bedabbled, who was amongst us
almost before he could stop his career. The grey Thing leapt aside.
M'ling, with a snarl, flew at it, and was struck aside. Montgomery fired
and missed, bowed his head, threw up his arm, and turned to run.
I fired, and the Thing still came on; fired again, point-blank, into
its ugly face. I saw its features vanish in a flash: its face was
driven in. Yet it passed me, gripped Montgomery, and holding him,
fell headlong beside him and pulled him sprawling upon itself in its
death-agony.

I found myself alone with M'ling, the dead brute, and the prostrate man.
Montgomery raised himself slowly and stared in a muddled way at
the shattered Beast Man beside him. It more than half sobered him.
He scrambled to his feet. Then I saw the grey Thing returning cautiously
through the trees.

"See," said I, pointing to the dead brute, "is the Law not alive?
This came of breaking the Law."

He peered at the body. "He sends the Fire that kills,"
said he, in his deep voice, repeating part of the Ritual.
The others gathered round and stared for a space.

At last we drew near the westward extremity of the island.
We came upon the gnawed and mutilated body of the puma,
its shoulder-bone smashed by a bullet, and perhaps twenty yards
farther found at last what we sought. Moreau lay face downward
in a trampled space in a canebrake. One hand was almost severed
at the wrist and his silvery hair was dabbled in blood.
His head had been battered in by the fetters of the puma.
The broken canes beneath him were smeared with blood.
His revolver we could not find. Montgomery turned him over.
Resting at intervals, and with the help of the seven Beast People
(for he was a heavy man), we carried Moreau back to the enclosure.
The night was darkling. Twice we heard unseen creatures howling
and shrieking past our little band, and once the little pink
sloth-creature appeared and stared at us, and vanished again.
But we were not attacked again. At the gates of the enclosure
our company of Beast People left us, M'ling going with the rest.
We locked ourselves in, and then took Moreau's mangled
body into the yard and laid it upon a pile of brushwood.
Then we went into the laboratory and put an end to all we found living
there.

XIX. MONTGOMERY'S "BANK HOLIDAY."

WHEN this was accomplished, and we had washed and eaten,
Montgomery and I went into my little room and seriously discussed
our position for the