"Герберт Уэллс. Dr. Moreau" - читать интересную книгу автора

the corner, for I heard him shout, "Prendick!" Then he began to run
after me, shouting things as he ran. This time running blindly,
I went northeastward in a direction at right angles to my
previous expedition. Once, as I went running headlong up the beach,
I glanced over my shoulder and saw his attendant with him.
I ran furiously up the slope, over it, then turning eastward along
a rocky valley fringed on either side with jungle I ran for perhaps
a mile altogether, my chest straining, my heart beating in my ears;
and then hearing nothing of Montgomery or his man, and feeling
upon the verge of exhaustion, I doubled sharply back towards
the beach as I judged, and lay down in the shelter of a canebrake.
There I remained for a long time, too fearful to move, and indeed
too fearful even to plan a course of action. The wild scene about me
lay sleeping silently under the sun, and the only sound near me was
the thin hum of some small gnats that had discovered me. Presently I
became aware of a drowsy breathing sound, the soughing of the sea upon
the beach.

After about an hour I heard Montgomery shouting my name,
far away to the north. That set me thinking of my plan of action.
As I interpreted it then, this island was inhabited only by these two
vivisectors and their animalised victims. Some of these no doubt
they could press into their service against me if need arose.
I knew both Moreau and Montgomery carried revolvers; and, save for a feeble
bar of deal spiked with a small nail, the merest mockery of a mace,
I was unarmed.

So I lay still there, until I began to think of food and drink;
and at that thought the real hopelessness of my position came home to me.
I knew no way of getting anything to eat. I was too ignorant of botany
to discover any resort of root or fruit that might lie about me;
I had no means of trapping the few rabbits upon the island.
It grew blanker the more I turned the prospect over. At last in
the desperation of my position, my mind turned to the animal men I
had encountered. I tried to find some hope in what I remembered of them.
In turn I recalled each one I had seen, and tried to draw some augury
of assistance from my memory.

Then suddenly I heard a staghound bay, and at that realised a new danger.
I took little time to think, or they would have caught me then,
but snatching up my nailed stick, rushed headlong from my hiding-place
towards the sound of the sea. I remember a growth of thorny plants,
with spines that stabbed like pen-knives. I emerged bleeding and
with torn clothes upon the lip of a long creek opening northward.
I went straight into the water without a minute's hesitation, wading up
the creek, and presently finding myself kneedeep in a little stream.
I scrambled out at last on the westward bank, and with my heart beating
loudly in my ears, crept into a tangle of ferns to await the issue.
I heard the dog (there was only one) draw nearer, and yelp when it came
to the thorns. Then I heard no more, and presently began to think I