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!”

CHAPTER XVI

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.