_ 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
table-cloth. 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 slackened.
"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. _