) that they Her pupils are like long slits; if you look down, you will find her crooked nails holding up the apron, which is completely out of shape. By the way, there is one more curious thing that I have trouble describing, these monstrous monsters—I mean those female orcs—were repulsive to themselves during my first days on the island. They all have an instinctive feeling for their clumsiness, and as a result, they pay more attention to the dignified fit of their coats than real people.