The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance Read online

  CHAPTER XV

  THE MAN WHO WAS RUNNING

  In the early evening time Dr. Kemp was sitting in his study in thebelvedere on the hill overlooking Burdock. It was a pleasant littleroom, with three windows--north, west, and south--and bookshelvescovered with books and scientific publications, and a broadwriting-table, and, under the north window, a microscope, glassslips, minute instruments, some cultures, and scattered bottles ofreagents. Dr. Kemp's solar lamp was lit, albeit the sky was stillbright with the sunset light, and his blinds were up because therewas no offence of peering outsiders to require them pulled down.Dr. Kemp was a tall and slender young man, with flaxen hair and amoustache almost white, and the work he was upon would earn him, hehoped, the fellowship of the Royal Society, so highly did he thinkof it.

  And his eye, presently wandering from his work, caught the sunsetblazing at the back of the hill that is over against his own. For aminute perhaps he sat, pen in mouth, admiring the rich goldencolour above the crest, and then his attention was attracted by thelittle figure of a man, inky black, running over the hill-browtowards 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 raninto me this morning round a corner, with the ''Visible Mana-coming, sir!' I can't imagine what possesses people. One mightthink we were in the thirteenth century."

  He got up, went to the window, and stared at the dusky hillside, andthe dark little figure tearing down it. "He seems in a confoundedhurry," said Dr. Kemp, "but he doesn't seem to be getting on. Ifhis 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 thehill from Burdock had occulted the running figure. He was visibleagain for a moment, and again, and then again, three times betweenthe three detached houses that came next, and then the terrace hidhim.

  "Asses!" said Dr. Kemp, swinging round on his heel and walkingback to his writing-table.

  But those who saw the fugitive nearer, and perceived the abjectterror on his perspiring face, being themselves in the open roadway,did not share in the doctor's contempt. By the man pounded, and ashe ran he chinked like a well-filled purse that is tossed to andfro. He looked neither to the right nor the left, but his dilatedeyes stared straight downhill to where the lamps were being lit, andthe people were crowded in the street. And his ill-shaped mouth fellapart, and a glairy foam lay on his lips, and his breath came hoarseand noisy. All he passed stopped and began staring up the road anddown, and interrogating one another with an inkling of discomfortfor the reason of his haste.

  And then presently, far up the hill, a dog playing in the roadyelped and ran under a gate, and as they still wonderedsomething--a wind--a pad, pad, pad,--a sound like a panting breathing,rushed by.

  People screamed. People sprang off the pavement: It passed inshouts, it passed by instinct down the hill. They were shouting inthe street before Marvel was halfway there. They were bolting intohouses and slamming the doors behind them, with the news. He heardit and made one last desperate spurt. Fear came striding by, rushedahead of him, and in a moment had seized the town.

  "The Invisible Man is coming! The Invisible Man!"