Part 16 (1/2)
”I saw something of the same kind,” said I, ”the first day I came here.”
”The devil you did! What was it?”
”A rabbit with its head twisted off.”
”The day you came here?”
”The day I came here. In the undergrowth at the back of the enclosure, when I went out in the evening. The head was completely wrung off.”
He gave a long, low whistle.
”And what is more, I have an idea which of your brutes did the thing.
It's only a suspicion, you know. Before I came on the rabbit I saw one of your monsters drinking in the stream.”
”Sucking his drink?”
”Yes.”
”'Not to suck your drink; that is the Law.' Much the brutes care for the Law, eh? when Moreau's not about!”
”It was the brute who chased me.”
”Of course,” said Montgomery; ”it's just the way with carnivores.
After a kill, they drink. It's the taste of blood, you know.--What was the brute like?” he continued. ”Would you know him again?”
He glanced about us, standing astride over the mess of dead rabbit, his eyes roving among the shadows and screens of greenery, the lurking-places and ambuscades of the forest that bounded us in.
”The taste of blood,” he said again.
He took out his revolver, examined the cartridges in it and replaced it.
Then he began to pull at his dropping lip.
”I think I should know the brute again,” I said. ”I stunned him.
He ought to have a handsome bruise on the forehead of him.”
”But then we have to _prove_ that he killed the rabbit,” said Montgomery. ”I wish I'd never brought the things here.”
I should have gone on, but he stayed there thinking over the mangled rabbit in a puzzle-headed way. As it was, I went to such a distance that the rabbit's remains were hidden.
”Come on!” I said.
Presently he woke up and came towards me. ”You see,” he said, almost in a whisper, ”they are all supposed to have a fixed idea against eating anything that runs on land. If some brute has by any accident tasted blood--”
We went on some way in silence. ”I wonder what can have happened,”
he said to himself. Then, after a pause again: ”I did a foolish thing the other day. That servant of mine--I showed him how to skin and cook a rabbit. It's odd--I saw him licking his hands--It never occurred to me.”
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?