And his eye, presently wandering from his work, caught
the sunset blazing at the back of the hill that is
over against his own. For a minute perhaps he
sat, pen in mouth, admiring the rich golden colour
above the crest, and then his attention was attracted
by the little figure of a man, inky black, running
over the hill-brow towards him. He was a shortish
little man, and he wore a high hat, and he was running
so fast that his legs verily twinkled.
“Another of those fools,” said Dr. Kemp.
“Like that ass who ran into me this morning
round a corner, with the ’’Visible Man
a-coming, sir!’ I can’t imagine what possess
people. One might think we were in the thirteenth
century.”
He got up, went to the window, and stared at the dusky
hillside, and the dark little figure tearing down
it. “He seems in a confounded hurry,”
said Dr. Kemp, “but he doesn’t seem to
be getting on. If his pockets were full of lead,
he couldn’t run heavier.”
“Spurted, sir,” said Dr. Kemp.
In another moment the higher of the villas that had
clambered up the hill from Burdock had occulted the
running figure. He was visible again for a moment,
and again, and then again, three times between the
three detached houses that came next, and then the
terrace hid him.
“Asses!” said Dr. Kemp, swinging round
on his heel and walking back to his writing-table.
But those who saw the fugitive nearer, and perceived
the abject terror on his perspiring face, being themselves
in the open roadway, did not share in the doctor’s
contempt. By the man pounded, and as he ran he
chinked like a well-filled purse that is tossed to
and fro. He looked neither to the right nor the
left, but his dilated eyes stared straight downhill
to where the lamps were being lit, and the people
were crowded in the street. And his ill-shaped
mouth fell apart, and a glairy foam lay on his lips,
and his breath came hoarse and noisy. All he
passed stopped and began staring up the road and down,
and interrogating one another with an inkling of discomfort
for the reason of his haste.
And then presently, far up the hill, a dog playing
in the road yelped and ran under a gate, and as they
still wondered something—a wind—a
pad, pad, pad,—a sound like a panting breathing,
rushed by.
People screamed. People sprang off the pavement:
It passed in shouts, it passed by instinct down the
hill. They were shouting in the street before
Marvel was halfway there. They were bolting into
houses and slamming the doors behind them, with the
news. He heard it and made one last desperate
spurt. Fear came striding by, rushed ahead of
him, and in a moment had seized the town.
“The Invisible Man is coming! The Invisible
Man!”
IN THE “JOLLY CRICKETERS”
The “Jolly Cricketers” is just at the
bottom of the hill, where the tram-lines begin.
The barman leant his fat red arms on the counter and
talked of horses with an anaemic cabman, while a black-bearded
man in grey snapped up biscuit and cheese, drank Burton,
and conversed in American with a policeman off duty.
