Presently Moreau sounded the great horn again, and at the sound
of it all the Beast People writhed and grovelled in the dust.
Then, slinking out of the canebrake, stooping near the ground
and trying to join the dust-throwing circle behind Moreau's back,
came the Leopard-man. The last of the Beast People to arrive was the little
Ape-man. The earlier animals, hot and weary with their grovelling,
shot vicious glances at him.
"Cease!" said Moreau, in his firm, loud voice; and the Beast People
sat back upon their hams and rested from their worshipping.
"Where is the Sayer of the Law?" said Moreau, and the hairy-grey
monster bowed his face in the dust.
"Say the words!" said Moreau.
Forthwith all in the kneeling assembly, swaying from side to side
and dashing up the sulphur with their hands,--first the right hand
and a puff of dust, and then the left,--began once more to chant
their strange litany. When they reached, "Not to eat Flesh or Fowl,
that is the Law," Moreau held up his lank white hand.
"Stop!" he cried, and there fell absolute silence upon them all.
I think they all knew and dreaded what was coming.
I looked round at their strange faces. When I saw their wincing
attitudes and the furtive dread in their bright eyes, I wondered
that I had ever believed them to be men.
"That Law has been broken!" said Moreau.
"None escape," from the faceless creature with the silvery hair.
"None escape," repeated the kneeling circle of Beast People.
|