and fell over the constable's prostrate body. Half-way across the
road a woman screamed as something pushed by her; a dog, kicked
apparently, yelped and ran howling into Huxter's yard, and with
that the transit of the Invisible Man was accomplished. For a space
people stood amazed and gesticulating, and then came panic, and
scattered them abroad through the village as a gust scatters dead
leaves.

But Jaffers lay quite still, face upward and knees bent, at the foot
of the steps of the inn.



CHAPTER VIII

IN TRANSIT


The eighth chapter is exceedingly brief, and relates that Gibbons,
the amateur naturalist of the district, while lying out on the
spacious open downs without a soul within a couple of miles of him,
as he thought, and almost dozing, heard close to him the sound as
of a man coughing, sneezing, and then swearing savagely to himself;
and looking, beheld nothing. Yet the voice was indisputable. It
continued to swear with that breadth and variety that distinguishes
the swearing of a cultivated man. It grew to a climax, diminished
again, and died away in the distance, going as it seemed to him in
the direction of Adderdean. It lifted to a spasmodic sneeze and
ended. Gibbons had heard nothing of the morning's occurrences, but
the phenomenon was so striking and disturbing that his philosophical