The Island of Doctor Moreau, page 29 by H.G. Wells
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30
ed guest. What are we to do with him?"
"He knows something of science," said Montgomery.
"I'm itching to get to work again--with this new stuff," said the white-haired man, noddding towards the enclosure. His eyes grew brighter.
"I daresay you are," said Montgomery, in anything but a cordial tone.
"We can't send him over there, and we can't spare the time to build him a new shanty; and we certainly can't take him into our confidence just yet."
"I'm in your hands," said I. I had no idea of what he meant by "over there."
"I've been thinking of the same things," Montgomery answered. "There's my room with the outer door--"
"That's it," said the elder man, promptly, looking at Montgomery; and all three of us went towards the enclosure. "I'm sorry to make a mystery, Mr. Prendick; but you'll remember you're uninvited. Our little establishment here contains a secret or so, is a kind of Blue-Beard's chamber, in fact. Nothing very dreadful, really, to a sane man; but just now, as we don't know you--"
"Decidedly," said I, "I should be a fool to take offence at any want of confidence."
He twisted his heavy mouth into a faint smile--he was one of those saturnine people who smile with the corners of the mouth down,-- and bowed his acknowledgment of my complaisance. The main entrance to the enclosure we passed; it was a heavy wooden gate, framed in iron and locked, with the cargo of the launch piled outside it, and at the corner we came to a small doorway I had not previously observed. The white-haired man produced a bundle of keys from the pocket of his greasy blue jacket, opened this door, and entered. His keys, and the elaborate locking-up of the place even while it was still under his eye, struck me as peculiar. I followed him, and found myself in a small apartment, plainly but not uncomfortably furnished and with its inner door, which was slightly ajar, opening into a paved courtyard. This inner door Montgomery at once closed. A hammock was slung acros