Read the chapter
The Invisible Man
Chapter 27. THE HUNTER HUNTED
Mr. Heelas, Mr. Kemp's nearest neighbour among the villa owners, was asleep in his summer house when the attack on Kemp's house began.
Mr. Heelas was one of the strong few who refused to believe "in all this nonsense" about an Invisible Man.
His wife, however, as he was later reminded, did.
He insisted on walking around his garden just as if nothing was wrong.
And he went to sleep in the afternoon as he always did.
He slept through the breaking of the windows, and then woke up suddenly with a strange feeling that something was wrong.
He looked across at Kemp's house, rubbed his eyes and looked again.
Then he put his feet on the ground, and sat listening.
He said he was damned, but still the strange thing was visible.
The house looked as if it had been empty for weeks after a violent fight.
Every window was broken, and every window, except those of the study on the roof, was covered by the inside shutters.
"I could have sworn it was all right," he looked at his watch, "twenty minutes ago."
He heard a steady beating sound and the crash of glass, far away in the distance.
And then, as he sat with his mouth open, something even more strange happened.
The living-room shutters were thrown wide, and the housemaid in her outdoor hat and clothes appeared, struggling wildly to lift the window.
Suddenly a man appeared beside her, helping her.
It was Dr. Kemp! In another moment the window was open, and the housemaid was struggling out.
She fell forward and disappeared among the bushes.
Mr. Heelas stood up, shouting without clear words at all these strange things.
Kemp stood on the window sill.
He jumped from the window, Almost immediately, he appeared running along a path in the bushes.
He bent down as he ran, like a man hiding from being seen.
He disappeared behind a bush, and appeared again climbing over a fence that opened onto the hill.
In a second he had fallen over and was running very fast down the slope towards Mr. Heelas.
"Lord!" cried Mr. Heelas, struck by an idea.
"It's that Invisible Man brute! It's true, after all!"
For Mr. Heelas, thinking like that meant acting, so he ran towards the house.
His cook, watching from the top window, was very surprised to see him come running at nine miles an hour.
There was a slamming of doors, a ringing of bells, and the voice of Mr. Heelas shouting like a bull.
"Shut the doors, shut the windows, shut everything! The Invisible Man is coming!" Immediately the house was full of screams and orders, and running feet.
He ran himself to shut the French windows that opened onto the porch.
As he did so, Kemp's head and shoulders and knee appeared over the edge of the garden fence.
In another moment Kemp had run through the plants, and was running across the tennis lawn to the house.
"You can't come in," said Mr. Heelas, closing the locks.
"I'm very sorry if he's after you, but you can't come in!"
Kemp appeared with a face of terror close to the glass, knocking and then shaking wildly at the French window.
Then, seeing his efforts were useless, he ran along the porch, jumped over the end, and went to hit the side door.
Then he ran around by the side gate to the front of the house, and so into the hill road.
Mr. Heelas stared from his window with a face of horror and had hardly seen Kemp disappear.
Then the plants were trampled this way and that by unseen feet.
At that Mr. Heelas ran quickly upstairs, and the rest of the chase is beyond his view.
But as he passed the staircase window, he heard the side gate slam.
Kemp came out onto the hill road.
He naturally took the downward direction.
This led him to run the very race he had watched from the study roof only four days ago.
He ran it well, for a man out of training, and though his face was white and wet, his mind was cool to the end.
He ran with long steps, Wherever rough ground appeared, or sharp stones lay, he crossed it.
He left the bare invisible feet to take whatever path they chose.
For the first time in his life Kemp discovered that the hill road was very large and almost empty.
He saw that the first houses of the town far below at the hill foot were strangely far away.
Never had there been a slower or more painful way of moving than running.
All the empty villas, sleeping in the afternoon sun, looked locked and barred.
No doubt they were locked and barred by his own orders.
But at least they could have watched for a situation like this!
The town was coming up now.
The sea had dropped out of sight behind it, and people down below were moving.
A tram was just arriving at the hill foot.
Beyond that was the police station.
Was that footsteps he heard behind him? He ran faster.
The people below were staring at him.
One or two were running, and his breath was beginning to hurt in his throat.
The tram was quite near now, and the "Jolly Cricketers" was noisily closing its doors.
Beyond the tram were posts and piles of gravel, the drainage works.
He had a quick idea of jumping into the tram and slamming the doors, and then he decided to go for the police station.
In another moment he had passed the door of the "Jolly Cricketers," and was in the hot end of the street, with people around him.
The tram driver and his helper, stopped by the sight of his wild hurry, stood staring with the tram horses unhitched.
Further on, the surprised faces of workers appeared above the piles of gravel.
His speed slowed a little, and then he heard the quick step of his pursuer, and jumped forward again.
"The Invisible Man!"
He cried to the workers and pointed.
Then, by a sudden idea, he jumped over the hole and put a large group of men between him and the chase.
He gave up the idea of the police station.
He turned into a little side street and ran by a greengrocer's cart.
He stopped briefly at a sweet shop door.
Then he went to an alley that led back to Hill Street.
Two or three little children were playing here.
And they screamed and ran away at his appearance, and immediately doors and windows opened and excited mothers showed their feelings.
Out he shot into Hill Street again, three hundred yards from the tram-line end, and immediately he heard a loud shouting and running people.
He looked up the street towards the hill.
Hardly a dozen yards away ran a big worker, cursing and swinging a spade wildly.
Hard behind him came the tram conductor with his fists closed.
Up the street others followed these two, hitting and shouting.
Down towards the town, men and women were running.
And he noticed clearly one man coming out of a shop door with a stick in his hand.
"Spread out! Spread out!" cried someone.
Kemp suddenly understood the changed condition of the chase.
He stopped, and looked around, breathing hard.
"He's close here!" he cried.
"Form a line across."
He was hit hard under the ear, and went falling, trying to turn towards his unseen enemy.
He just managed to stay on his feet, and he hit a useless blow in the air.
Then he was hit again under the jaw, and fell flat on the ground.
In another moment a knee pressed his stomach and two eager hands held his throat, one grip weaker than the other.
He held the wrists and heard a cry of pain from his attacker.
Then the worker's spade flew through the air above him and hit something with a dull sound.
He felt a drop of wetness on his face.
The grip at his throat suddenly let go, and with a strong effort, Kemp freed himself, held a weak shoulder, and rolled on top.
He held the unseen elbows near the ground.
"I've got him!" screamed Kemp.
"Help! Help, hold him! He's down! Hold his feet!"
In another second there was a sudden rush onto the struggle.
A stranger coming into the road might have thought an unusually wild game of Rugby football was happening.
And there was no shouting after Kemp's cry, only a sound of blows and feet and heavy breathing.
Then came a mighty effort, and the Invisible Man threw off a couple of his attackers and rose to his knees.
Kemp held onto him in front like a dog to a deer, and a dozen hands held, grabbed, and tore at the Unseen.
The tram conductor suddenly got the neck and shoulders and pulled him back.
Down went the heap of struggling men again and rolled over.
There was, I'm afraid, some wild kicking.
Then suddenly a wild scream of "Mercy! Mercy!" that died down quickly to a sound like choking.
"Get back, you fools!" cried the muffled voice of Kemp, and there was a strong pushing back of strong bodies.
"He's hurt, I tell you. Stand back!"
There was a short struggle to clear a space.
The circle of eager faces saw the doctor kneeling fifteen inches in the air and holding invisible arms to the ground.
Behind him a policeman held invisible ankles.
"Don't you let go of him," cried the big worker, holding a blood-stained spade.
"He's pretending."
"He's not pretending," said the doctor, carefully raising his knee.
"And I'll hold him." His face was bruised and already going red.
He spoke thickly because of a bleeding lip.
He let go of one hand and seemed to be feeling at the face.
"The mouth's all wet," he said.
And then, "Good God!"
He stood up suddenly and then knelt down on the ground by the side of the thing unseen.
There was a pushing and moving, a sound of heavy feet as new people arrived to increase the pressure of the crowd.
People now were coming out of the houses.
The doors of the "Jolly Cricketers" stood suddenly wide open.
Very little was said, and people stood silent, staring at the covered body.
Kemp felt around, his hand seemed to pass through empty air.
"He's not breathing," he said, and then, "I can't feel his heart. His side, ugh!"
Suddenly an old woman, looking under the arm of the big worker, screamed sharply.
"Look there!" she said, and pushed out a wrinkled finger.
Everyone looked where she pointed, they saw the shape of a hand, faint and clear as if made of glass.
Veins, arteries, bones, and nerves could be seen.
It was a weak hand, lying flat.
It grew cloudy and solid even as they stared.
"Hullo!" cried the policeman.
"Here's his feet showing!"
And so, slowly, starting at his hands and feet and moving along his limbs to the main centres of his body, that strange change continued.
It was like the slow spreading of a poison.
First came the little white nerves.
They looked like a hazy grey drawing of a limb.
Then the glassy bones and complex arteries appeared.
After that came the flesh and skin.
First it was a faint fog.
Then it grew quickly thick and solid.
Soon they could see his crushed chest and his shoulders, and the unclear shape of his drawn and beaten face.
When at last the crowd made way for Kemp to stand up, there lay naked and sad on the ground,
it was the bruised and broken body of a young man about thirty.
His hair and forehead were white, not grey with age, but white with the whiteness of albinism, and his eyes were like red stones.
His hands were closed, his eyes wide open, and his expression was one of anger and shock.
"Cover his face!" said a man.
"For God's sake, cover that face!" And three little children, pushing forward through the crowd, were suddenly turned around and sent away again.
Someone brought a sheet from the "Jolly Cricketers," and after covering him, they carried him into that house.
Griffin lay on a poor bed in a cheap, badly lit bedroom.
He was broken and wounded, betrayed and without pity.
A crowd of ignorant and excited people surrounded him.
Thus ended the strange and terrible life of the first man to make himself invisible.