“It is this way, man who walked in the sea,” said the grey thing.
And with these six creatures guiding us, we went through the tumult of ferns and creepers and tree stems towards the northwest. Then came a yelling, a crashing among the branches, and a little pink homunculus rushed by us shrieking. Immediately after appeared a monster in headlong pursuit, blood-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