The slight Pacific tide was running in with a gentle ripple.
Presently the shore fell away southward, and the sun came round
upon my right hand. Then suddenly, far in front of me, I saw
first one and then several figures emerging from the bushes,--Moreau,
with his grey staghound, then Montgomery, and two others.
At that I stopped.

They saw me, and began gesticulating and advancing. I stood watching
them approach. The two Beast Men came running forward to cut me
off from the undergrowth, inland. Montgomery came, running also,
but straight towards me. Moreau followed slower with the dog.

At last I roused myself from my inaction, and turning seaward walked
straight into the water. The water was very shallow at first.
I was thirty yards out before the waves reached to my waist.
Dimly I could see the intertidal creatures darting away from
my feet.

"What are you doing, man?" cried Montgomery.

I turned, standing waist deep, and stared at them.
Montgomery stood panting at the margin of the water. His face
was bright-red with exertion, his long flaxen hair blown about
his head, and his dropping nether lip showed his irregular teeth.
Moreau was just coming up, his face pale and firm, and the dog at his
hand barked at me. Both men had heavy whips. Farther up the beach
stared the Beast Men.

"What am I doing? I am going to drown myself," said I.

Montgomery and Moreau looked at each other. "Why?" asked Moreau.

"Because that is better than being tortured by you."

"I told you so," said Montgomery, and Moreau said something
in a low tone.

"What makes you think I shall torture you?" asked Moreau.

"What I saw," I said. "And those--yonder."

"Hush!" said Moreau, and held up his hand.

"I will not," said I. "They were men: what are they now?
I at least will not be like them."

I looked past my interlocutors. Up the beach were M'ling, Montgomery's
attendant, and one of the white-swathed brutes from the boat.
Farther up, in the shadow of the trees, I saw my little Ape-man,
and behind him some other dim figures.

"Who are these creatures?" said I, pointing to them and raising
my voice more and more that it might reach them. "They were men,
men like yourselves, whom you have infected with some bestial
taint,--men whom you have enslaved, and whom you still fear.

"You who listen," I cried, pointing now to Moreau and shouting past
him to the Beast Men,--"You who listen! Do you not see these men
stil