When the dusk was gathering and Iping
was just beginning to peep timorously forth again upon the shattered
wreckage of its Bank Holiday, a short, thick-set man in a shabby
silk hat was marching painfully through the twilight behind the
beechwoods on the road to Bramblehurst. He carried three books bound
together by some sort of ornamental elastic ligature, and a bundle
wrapped in a blue tablecloth. His rubicund face expressed
consternation and fatigue; he appeared to be in a spasmodic sort of
hurry. He was accompanied by a Voice other than his own, and ever
and again he winced under the touch of unseen hands.
"If you give me the slip
again," said the Voice; "if you attempt to give me the
slip again--"
"Lord!" said Mr. Marvel.
"That shoulder's a mass of bruises as it is."
"--on my honour," said the
Voice, "I will kill you."
"I didn't try to give you the
slip," said Marvel, in a voice that was not far remote from
tears. "I swear I didn't. I didn't know the blessed turning,
that was all! How the devil was I to know the blessed turning? As it
is, I've been knocked about--"
"You'll get knocked about a
great deal more if you don't mind," said the Voice, and Mr.
Marvel abruptly became silent. He blew out his cheeks, and his eyes
were eloquent of despair.
"It's bad enough to let these
floundering yokels explode my little secret, without your cutting
off with my books. It's lucky for some of them they cut and ran when
they did! Here am I--No one knew I was invisible! And now what am I
to do?"
"What am I to do?" asked
Marvel, sotto voce.
"It's all about. It will be in
the papers! Everybody will be looking for me; everyone on their
guard--" The Voice broke off into vivid curses and ceased.
The despair of Mr. Marvel's face
deepened, and his pace slacked.
"Go on!" said the Voice.
Mr. Marvel's face assumed a greyish
tint between the ruddier patches.
"Don't drop those books,
stupid," said the Voice, sharply-- overtaking him.
"The fact is," said the
Voice, "I shall have to make use of you. You're a poor tool,
but I must."
"I'm a miserable tool,"
said Marvel.
"You are," said the Voice.
"I'm the worst possible tool you
could have," said Marvel.
"I'm not strong," he said
after a discouraging silence.
"I'm not over strong," he
repeated.
"No?"
"And my heart's weak. That
little business--I pulled it through, of course--but bless you! I
could have dropped."
"Well?"
"I haven't the nerve and
strength for the sort of thing you want."
"I'll stimulate you."
"I wish you wouldn't. I wouldn't
like to mess up your plans, you know. But I might,--out of sheer
funk and misery."
"You'd better not," said
the Voice, with quiet emphasis.
"I wish I was dead," said
Marvel.
"It ain't justice," he
said; "you must admit--It seems to me I've a perfect
right--"
"Get on!" said the Voice.
Mr. Marvel mended his pace, and for a
time they went in silence again.
"It's devilish hard," said
Mr. Marvel.
This was quite ineffectual. He tried
another tack.
"What do I make by it?" he
began again in a tone of unendurable wrong.
"Oh! shut up!" said the
Voice, with sudden amazing vigour. "I'll see to you all right.
You do what you're told. You'll do it all right. You're a fool and
all that, but you'll do--"
"I tell you, sir, I'm not the
man for it. Respectfully--but it is so--"
"If you don't shut up I shall
twist your wrist again," said the Invisible Man. "I want
to think."
Presently two oblongs of yellow light
appeared through the trees, and the square tower of a church loomed
through the gloaming. "I shall keep my hand on your
shoulder," said the Voice, "all through the village. Go
straight through and try no foolery. It will be the worse for you if
you do."
"I know that," sighed Mr.
Marvel, "I know all that."
The unhappy-looking figure in the
obsolete silk hat passed up the street of the little village with
his burdens, and vanished into the gathering darkness beyond the
lights of the windows.
