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Authors: H. G. Wells
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I.
He came down with a twisting jump, and stood facing me.
"I say," said I, "where can I get something to eat?"
"Eat!" he said. "Eat Man's food, now." And his eye went back
to the swing of ropes. "At the huts."
"But where are the huts?"
"Oh!"
"I'm new, you know."
At that he swung round, and set off at a quick walk.
All his motions were curiously rapid. "Come along," said he.
I went with him to see the adventure out. I guessed the huts were some
rough shelter where he and some more of these Beast People lived.
I might perhaps find them friendly, find some handle in their minds
to take hold of. I did not know how far they had forgotten their
human heritage.
My ape-like companion trotted along by my side, with his hands
hanging down and his jaw thrust forward. I wondered what memory
he might have in him. "How long have you been on this island?"
said I.
"How long?" he asked; and after having the question repeated,
he held up three fingers.
The creature was little better than an idiot. I tried
to make out what he meant by that, and it seems I bored him.
After another question or two he suddenly left my side and went
leaping at some fruit that hung from a tree. He pulled down
a handful of prickly husks and went on eating the contents.
I noted this with satisfaction, for here at least was a hint for feeding.
I tried him with some other questions, but his chattering, prompt responses
were as often as not quite at cross purposes with my question.
Some few were appropriate, others quite parrot-like.
I was so intent upon these peculiarities that I scarcely noticed the path
we followed. Presently we came to trees, all charred and brown,
and so to a bare place covered with a yellow-white incrustation,
across which a drifting smoke, pungent in whiffs to nose and eyes,
went drifting. On our right, over a shoulder of bare rock, I saw
the level blue of the sea. The path coiled down abruptly into a narrow
ravine between two tumbled and knotty masses of blackish scoriae.
Into this we plunged.
It was extremely dark, this passage, after the blinding sunlight reflected
from the sulphurous ground. Its walls grew steep, and approached
each other. Blotches of green and crimson drifted across my eyes.
My conductor stopped suddenly. "Home!" said he, and I stood
in a floor of a chasm that was at first absolutely dark to me.
I heard some strange noises, and thrust the knuckles of my left hand
into my eyes. I became aware of a disagreeable odor, like that of
a monkey's cage ill-cleaned. Beyond, the rock opened again upon
a gradual slope of sunlit greenery, and on either hand the light
smote down through narrow ways into the central gloom.
XII - The Sayers of the Law
*
THEN something cold touched my hand. I started violently,
and saw close to me a dim pinkish thing, looking more like a flayed
child than anything else in the world. The creature had exactly
the mild but repulsive features of a sloth, the same low forehead
and slow gestures.
As the first shock of the change of light passed, I saw about me
more distinctly. The little sloth-like creature was standing and
staring at me. My conductor had vanished. The place was a narrow
passage between high walls of lava, a crack in the knotted rock,
and on either side interwoven heaps of sea-mat, palm-fans, and reeds
leaning against the rock formed rough and impenetrably dark dens.
The winding way up the ravine between these was scarcely three yards wide,
and was disfigured by lumps of decaying fruit-pulp and other refuse,
which accounted for the disagreeable stench of the place.
The little pink sloth-creature was still blinking at me when my
Ape-man reappeared at the aperture of the nearest of these dens,
and beckoned me in. As he did so a slouching monster wriggled out
of one of the places, further up this strange street, and stood up in
featureless silhouette against the bright green beyond, staring at me.
I hesitated, having half a mind to bolt the way I had come; and then,
determined to go
He came down with a twisting jump, and stood facing me.
"I say," said I, "where can I get something to eat?"
"Eat!" he said. "Eat Man's food, now." And his eye went back
to the swing of ropes. "At the huts."
"But where are the huts?"
"Oh!"
"I'm new, you know."
At that he swung round, and set off at a quick walk.
All his motions were curiously rapid. "Come along," said he.
I went with him to see the adventure out. I guessed the huts were some
rough shelter where he and some more of these Beast People lived.
I might perhaps find them friendly, find some handle in their minds
to take hold of. I did not know how far they had forgotten their
human heritage.
My ape-like companion trotted along by my side, with his hands
hanging down and his jaw thrust forward. I wondered what memory
he might have in him. "How long have you been on this island?"
said I.
"How long?" he asked; and after having the question repeated,
he held up three fingers.
The creature was little better than an idiot. I tried
to make out what he meant by that, and it seems I bored him.
After another question or two he suddenly left my side and went
leaping at some fruit that hung from a tree. He pulled down
a handful of prickly husks and went on eating the contents.
I noted this with satisfaction, for here at least was a hint for feeding.
I tried him with some other questions, but his chattering, prompt responses
were as often as not quite at cross purposes with my question.
Some few were appropriate, others quite parrot-like.
I was so intent upon these peculiarities that I scarcely noticed the path
we followed. Presently we came to trees, all charred and brown,
and so to a bare place covered with a yellow-white incrustation,
across which a drifting smoke, pungent in whiffs to nose and eyes,
went drifting. On our right, over a shoulder of bare rock, I saw
the level blue of the sea. The path coiled down abruptly into a narrow
ravine between two tumbled and knotty masses of blackish scoriae.
Into this we plunged.
It was extremely dark, this passage, after the blinding sunlight reflected
from the sulphurous ground. Its walls grew steep, and approached
each other. Blotches of green and crimson drifted across my eyes.
My conductor stopped suddenly. "Home!" said he, and I stood
in a floor of a chasm that was at first absolutely dark to me.
I heard some strange noises, and thrust the knuckles of my left hand
into my eyes. I became aware of a disagreeable odor, like that of
a monkey's cage ill-cleaned. Beyond, the rock opened again upon
a gradual slope of sunlit greenery, and on either hand the light
smote down through narrow ways into the central gloom.
XII - The Sayers of the Law
*
THEN something cold touched my hand. I started violently,
and saw close to me a dim pinkish thing, looking more like a flayed
child than anything else in the world. The creature had exactly
the mild but repulsive features of a sloth, the same low forehead
and slow gestures.
As the first shock of the change of light passed, I saw about me
more distinctly. The little sloth-like creature was standing and
staring at me. My conductor had vanished. The place was a narrow
passage between high walls of lava, a crack in the knotted rock,
and on either side interwoven heaps of sea-mat, palm-fans, and reeds
leaning against the rock formed rough and impenetrably dark dens.
The winding way up the ravine between these was scarcely three yards wide,
and was disfigured by lumps of decaying fruit-pulp and other refuse,
which accounted for the disagreeable stench of the place.
The little pink sloth-creature was still blinking at me when my
Ape-man reappeared at the aperture of the nearest of these dens,
and beckoned me in. As he did so a slouching monster wriggled out
of one of the places, further up this strange street, and stood up in
featureless silhouette against the bright green beyond, staring at me.
I hesitated, having half a mind to bolt the way I had come; and then,
determined to go
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