Against the warm dawn great tumultuous masses of black smoke were boiling up out of the enclosure, and through their stormy darkness shot flickering threads of blood-red flame.
Then the thatched roof caught.
I saw the curving charge of the flames across the sloping straw.
A spurt of fire jetted from the window of my room.
I knew at once what had happened.
I remembered the crash I had heard.
When I had rushed out to Montgomery's assistance, I had overturned the lamp.
The hopelessness of saving any of the contents of the enclosure stared me in the face.
My mind came back to my plan of flight, and turning swiftly I looked to see where the two boats lay upon the beach.
They were gone!
Two axes lay upon the sands beside me; chips and splinters were scattered broadcast, and the ashes of the bonfire were blackening and smoking under the dawn.
Montgomery had burnt the boats to revenge himself upon me and prevent our return to mankind!
A sudden convulsion of rage shook me.
I was almost moved to batter his foolish head in, as he lay there helpless at my feet.
Then suddenly his hand moved, so feebly, so pitifully, that my wrath vanished.
He groaned, and opened his eyes for a minute.
I knelt down beside him and raised his head.
He opened his eyes again, staring silently at the dawn, and then they met mine.
The lids fell.
“Sorry,” he said presently, with an effort.
He seemed trying to think. “The last,” he murmured, “the last of this silly universe. What a mess—”
I listened.
His head fell helplessly to one side.
I thought some drink might revive him; but there was neither drink nor vessel in which to bring drink at hand.
He seemed suddenly heavier.
My heart went cold.
I bent down to his face, put my hand through the rent in his blouse.
He was dead; and even as he died a line of white heat, the limb of the sun, rose eastward beyond the projection of the bay, splashing its radiance across the sky and turning the dark sea into a weltering tumult of dazzling light.
It fell like a glory upon his death-shrunken face.
I let his head fall gently upon the rough pillow I had made for him, and stood up.
Before me was the glittering desolation of the sea, the awful solitude upon which I had already suffered so much; behind me the island, hushed under the dawn, its Beast People silent and unseen.
The enclosure, with all its provisions and ammunition, burnt noisily, with sudden gusts of flame, a fitful crackling, and now and then a crash.
The heavy smoke drove up the beach away from me, rolling low over the distant tree-tops towards the huts in the ravine.
Beside me were the charred vestiges of the boats and these five dead bodies.
Then out of the bushes came three Beast People, with hunched shoulders, protruding heads, misshapen hands awkwardly held, and inquisitive, unfriendly eyes and advanced towards me with hesitating gestures.
XX. ALONE WITH THE BEAST FOLK.
I FACED these people, facing my fate in them, single-handed now,—literally single-handed, for I had a broken arm.
In my pocket was a revolver with two empty chambers.
Among the chips scattered about the beach lay the two axes that had been used to chop up the boats.
The tide was creeping in behind me.
There was nothing for it but courage.
I looked squarely into the faces of the advancing monsters.
They avoided my eyes, and their quivering nostrils investigated the bodies that lay beyond me on the beach.
I took half-a-dozen steps, picked up the blood-stained whip that lay beneath the body of the Wolf-man, and cracked it.
They stopped and stared at me.
“Salute!” said I. “Bow down!”
They hesitated.
One bent his knees.
I repeated my command, with my heart in my mouth, and advanced upon them.
One knelt, then the other two.