indeed by Adye--was posted over almost the whole district by four or

five o'clock in the afternoon. It gave briefly but clearly all the

conditions of the struggle, the necessity of keeping the Invisible

Man from food and sleep, the necessity for incessant watchfulness

and for a prompt attention to any evidence of his movements. And

so swift and decided was the action of the authorities, so prompt

and universal was the belief in this strange being, that before

nightfall an area of several hundred square miles was in a stringent

state of siege. And before nightfall, too, a thrill of horror

went through the whole watching nervous countryside. Going from

whispering mouth to mouth, swift and certain over the length and

breadth of the country, passed the story of the murder of Mr.

Wicksteed.

If our supposition that the Invisible Man's refuge was the

Hintondean thickets, then we must suppose that in the early

afternoon he sallied out again bent upon some project that involved

the use of a weapon. We cannot know what the project was, but the

evidence that he had the iron rod in hand before he met Wicksteed

is to me at least overwhelming.

Of course we can know nothing of the details of that encounter.

It occurred on the edge of a gravel pit, not two hundred yards

from Lord Burdock's lodge gate. Everything points to a desperate

struggle--the trampled ground, the numerous wounds Mr. Wicksteed

received, his splintered walking-stick; but why the attack was made,

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The Invisible Man