soothing them.

I was very much impressed by the elaborate secrecy of these two men
regarding the contents of the place, and for some time I was thinking
of that and of the unaccountable familiarity of the name of Moreau;
but so odd is the human memory that I could not then recall that
well-known name in its proper connection. From that my thoughts
went to the indefinable queerness of the deformed man on the beach.
I never saw such a gait, such odd motions as he pulled at the box.
I recalled that none of these men had spoken to me, though most
of them I had found looking at me at one time or another in a
peculiarly furtive manner, quite unlike the frank stare of your
unsophisticated savage. Indeed, they had all seemed remarkably taciturn,
and when they did speak, endowed with very uncanny voices.
What was wrong with them? Then I recalled the eyes of Montgomery's
ungainly attendant.

Just as I was thinking of him he came in. He was now dressed in white,
and carried a little tray with some coffee and boiled vegetables thereon.
I could hardly repress a shuddering recoil as he came, bending amiably,
and placed the tray before me on the table. Then astonishment
paralysed me. Under his stringy black locks I saw his ear;
it jumped upon me suddenly close to my face. The man had pointed ears,
covered with a fine brown fur!

"Your breakfast, sair," he said.

I stared at his face without attempting to answer him. He turned
and went towards the door, regarding me oddly over his shoulder.
I followed him out with my eyes; and as I did so, by some odd trick
of unconscious cerebration, there came surging into my head the phrase,
"The Moreau Hollows"--was it? "The Moreau--" Ah! It sent my memory
back ten years. "The Moreau Horrors!" The phrase drifted loose
in my mind for a moment, and then I saw it in red lettering on a little
buff-coloured pamphlet, to read which made one shiver and creep.
Then I remembered distinctly all about it. That long-forgotten
pamphlet came back with startling vividness to my mind.
I had been a mere lad then, and Moreau was, I suppose, about fifty,--a
prominent and masterful physiologist, well-known in scientific
circles for his extraordinary imagination and his brutal directness
in discussion.

Was this the same Moreau? He had published some very astonishing
facts in connection with the transfusion of blood, and in
addition was known to be doing valuable work on morbid growths.
Then su