ringing you out of danger.
Afterwards we drew away from the scent, for your good."

I mused. It seemed just possible. Then I remembered something again.
"But I saw," said I, "in the enclosure--"

"That was the puma."

"Look here, Prendick," said Montgomery, "you're a silly ass!
Come out of the water and take these revolvers, and talk.
We can't do anything more than we could do now."

I will confess that then, and indeed always, I distrusted
and dreaded Moreau; but Montgomery was a man I felt I understood.

"Go up the beach," said I, after thinking, and added, "holding your
hands up."

"Can't do that," said Montgomery, with an explanatory nod over
his shoulder. "Undignified."

"Go up to the trees, then," said I, "as you please."

"It's a damned silly ceremony," said Montgomery.

Both turned and faced the six or seven grotesque creatures,
who stood there in the sunlight, solid, casting shadows, moving,
and yet so incredibly unreal. Montgomery cracked his whip at them,
and forthwith they all turned and fled helter-skelter into the trees;
and when Montgomery and Moreau were at a distance I judged sufficient,
I waded ashore, and picked up and examined the revolvers.
To satisfy myself against the subtlest trickery, I discharged one at
a round lump of lava, and had the satisfaction of seeing the stone
pulverised and the beach splashed with lead. Still I hesitated for
a moment.

"I'll take the risk," said I, at last; and with a revolver in each
hand I walked up the beach towards them.

"That's better," said Moreau, without affectation. "As it is, you have
wasted the best part of my day with your confounded imagination."
And with a touch of contempt which humiliated me, he and Montgomery
turned and went on in silence before me.

The knot of Beast Men, still wondering, stood back among the trees.
I passed them as serenely as possible. One started to follow me,
but retreated again when Montgomery cracked his whip. The rest
stood silent--watching. They may once have been animals; but I never
before saw an animal trying to think.

XIV. DOCTOR MOREAU EXPLAINS.

"AND now, Prendick, I will explain," said Doctor Moreau,
so soon as we had eaten and drunk. "I must confess that
you are the most dictatorial guest I ever entertained.
I warn you that this is the last I shall do to oblige you.
The next thing you threaten to commit suicide about, I shan't
do,--even at some personal inconvenience."

He sa