The Man Who Was Running

: The Invisible Man

In the early evening time Dr. Kemp was sitting in his study in the

belvedere on the hill overlooking Burdock. It was a pleasant little

room, with three windows--north, west, and south--and bookshelves

covered with books and scientific publications, and a broad

writing-table, and, under the north window, a microscope, glass

slips, minute instruments, some cultures, and scattered bottles of

reagents. Dr. Kemp's solar lam was lit, albeit the sky was still

bright with the sunset light, and his blinds were up because there

was no offence of peering outsiders to require them pulled down.

Dr. Kemp was a tall and slender young man, with flaxen hair and a

moustache almost white, and the work he was upon would earn him, he

hoped, the fellowship of the Royal Society, so highly did he think

of it.



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!"