“If you run away again,” said the Voice, “if you attempt to run away again-”
“Lord!” said Mr. Marvel. “Oh, that hurts!”
“On my honour,” said the Voice, “I will kill you.”
“I didn’t try to run away,” said Marvel. “I swear I didn’t. I didn’t know where to turn! How the devil could I know that?”
Mr. Marvel became silent. He blew out his cheeks, and his eyes were eloquent of despair.
“It’s bad enough to let these yokels explode my little secret, without your trying to go away with my books. No one knew I was invisible! And now what am I to do?”
“What am I to do?” asked Marvel.
“Everybody knows that now. It will be in the papers! Everybody will be looking for me!”
Mr. Marvel’s pace slackened.
“Go on!” said the Voice sharply. “Don’t drop those books, stupid. The fact is, 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. “And I’m not strong at all.”
“No?”
“And my heart is weak.”
“Well?”
“I haven’t the nerve and strength for the sort of thing you want.”
“I’ll stimulate you.”
“I wish you wouldn’t. But I can mess up your plans, you know. I am cowardly and miserable.”
“You’d better not,” said the Voice.
“It’s better to die,” said Marvel. “It’s not fair. You must admit… It seems to me I have the right-”
“Go 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 again.
“What will I get for that?” he began.
“Oh! Shut up!” said the Voice. “Just do what you’re told. You’re a fool, but you’ll do it.”
“I tell you, sir, I’m not the man for it.”
“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.”
“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.
Ten o’clock the next morning found Mr. Marvel, unshaven, and dirty sitting with the books beside him and his hands deep in his pockets, looking very weary, nervous, and uncomfortable, and inflating his cheeks at infrequent intervals, on the bench outside a little inn on the outskirts of Port Stowe. Beside him were the books, tied with string. The bundle had been abandoned in the woods beyond Bramblehurst, in accordance with a change in the plans of the Invisible Man. Mr. Marvel’s hands would go ever and again to his various pockets with a curious nervous fumbling.
When he had been sitting for an hour, an elderly mariner, carrying a newspaper, came out of the inn and sat down beside him.
“Pleasant day,” said the mariner.
“Very,” said Mr. Marvel.
“Just seasonable weather for the time of year,” said the mariner.
“Quite,” said Mr. Marvel.
The mariner’s eyes examined Mr. Marvel’s dusty figure, and the books beside him. As he had approached Mr. Marvel he had heard a sound like the dropping of coins into a pocket.
“Books?” the mariner said suddenly.
