nother 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.

"What's the shouting about!" said the anaemic cabman, going off at a
tangent, trying to see up the hill over the dirty yellow blind in
the low window of the inn. Somebody ran by outside. "Fire, perhaps,"
said the barman.

Footsteps approached, running heavily, the door was pushed open
violently, and Marvel, weeping and dishevelled, his hat gone, the
neck of his coat torn open, rushed in,