Then: “We must put a stop to this. I must tell Moreau.”
He could think of nothing else on our homeward journey.
Moreau took the matter even more seriously than Montgomery, and I need scarcely say that I was affected by their evident consternation.
“We must make an example,” said Moreau. “I’ve no doubt in my own mind that the leopard-man was the sinner. But how can we prove it? I wish, Montgomery, you had kept your taste for meat in hand, and gone without these exciting novelties. We may find ourselves in a mess yet, through it.”
“I was a silly ass,” said Montgomery. “But the thing’s done now; and you said I might have them, you know.”
“We must see to the thing at once,” said Moreau. “I suppose if anything should turn up, M’ling can take care of himself?”
“I’m not so sure of M’ling,” said Montgomery. “I think I ought to know him.”
In the afternoon, Moreau, Montgomery, myself, and M’ling went across the island to the huts in the ravine. We three were armed; M’ling carried the little hatchet he used in chopping firewood, and some coils of wire. Moreau had a huge cowherd’s horn slung over his shoulder.
“You will see a gathering of the beast people,” said Montgomery. “It is a pretty sight!”
Moreau said not a word on the way, but the expression of his heavy, white-fringed face was grimly set.
We crossed the ravine down which smoked the stream of hot water, and followed the winding pathway through the canebrakes until we reached a