momentary choking in his throat; he said quite calmly:--

“Little girl, you will never regret that true-hearted kindness, so long
as ever you live!” Then he went into the study to his friend.

“Little girl!”--the very words he had used to Lucy, and oh, but he
proved himself a friend!

CHAPTER XVIII.

/Dr. Seward’s Diary./

_30 September._--I got home at five o’clock, and found that Godalming
and Morris had not only arrived, but had already studied the transcript
of the various diaries and letters which Harker and his wonderful wife
had made and arranged. Harker had not yet returned from his visit to
the carriers’ men, of whom Dr. Hennessey had written to me. Mrs. Harker
gave us a cup of tea, and I can honestly say that, for the first time
since I have lived in it, this old house seemed like _home_. When we had
finished, Mrs. Harker said:--

“Dr. Seward, may I ask a favour? I want to see your patient, Mr.
Renfield. Do let me see him. What you have said of him in your diary
interests me so much!” She looked so appealing and so pretty that I
could not refuse her, and there was no possible reason why I should; so
I took her with me. When I went into the room, I told the man that a
lady would like to see him; to which he simply answered: “Why?”

“She is going through the house, and wants to see every one in it,” I
answered. “Oh, very well,” he said: “let her come in, by all means; but
just wait a minute till I tidy up the place.” His method of tidying was
peculiar: he simply swallowed all the flies and spiders in the boxes
before I could stop him. It was quite evident that he feared, or was
jealous of, some interference. When he had got through his disgusting
task, he said cheerfully: “Let the lady come in,” and sat down on the
edge of his bed with his head down, but with his eyelids raised so that
he could see her as she entered. For a moment I thought that he might
have some homicidal intent; I remembered how quiet he had been just
before he attacked me in my own study, and I took care to stand where
I could seize him at once if he attempted to make a spring at her. She
came into the room with an easy gracefulness which would at once command
the respect of any lunatic--for easiness is one of the qualities mad
people most respect. She walked over to him, smiling pleasantly, and
held out her hand.

“Good evening, Mr. Renfield,” said she. “You see, I know you, for Dr.
Seward has told me of you.” He made no immediate reply, but eyed her all
over intently with a set frown on his face. This look gave way to one
of wonder, which merged in doubt; then, to my intense astonishment, he
said:--

“You’re not the girl the doctor wanted to marry, are you? You can’t be,
you know, for she’s dead.” Mrs. Harker smiled sweetly as she replied:--

“Oh no! I have a husband of my own, to whom I was married before I ever
saw Dr. Seward, or he me. I am Mrs. Harker.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“My husband and I are staying on a visit with Dr. Seward.”

“Then don’t stay.”

“But why not?” I thought that this style of conversation might not be
pleasant to Mrs. Harker, any more than it was to me, so I joined in:--

“How did you know I wanted to marry any one?” His reply was simply
contemptuous, given in a pause in which he turned his eyes from Mrs.
Harker to me, instantly turning them back again:--

“What an asinine question!”

“I don’t see that at all, Mr. Renfield,” said Mrs. Harker, at once
championing me. He replied to her with as much courtesy and respect as
he had shown contempt to me:--

“You will, of course, understand, Mrs. Harker, that when a man is loved
and honoured as our host is, everything regarding him is of interest in
our little community. Dr. Seward is loved not only by his household and
his friends, but even by his patients, who, being some of them hardly
in mental equilibrium, are apt to distort causes and effects. Since I
myself have been an inmate of a lunatic asylum, I cannot but notice
that the sophistic tendencies of some of its inmates lean towards the
errors of _non causa_ and _ignoratio elenchi_.” I positively opened my
eyes at this new development. Here was my own pet lunatic--the most
pronounced of his type that I had ever met with--talking elemental
philosophy, and with the manner of a polished gentleman. I wonder if it
was Mrs. Harker’s presence which had touched some chord in his memory.
If this new phase was spontaneous, or in any way due to her unconscious
influence, she must have some rare gift or power.

We continued to talk for some time; and, seeing that he was seemingly
quite reasonable, she ventured, looking at me questioningly as she
began, to lead him to his favourite topic. I was again astonished,
for he addressed himself to the question with the impartiality of the
completest sanity; he even took himself as an example when he mentioned
certain things.

“Why, I myself am an instance of a man who had a strange belief. Indeed,
it was no wonder that my friends were alarmed, and insisted on my
being put under control. I used to fancy that life was a positive and
perpetual entity, and that by consuming a multitude of live things, no
matter how low in the scale of creation, one might indefinitely prolong
life. At times I held the belief so strongly that I actually tried to
take human life. The doctor here will bear me out that on one occasion
I tried to kill him for the purpose of strengthening my vital powers
by the assimilation with my own body of his life through the medium of
his blood--relying, of course, upon the Scriptural phrase, ‘For the
blood is the life.’ Though, indeed, the vendor of a certain nostrum has
vulgarised the truism to the very point of contempt. Isn’t that true,
doctor?” I nodded assent, for I was so amazed that I hardly knew what I
ought to think or say; it was hard to imagine that I had seen him eat
up his spiders and flies not five minutes before. Looking at my watch,
I saw that I should go to the station to meet Van Helsing, so I told
Mrs. Harker that it was time to leave. She came at once, after saying
pleasantly to Mr. Renfield: “Good-bye, and I hope I may see you often,
under auspices pleasanter to yourself,” to which, to my astonishment, he
replied:--

“Good-bye, my dear. I pray God I may never see your sweet face again.
May He bless and keep you!”

When I went to the station to meet Van Helsing I left the boys behind
me. Poor Art seemed more cheerful than he has been since Lucy first took
ill, and Quincey is more like his own bright self than he has been for
many a long day.

Van Helsing stepped from the carriage with the eager nimbleness of a
boy. He saw me at once, and rushed up to me, saying:--

“Ah, friend John, how goes all? Well? So! I have been busy, for I come
here to stay if need be. All affairs are settled with me, and I have
much to tell. Madam Mina is with you? Yes. And her so fine husband? And
Arthur and my friend Quincey, they are with you, too? Good!”

As I drove to the house I told him of what had passed, and of how my own
diary had come to be of some use through Mrs. Harker’s suggestion; at
which the Professor interrupted me:--

“Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina! She has man’s brain--a brain that a
man should have were he much gifted--and woman’s heart. The good God
fashioned her for a purpose, believe me, when He made that so good
combination. Friend John, up to now fortune has made that woman of help
to us; after to-night she must not have to do with this so terrible
affair. It is not good that she run a risk so great. We men are
determined--nay, are we not pledged?--to destroy this monster; but it is
no part for a woman. Even if she be not harmed, her heart may fail her
in so much and so many horrors; and hereafter she may suffer--both in
waking, from her nerves, and in sleep, from her dreams. And, besides,
she is young woman and not so long married; there may be other things
to think of some time, if not now. You tell me she has wrote all, then
she must consult with us; but to-morrow she say good-bye to this work,
and we go alone.” I agreed heartily with him, and then I told him what
we had found in his absence: that the house which Dracula had bought was
the very next one to my own. He was amazed, and a great concern seemed
to come on him. “Oh that we had known it before!” he said, “for then we
might have reached him in time to save poor Lucy. However, ‘the milk
that is spilt cries not out afterwards,’ as you say. We shall not think
of that, but go on our way to the end.” Then he fell into a silence that
lasted till we entered my own gateway. Before we went to prepare for
dinner he said to Mrs. Harker:--

“I am told, Madam Mina, by my friend John that you and your husband have
put up in exact order all things that have been, up to this moment.”

“Not up to this moment, Professor,” she said impulsively, “but up to
this morning.”

“But why not up to now? We have seen hitherto how good light all the
little things have made. We have told our secrets, and yet no one who
has told is the worse for it.”

Mrs. Harker began to blush, and taking a paper from her pocket, she
said:--

“Dr. Van Helsing, will you read this, and tell me if it must go in? It
is my record of to-day. I too have seen the need of putting down at
present everything, however trivial; but there is little in this except
what is personal. Must it go in?” The Professor read it over gravely,
and handed it back, saying:--

“It need not go in if you do not wish it; but pray that it may. It can
but make your husband love you the more, and all us, your friends, more
honour you--as well as more esteem and love.” She took it back with
another blush and a bright smile.

And so now, up to this very hour, all the records we have are complete
and in order. The Professor took away one copy to study after dinner,
and before our meeting, which is fixed for nine o’clock. The rest of us
have already read everything; so when we meet in the study we shall all
be informed as to facts, and can arrange our plan of battle with this
terrible and mysterious enemy.

_Mina Harker’s Journal._

_30 September._--When we met in Dr. Seward’s study two hours after
dinner, which had been at six o’clock, we unconsciously formed a sort
of board or committee. Professor Van Helsing took the head of the
table, to which Dr. Seward motioned him as he came into the room. He
made me sit next to him on his right, and asked me to act as secretary;
Jonathan sat next to me. Opposite us were Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward,
and Mr. Morris--Lord Godalming being next to the Professor, and Dr.
Seward in the centre. The Professor said:--

“I may, I suppose, take it that we are all acquainted with the facts
that are in these papers.” We all expressed assent, and he went on:--

“Then it were, I think good that I tell you something of the kind
of enemy with which we have to deal. I shall then make known to you
something of the history of this man, which has been ascertained for
me. So we then can discuss how we shall act, and can take our measure
according.

“There are such beings as vampires; some of us have evidence that
they exist. Even had we not the proof of our own unhappy experience,
the teachings and the records of the past give proof enough for sane
peoples. I admit that at the first I was sceptic. Were it not that
through long years I have trained myself to keep an open mind, I could
not have believe until such time as that fact thunder on my ear. ‘See!
see! I prove; I prove.’ Alas! Had I known at the first what now I
know--nay, had I even guess at him--one so precious life had been spared
to many of us who did love her. But that is gone; and we must so work,
that other poor souls perish not, whilst we can save. The _nosferatu_
do not die like the bee when he sting once. He is only stronger; and
being stronger, have yet more power to work evil. This vampire which
is amongst us is of himself so strong in person as twenty men; he is
of cunning more than mortal, for his cunning be the growth of ages; he
have still the aids of necromancy, which is, as his etymology imply,
the divination by the dead, and all the dead that he can come nigh to
are for him at command; he is brute, and more than brute; he is devil
in callous, and the heart of him is not; he can, within limitations,
appear at will when, and where, and in any of the forms that are to
him; he can, within his range, direct the elements: the storm, the fog,
the thunder; he can command all the meaner things: the rat, and the
owl, and the bat--the moth, and the fox, and the wolf; he can grow and
become small; and he can at times vanish and come unknown. How then are
we to begin our strife to destroy him? How shall we find his where; and
having found it, how can we destroy? My friends, this is much; it is a
terrible task that we undertake, and there may be consequence to make
the brave shudder. For if we fail in this our fight he must surely win;
and then where end we? Life is nothings; I heed him not. But to fail
here, is not mere life or death. It is that we become as him; that we
henceforward become foul things of the night like him--without heart or
conscience, preying on the bodies and the souls of those we love best.
To us for ever are the gates of heaven shut; for who shall open them to
us again? We go on for all time abhorred by all; a blot on the face of
God’s sunshine; an arrow in the side of Him who died for man. But we are
face to face with duty; and in such case must we shrink? For me, I say,
no; but then I am old, and life, with his sunshine, his fair places, his
song of birds, his music, and his love, lie far behind. You others are
young. Some have seen sorrow; but there are fair days yet in store. What
say you?”

Whilst he was speaking Jonathan had taken my hand. I feared, oh so
much, that the appalling nature of our danger was overcoming him when I
saw his hand stretch out; but it was life to me to feel its touch--so
strong, so self-reliant, so resolute. A brave man’s hand can speak for
itself; it does not even need a woman’s love to hear its music.

When the Professor had done speaking my husband looked in my eyes, and I
in his; there was no need for speaking between us.

“I answer for Mina and myself,” he said.

“Count me in, Professor,” said Mr. Quincey Morris, laconically as usual.

“I am with you,” said Lord Godalming, “for Lucy’s sake, if for no other
reason.”

Dr. Seward simply nodded. The Professor stood up, and, after laying his
golden crucifix on the table, held out his hand on either side. I took
his right hand, and Lord Godalming his left; Jonathan held my right with
his left and stretched across to Mr. Morris. So as we all took hands our
solemn compact was made. I felt my heart icy cold, but it did not even
occur to me to draw back. We resumed our places, and Dr. Van Helsing
went on with a sort of cheerfulness which showed that the serious work
had begun. It was to be taken as gravely, and in as businesslike a way,
as any other transaction of life:--

“Well, you know what we have to contend against; but we, too, are not
without strength. We have on our side power of combination--a power
denied to the vampire kind; we have resources of science; we are free
to act and think; and the hours of the day and the night are ours
equally. In fact, so far as our powers extend, they are unfettered, and
we are free to use them. We have self-devotion in a cause, and an end to
achieve which is not a selfish one. These things are much.

“Now let us see how far the general powers arrayed against us are
restrict, and how the individual cannot. In fine, let us consider the
limitations of the vampire in general, and of this one in particular.

“All we have to go upon are traditions and superstitions. These do
not at the first appear much, when the matter is one of life and
death--nay of more than either life or death. Yet must we be satisfied;
in the first place because we have to be--no other means is at our
control--and secondly, because, after all, these things--tradition and
superstition--are everything. Does not the belief in vampires rest
for others--though not, alas! for us--on them? A year ago which of us
would have received such a possibility, in the midst of our scientific,
sceptical, matter-of-fact nineteenth century? We even scouted a belief
that we saw justified under our very eyes. Take it, then, that the
vampire, and the belief in his limitations and his cure, rest for the
moment on the same base. For, let me tell you, he is known everywhere
that men have been. In old Greece, in old Rome; he flourish in Germany
all over, in France, in India, even in the Chersonese; and in China,
so far from us in all ways, there even is he, and the peoples fear him
at this day. He have follow the wake of the berserker Icelander, the
devil-begotten Hun, the Slav, the Saxon, the Magyar. So far, then,
we have all we may act upon; and let me tell you that very much of
the beliefs are justified by what we have seen in our own so unhappy
experience. The vampire live on, and cannot die by mere passing of
the time; he can flourish when that he can fatten on the blood of
the living. Even more, we have seen amongst us that he can even grow
younger; that his vital faculties grow strenuous, and seem as though
they refresh themselves when his special pabulum is plenty. But he
cannot flourish without this diet; he eat not as others. Even friend
Jonathan, who lived with him for weeks, did never see him to eat, never!
He throws no shadow; he make in the mirror no reflect, as again Jonathan
observe. He has the strength of many in his hand--witness again
Jonathan when he shut the door against the wolfs, and when he help him
from the diligence too. He can transform himself to wolf, as we gather
from the ship arrival in Whitby, when he tear open the dog; he can be as
bat, as Madam Mina saw him on the window at Whitby, and as friend John
saw him fly from this so near house, and as my friend Quincey saw him at
the window of Miss Lucy. He can come in mist which he create--that noble
ship’s captain proved him of this; but, from what we know, the distance
he can make this mist is limited, and it can only be round himself. He
come on moonlight rays as elemental dust--as again Jonathan saw those
sisters in the castle of Dracula. He become so small--we ourselves saw
Miss Lucy, ere she was at peace, slip through a hair-breadth space at
the tomb door. He can, when once he find his way, come out from anything
or into anything, no matter how close it be bound or even fused up
with fire--solder you call it. He can see in the dark--no small power
this, in a world which is one half shut from the light. Ah, but hear
me through. He can do all these things, yet he is not free. Nay; he is
even more prisoner than the slave of the galley, than the madman in his
cell. He cannot go where he lists; he who is not of nature has yet to
obey some of nature’s laws--why we know not. He may not enter anywhere
at the first, unless there be some one of the household who bid him to
come; though afterwards he can come as he please. His power ceases, as
does that of all evil things, at the coming of the day. Only at certain
times can he have limited freedom. If he be not at the place whither
he is bound, he can only change himself at noon or at exact sunrise
or sunset. These things are we told, and in this record of ours we
have proof by inference. Thus, whereas he can do as he will within his
limit, when he have his earth-home, his coffin-home, his hell-home, the
place unhallowed, as we saw when he went to the grave of the suicide at
Whitby; still at other time he can only change when the time come. It is
said, too, that he can only pass running water at the slack or the flood
of the tide. Then there are things which so afflict him that he has no
power, as the garlic that we know of; and as for things sacred, as this
symbol, my crucifix, that was amongst us even now when we resolve, to
them he is nothing, but in their presence he take his place far off and
silent with respect. There are others, too, which I shall tell you of,
lest in our seeking we may need them. The branch of wild rose on his
coffin keep him that he move not from it; a sacred bullet fired into the
coffin kill him so that he be true dead; and as for the stake through
him, we know already of its peace; or the cut-off head that giveth rest.
We have seen it with our eyes.

“Thus when we find the habitation of this man-that-was, we can confine
him to his coffin and destroy him, if we obey what we know. But he is
clever. I have asked my friend Arminius, of Buda-Pesth University, to
make his record; and, from all the means that are, he tell me of what
he has been. He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won
his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of
Turkey-land. If it be so, then was he no common man; for in that time,
and for centuries after, he was spoken of as the cleverest and the
most cunning, as well as the bravest of the sons of the ‘land beyond
the forest.’ That mighty brain and that iron resolution went with him
to his grave, and are even now arrayed against us. The Draculas were,
says Arminius, a great and noble race, though now and again were scions
who were held by their coevals to have had dealings with the Evil One.
They learned his secrets in the Scholomance, amongst the mountains
over Lake Hermanstadt, where the devil claims the tenth scholar as his
due. In the records are such words as ‘stregoica’--witch, ‘ordog,’ and
‘pokol’--Satan and hell; and in one manuscript this very Dracula is
spoken of as ‘wampyr,’ which we all understand too well. There have been
from the loins of this very one great men and good women, and their
graves make sacred the earth where alone this foulness can dwell. For it
is not the least of its terrors that this evil thing is rooted deep in
all good; in soil barren of holy memories it cannot rest.”

Whilst they were talking Mr. Morris was looking steadily at the window,
and he now got up quietly, and went out of the room. There was a little
pause, and then the Professor went on:--

“And now we must settle what we do. We have here much data, and we must
proceed to lay out our campaign. We know from the inquiry of Jonathan
that from the castle to Whitby came fifty boxes of earth, all of which
were delivered at Carfax; we also know that at least some of these
boxes have been removed. It seems to me, that our first step should be
to ascertain whether all the rest remain in the house beyond that wall
where we look to-day; or whether any more have been removed. If the
latter, we must trace----”

Here we were interrupted in a very startling way. Outside the house came
the sound of a pistol-shot; the glass of the window was shattered with
a bullet, which, ricocheting from the top of the embrasure, struck the
far wall of the room. I am afraid I am at heart a coward, for I shrieked
out. The men all jumped to their feet; Lord Godalming flew over to the
window and threw up the sash. As he did so we heard Mr. Morris’s voice
without:--

“Sorry! I fear I have alarmed you. I shall come in and tell you about
it.” A minute later he came in and said:--

“It was an idiotic thing of me to do, and I ask your pardon, Mrs.
Harker, most sincerely; I fear I must have frightened you terribly.
But the fact is that while the Professor was talking there came a big
bat and sat on the window-sill. I have got such a horror of the damned
brutes from recent events that I cannot stand them, and I went out to
have a shot, as I have been doing of late of evenings whenever I have
seen one. You used to laugh at me for it then, Art.”

“Did you hit it?” asked Dr. Van Helsing.

“I don’t know; I fancy not, for it flew away into the wood.” Without
saying any more he took his seat, and the Professor began to resume his
statement:--

“We must trace each of these boxes; and when we are ready, we must
either capture or kill this monster in his lair; or we must, so to
speak, sterilise the earth, so that no more he can seek safety in it.
Thus in the end we may find him in his form of man between the hours of
noon and sunset, and so engage with him when he is at his most weak.

“And now for you, Madam Mina, this night is the end until all be well.
You are too precious to us to have such risk. When we part to-night,
you no more must question. We shall tell you all in good time. We are
men, and are able to bear; but you must be our star and our hope, and we
shall act all the more free that you are not in the danger, such as we
are.”

All the men, even Jonathan, seemed relieved; but it did not seem to
me good that they should brave danger and, perhaps, lessen their
safety--strength being the best safety--through care of me; but their
minds were made up, and, though it was a bitter pill for me to swallow,
I could say nothing, save to accept their chivalrous care of me.

Mr. Morris resumed the discussion:--

“As there is no time to lose, I vote we have a look at his house right
now. Time is everything with him; and swift action on our part may save
another victim.”

I own that my heart began to fail me when the time for action came so
close, but I did not say anything, for I had a greater fear that if I
appeared as a drag or a hindrance to their work, they might even leave
me out of their counsels altogether. They have now gone off to Carfax,
with means to get into the house.

Manlike, they have told me to go to bed and sleep; as if a woman can
sleep when those she loves are in danger! I shall lie down and pretend
to sleep, lest Jonathan have added anxiety about me when he returns.

_Dr. Seward’s Diary_

_1 October, 4 a.m._--Just as we were about to leave the house, an urgent
message was brought to me from Renfield to know if I would see him at
once, as he had something of the utmost importance to say to me. I told
the messenger to say that I would attend to his wishes in the morning; I
was busy just at the moment. The attendant added:--

“He seems very importunate, sir. I have never seen him so eager. I
don’t know but what, if you don’t see him soon, he will have one of his
violent fits.” I knew the man would not have said this without some
cause, so I said: “All right; I’ll go now;” and I asked the others to
wait a few minutes for me, as I had to go and see my “patient.”

“Take me with you, friend John,” said the Professor. “His case in your
diary interested me much, and it had bearing, too, now and again on
_our_ case. I should much like to see him, and especially when his mind
is disturbed.”

“May I come also?” asked Lord Godalming.

“Me too?” said Quincey Morris. I nodded, and we all went down the
passage together.

We found him in a state of considerable excitement, but far more
rational in his speech and manner than I had ever seen him. There was
an unusual understanding of himself, which was unlike anything I had
ever met with in a lunatic; and he took it for granted that his reasons
would prevail with others entirely sane. We all four went into the room,
but none of the others at first said anything. His request was that I
would at once release him from the asylum and send him home. This he
backed up with arguments regarding his complete recovery, and adduced
his own existing sanity. “I appeal to your friends,” he said; “they
will, perhaps, not mind sitting in judgment on my case. By the way, you
have not introduced me.” I was so much astonished, that the oddness
of introducing a madman in an asylum did not strike me at the moment;
and, besides, there was a certain dignity in the man’s manner, so much
of the habit of equality, that I at once made the introduction: “Lord
Godalming; Professor Van Helsing; Mr. Quincey Morris, of Texas; Mr.
Renfield.” He shook hands with each of them, saying in turn:--

“Lord Godalming, I had the honour of seconding your father at the
Windham; I grieve to know, by your holding the title, that he is no
more. He was a man loved and honoured by all who knew him; and in
his youth was, I have heard, the inventor of a burnt rum punch, much
patronised on Derby night. Mr. Morris, you should be proud of your great
state. Its reception into the Union was a precedent which may have
far-reaching effects hereafter, when the Pole and the Tropics may hold
allegiance to the Stars and Stripes. The power of Treaty may yet prove
a vast engine of enlargement, when the Monroe doctrine takes its true
place as a political fable. What shall any man say of his pleasure at
meeting Van Helsing? Sir, I make no apology for dropping all forms of
conventional prefix. When an individual has revolutionised therapeutics
by his discovery of the continuous evolution of brain-matter,
conventional forms are unfitting, since they would seem to limit him
to one of a class. You gentlemen, who by nationality, by heredity, or
by the possession of natural gifts, are fitted to hold your respective
places in the moving world, I take to witness that I am as sane as at
least the majority of men who are in full possession of their liberties.
And I am sure that you, Dr. Seward, humanitarian and medico-jurist as
well as scientist, will deem it a moral duty to deal with me as one to
be considered as under exceptional circumstances.” He made this last
appeal with a courtly air of conviction which was not without its own
charm.

I think we were all staggered. For my own part, I was under the
conviction, despite my knowledge of the man’s character and history,
that his reason had been restored; and I felt under a strong impulse
to tell him that I was satisfied as to his sanity, and would see about
the necessary formalities for his release in the morning. I thought it
better to wait, however, before making so grave a statement, for of old
I knew the sudden changes to which this particular patient was liable.
So I contented myself with making a general statement that he appeared
to be improving very rapidly; that I would have a longer chat with him
in the morning, and would then see what I could do in the direction
of meeting his wishes. This did not at all satisfy him, for he said
quickly:--

“But I fear, Dr. Seward, that you hardly apprehend my wish. I desire
to go at once--here--now--this very hour--this very moment, if I may.
Time presses, and in our implied agreement with the old scytheman it
is of the essence of the contract. I am sure it is only necessary to
put before so admirable a practitioner as Dr. Seward so simple, yet so
momentous a wish, to ensure its fulfilment.” He looked at me keenly, and
seeing the negative in my face, turned to the others, and scrutinised
them closely. Not meeting any sufficient response, he went on:--

“Is it possible that I have erred in my supposition?”

“You have,” I said frankly, but at the same time, as I felt, brutally.
There was a considerable pause, and then he said slowly:--

“Then I suppose I must only shift my ground of request. Let me ask
for this concession--boon, privilege, what you will. I am content to
implore in such a case, not on personal grounds, but for the sake of
others. I am not at liberty to give you the whole of my reasons; but
you may, I assure you, take it from me that they are good ones, sound
and unselfish, and springing from the highest sense of duty. Could you
look, sir, into my heart, you would approve to the full the sentiments
which animate me. Nay, more, you would count me amongst the best and
truest of your friends.” Again he looked at us all keenly. I had a
growing conviction that this sudden change of his entire intellectual
method was but yet another form or phase of his madness, and so
determined to let him go on a little longer, knowing from experience
that he would, like all lunatics, give himself away in the end. Van
Helsing was gazing at him with a look of the utmost intensity, his bushy
eyebrows almost meeting with the fixed concentration of his look. He
said to Renfield in a tone which did not surprise me at the time, but
only when I thought of it afterwards--for it was as of one addressing an
equal:--

“Can you not tell frankly your real reason for wishing to be free
to-night? I will undertake that if you will satisfy even me--a stranger,
without prejudice, and with the habit of keeping an open mind--Dr.
Seward will give you, at his own risk and on his own responsibility,
the privilege you seek.” He shook his head sadly, and with a look of
poignant regret on his face. The Professor went on:--

“Come sir, bethink yourself. You claim the privilege of reason in
the highest degree, since you seek to impress us with your complete
reasonableness. You do this, whose sanity we have reason to doubt, since
you are not yet released from medical treatment for this very defect. If
you will not help us in our effort to choose the wisest course, how can
we perform the duty which you yourself put upon us? Be wise, and help
us; and if we can we shall aid you to achieve your wish.” He still shook
his head as he said:--

“Dr. Van Helsing, I have nothing to say. Your argument is complete, and
if I were free to speak I should not hesitate a moment; but I am not
my own master in the matter. I can only ask you to trust me. If I am
refused, the responsibility does not rest with me.” I thought it was now
time to end the scene, which was becoming too comically grave, so I went
towards the door, simply saying:--

“Come, my friends, we have work to do. Good-night.”

As, however, I got near the door, a new change came over the patient.
He moved towards me so quickly that for the moment I feared that he
was about to make another homicidal attack. My fears, however, were
groundless, for he held up his two hands imploringly, and made his
petition in a moving manner. As he saw that the very excess of his
emotion was militating against him, by restoring us more to our old
relations, he became still more demonstrative. I glanced at Van Helsing,
and saw my conviction reflected in his eyes; so I became a little more
fixed in my manner, if not more stern, and motioned to him that his
efforts were unavailing. I had previously seen something of the same
constantly growing excitement in him when he had to make some request
of which at the time he had thought much, such, for instance, as when
he wanted a cat; and I was prepared to see the collapse into the same
sullen acquiescence on this occasion. My expectation was not realised,
for, when he found that his appeal would not be successful, he got into
quite a frantic condition. He threw himself on his knees, and held up
his hands, wringing them in plaintive supplication, and poured forth
a torrent of entreaty, with the tears rolling down his cheeks and his
whole face and form expressive of the deepest emotion:--

“Let me entreat you, Dr. Seward, oh, let me implore you, to let me
out of this house at once. Send me away how you will and where you
will; send keepers with me with whips and chains; let them take me in
a strait-waistcoat, manacled and leg-ironed, even to a gaol; but let
me go out of this. You don’t know what you do by keeping me here. I am
speaking from the depths of my heart--of my very soul. You don’t know
whom you wrong, or how; and I may not tell. Woe is me! I may not tell.
By all you hold sacred--by all you hold dear--by your love that is
lost--by your hope that lives--for the sake of the Almighty, take me
out of this and save my soul from guilt! Can’t you hear me, man? Can’t
you understand? Will you never learn? Don’t you know that I am sane and
earnest now; that I am no lunatic in a mad fit, but a sane man fighting
for his soul? Oh, hear me! hear me! Let me go! let me go! let me go!”

I thought that the longer this went on the wilder he would get, and so
would bring on a fit; so I took him by the hand and raised him up.

“Come,” I said sternly, “no more of this; we have had quite enough
already. Get to your bed and try to behave more discreetly.”

He suddenly stopped and looked at me intently for several moments.
Then without a word he rose, and moving over, sat down on the side of
the bed. The collapse had come, as on former occasions, just as I had
expected.

When I was leaving the room, last of our party, he said to me in a
quiet, well-bred voice:--

“You will, I trust, Dr. Seward, do me the justice to bear in mind, later
on, that I did what I could to convince you tonight.”

CHAPTER XIX.

/Jonathan Harker’s Journal./

_1 October, 5 a.m._--I went with the party to the search with an easy
mind, for I think I never saw Mina so absolutely strong and well. I am
so glad that she consented to hold back and let us men do the work.
Somehow, it was a dread to me that she was in this fearful business at
all; but now that her work is done, and that it is due to her energy and
brains and foresight that the whole story is put together in such a way
that every point tells, she may well feel that her part is finished, and
that she can henceforth leave the rest to us. We were, I think, all a
little upset by the scene with Mr. Renfield. When we came away from his
room we were silent till we got back to the study. Then Mr. Morris said
to Dr. Seward:--

“Say, Jack, if that man wasn’t attempting a bluff, he is about the
sanest lunatic I ever saw. I’m not sure, but I believe that he had some
serious purpose, and if he had, it was pretty rough on him not to get a
chance.” Lord Godalming and I were silent, but Dr. Van Helsing added:--

“Friend John, you know more of lunatics than I do, and I’m glad of it,
for I fear that if it had been to me to decide I would before that last
hysterical outburst have given him free. But we live and learn, and in
our present task we must take no chance, as my friend Quincey would say.
All is best as they are.” Dr. Seward seemed to answer them both in a
dreamy kind of way:--

“I don’t know but that I agree with you. If that man had been an
ordinary lunatic I would have taken my chance of trusting him; but he
seems so mixed up with the Count in an indexy kind of way that I am
afraid of doing anything wrong by helping his fads. I can’t forget how
he prayed with almost equal fervour for a cat, and then tried to tear
my throat out with his teeth. Besides, he called the Count ‘lord and
master,’ and he may want to get out to help him in some diabolical way.
That horrid thing has the wolves and the rats and his own kind to help
him, so I suppose he isn’t above trying to use a respectable lunatic.
He certainly did seem earnest, though. I only hope we have done what is
best. These things, in conjunction with the wild work we have in hand,
help to unnerve a man.” The Professor stepped over, and laying a hand on
his shoulder, said in his grave, kindly way:--

“Friend John, have no fear. We are trying to do our duty in a very sad
and terrible case; we can only do as we deem best. What else have we to
hope for, except the pity of the good God?” Lord Godalming had slipped
away for a few minutes, but he now returned. He held up a little silver
whistle as he remarked:--

“That old place may be full of rats, and if so, I’ve got an antidote on
call.” Having passed the wall, we took our way to the house, taking care
to keep in the shadows of the trees on the lawn when the moonlight shone
out. When we got to the porch the Professor opened his bag and took
out a lot of things, which he laid on the step, sorting them into four
little groups, evidently one for each. Then he spoke:--

“My friends, we are going into a terrible danger, and we need arms of
many kinds. Our enemy is not merely spiritual. Remember that he has the
strength of twenty men, and that, though our necks or our windpipes are
of the common kind--and therefore breakable or crushable--his is not
amenable to mere strength. A stronger man, or a body of men more strong
in all than him, can at certain times hold him; but yet they cannot hurt
him as we can be hurt by him. We must, therefore, guard ourselves from
his touch. Keep this near your heart”--as he spoke he lifted a little
silver crucifix and held it out to me, I being nearest to him--“put
these flowers round your neck”--here he handed to me a wreath of
withered garlic blossoms--“for other enemies more mundane, this revolver
and this knife; and for aid in all, these so small electric lamps, which
you can fasten to your breast; and for all, and above all at the last,
this, which we must not desecrate needless.” This was a portion of
sacred wafer, which he put in an envelope and handed to me. Each of the
others was similarly equipped. “Now,” he said, “friend John, where are
the skeleton keys? If so that we can open the door, we need not break
house by the window, as before at Miss Lucy’s.”

Dr. Seward tried one or two skeleton keys, his mechanical dexterity as
a surgeon standing him in good stead. Presently he got one to suit;
after a little play back and forward the bolt yielded, and, with a rusty
clang, shot back. We pressed on the door, the rusty hinges creaked, and
it slowly opened. It was startlingly like the image conveyed to me in
Dr. Seward’s diary of the opening of Miss Westenra’s tomb; I fancy that
the same idea seemed to strike the others, for with one accord they
shrank back. The Professor was the first to move forward, and stepped
into the open door.

“_In manus tuas, Domine!_” he said, crossing himself as he passed over
the threshold. We closed the door behind us, lest when we should have
lit our lamps we might possibly attract attention from the road. The
Professor carefully tried the lock, lest we might not be able to open it
from within should we be in a hurry to make our exit. Then we all lit
our lamps and proceeded on our search.

The light from the tiny lamps fell in all sorts of odd forms, as the
rays crossed each other, or the opacity of our bodies threw great
shadows. I could not for my life get away from the feeling that there
was some one else amongst us. I suppose it was the recollection, so
powerfully brought home to me by the grim surroundings, of that terrible
experience in Transylvania. I think the feeling was common to us all,
for I noticed that the others kept looking over their shoulders at every
sound and every new shadow, just as I felt myself doing.

The whole place was thick with dust. The floor was seemingly inches
deep, except where there were recent footsteps, in which on holding down
my lamp I could see marks of hobnails where the dust was caked. The
walls were fluffy and heavy with dust, and in the corners were masses of
spiders’ webs, whereon the dust had gathered till they looked like old
tattered rags as the weight had torn them partly down. On a table in the
hall was a great bunch of keys, with a time-yellowed label on each. They
had been used several times, for on the table were several similar rents
in the blanket of dust, like that exposed when the Professor lifted the
keys. He turned to me and said:----

“You know this place, Jonathan. You have copied maps of it, and you
know at least more than we do. Which is the way to the chapel?” I had
an idea of its direction, though on my former visit I had not been
able to get admission to it; so I led the way, and after a few wrong
turnings found myself opposite a low, arched oaken door, ribbed with
iron bands. “This is the spot,” said the Professor, as he turned his
lamp on a small map of the house, copied from the file of my original
correspondence regarding the purchase. With a little trouble we found
the key on the bunch and opened the door. We were prepared for some
unpleasantness, for as we were opening the door a faint, malodorous air
seemed to exhale through the gaps, but none of us ever expected such an
odour as we encountered. None of the others had met the Count at all at
close quarters, and when I had seen him he was either in the fasting
stage of his existence in his rooms or, when he was bloated with fresh
blood, in a ruined building open to the air; but here the place was
small and close, and the long disuse had made the air stagnant and foul.
There was an earthy smell, as of some dry miasma, which came through the
fouler air. But as to the odour itself, how shall I describe it? It was
not alone that it was composed of all the ills of mortality and with
the pungent, acrid smell of blood, but it seemed as though corruption
had become itself corrupt. Faugh! it sickens me to think of it. Every
breath exhaled by that monster seemed to have clung to the place and
intensified its loathsomeness.

Under ordinary circumstances such a stench would have brought our
enterprise to an end; but this was no ordinary case, and the high and
terrible purpose in which we were involved gave us a strength which rose
above merely physical considerations. After the involuntary shrinking
consequent on the first nauseous whiff, we one and all set about our
work as though that loathsome place were a garden of roses.

We made an accurate examination of the place, the Professor saying as we
began:----

“The first thing is to see how many of the boxes are left; we must then
examine every hole and corner and cranny, and see if we cannot get some
clue as to what has become of the rest.” A glance was sufficient to show
how many remained, for the great earth chests were bulky, and there was
no mistaking them.

There were only twenty-nine left out of the fifty! Once I got a fright,
for, seeing Lord Godalming suddenly turn and look out of the vaulted
door into the dark passage beyond, I looked too, and for an instant my
heart stood still. Somewhere, looking out from the shadow, I seemed to
see the high lights of the Count’s evil face, the ridge of the nose, the
red eyes, the red lips, the awful pallor. It was only for a moment, for
as Lord Godalming said, “I thought I saw a face, but it was only the
shadows,” and resumed his inquiry, I turned my lamp in the direction,
and stepped into the passage. There was no sign of any one; and as there
were no corners, no doors, no aperture of any kind, but only the solid
walls of the passage, there could be no hiding-place even for _him_. I
took it that fear had helped imagination, and said nothing.

A few minutes later I saw Morris step suddenly back from a corner, which
he was examining. We all followed his movements with our eyes, for
undoubtedly some nervousness was growing on us, and we saw a whole mass
of phosphorescence, which twinkled like stars. We all instinctively drew
back. The whole place was becoming alive with rats.

For a moment or two we stood appalled, all save Lord Godalming, who was
seemingly prepared for such an emergency. Rushing over to the great
iron-bound oaken door, which Dr. Seward had described from the outside,
and which I had seen myself, he turned the key in the lock, drew the
huge bolts, and swung the door open. Then, taking his little silver
whistle from his pocket, he blew a low, shrill call. It was answered
from behind Dr. Seward’s house by the yelping of dogs, and after about
a minute three terriers came dashing round the corner of the house.
Unconsciously we had all moved towards the door, and as we moved I
noticed that the dust had been much disturbed: the boxes which had been
taken out had been brought this way. But even in the minute that had
elapsed the number of the rats had vastly increased. They seemed to
swarm over the place all at once, till the lamplight, shining on their
moving dark bodies and glittering, baleful eyes, made the place look
like a bank of earth set with fireflies. The dogs dashed on, but at the
threshold suddenly stopped and snarled, and then, simultaneously lifting
their noses, began to howl in most lugubrious fashion. The rats were
multiplying in thousands, and moved out.

Lord Godalming lifted one of the dogs, and carrying him in, placed him
on the floor. The instant his feet touched the ground he seemed to
recover his courage, and rushed at his natural enemies. They fled before
him so fast that before he had shaken the life out of a score, the other
dogs, who had by now been lifted in in the same manner, had but small
prey ere the whole mass had vanished.

With their going it seemed as if some evil presence had departed, for
the dogs frisked about and barked merrily as they made sudden darts at
their prostrate foes, and turned them over and over and tossed them in
the air with vicious shakes. We all seemed to find our spirits rise.
Whether it was the purifying of the deadly atmosphere by the opening
of the chapel door, or the relief which we experienced by finding
ourselves in the open, I know not; but most certainly the shadow of
dread seemed to slip from us like a robe, and the occasion of our coming
lost something of its grim significance, though we did not slacken a
whit in our resolution. We closed the outer door and barred and locked
it, and bringing the dogs with us, began our search of the house. We
found nothing throughout except dust in extraordinary proportions, and
all untouched save for my own footsteps when I had made my first visit.
Never once did the dogs exhibit any symptom of uneasiness, and even when
we returned to the chapel they frisked about as though they had been
rabbit-hunting in a summer wood.

The morning was quickening in the east when we emerged from the front.
Dr. Van Helsing had taken the key of the hall-door from the bunch, and
locked the door in orthodox fashion, putting the key into his pocket
when he had done.

“So far,” he said, “our night has been eminently successful. No harm
has come to us such as I feared might be, and yet we have ascertained
how many boxes are missing. More than all do I rejoice that this, our
first--and perhaps our most difficult and dangerous--step has been
accomplished without the bringing thereinto our most sweet Madam Mina
or troubling her waking or sleeping thoughts with sights and sounds and
smells of horror which she might never forget. One lesson, too, we have
learned, if it be allowable to argue _a particulari_: that the brute
beasts which are to the Count’s command are yet themselves not amenable
to his spiritual power; for look, these rats that would come to his
call, just as from his castle top he summon the wolves to your going and
to that poor mother’s cry, though they come to him, they run pell-mell
from the so little dogs of my friend Arthur. We have other matters
before us, other dangers, other fears; and that monster--he has not used
his power over the brute world for the only or the last time to-night.
So be it that he has gone elsewhere. Good! It has given us opportunity
to cry ‘check’ in some way in this chess game, which we play for the
stake of human souls. And now let us go home. The dawn is close at hand,
and we have reason to be content with our first night’s work. It may be
ordained that we have many nights and days to follow, if full of peril;
but we must go on, and from no danger shall we shrink.”

The house was silent when we got back, save for some poor creature who
was screaming away in one of the distant wards, and a low, moaning sound
from Renfield’s room. The poor wretch was doubtless torturing himself,
after the manner of the insane, with needless thoughts of pain.

I came tiptoe into our own room, and found Mina asleep, breathing
so softly that I had to put my ear down to hear it. She looks paler
than usual. I hope the meeting to-night has not upset her. I am truly
thankful that she is to be left out of our future work, and even of our
deliberations. It is too great a strain for a woman to bear. I did not
think so at first, but I know better now. Therefore I am glad that it
is settled. There may be things which would frighten her to hear; and
yet to conceal them from her might be worse than to tell her if once she
suspected that there was any concealment. Henceforth our work is to be
a sealed book to her, till at least such time as we can tell her that
all is finished, and the earth free from a monster of the nether world.
I daresay it will be difficult to begin to keep silence after such
confidence as ours; but I must be resolute, and tomorrow I shall keep
dark over to-night’s doings, and shall refuse to speak of anything that
has happened. I rest on the sofa, so as not to disturb her.

_1 October, later._--I suppose it was natural that we should have all
overslept ourselves, for the day was a busy one, and the night had no
rest at all. Even Mina must have felt its exhaustion, for though I slept
till the sun was high, I was awake before her, and had to call two or
three times before she awoke. Indeed, she was so sound asleep that for
a few seconds she did not recognise me, but looked at me with a sort of
blank terror, as one looks who has been waked out of a bad dream. She
complained a little of being tired, and I let her rest till later in
the day. We now know of twenty-one boxes having been removed, and if it
be that several were taken in any of these removals we may be able to
trace them all. Such will, of course, immensely simplify our labour, and
the sooner the matter is attended to the better. I shall look up Thomas
Snelling today.

_Dr. Seward’s Diary._

_1 October._--It was towards noon when I was awakened by the Professor
walking into my room. He was more jolly and cheerful than usual, and
it is quite evident that last night’s work has helped to take some of
the brooding weight off his mind. After going over the adventure of the
night he suddenly said:----

“Your patient interests me much. May it be that with you I visit him
this morning? Or if that you are too occupy, I can go alone if it may
be. It is a new experience to me to find a lunatic who talk philosophy,
and reason so sound.” I had some work to do which pressed, so I told him
that if he would go alone I would be glad, as then I should not have to
keep him waiting; so I called an attendant and gave him the necessary
instructions. Before the Professor left the room I cautioned him against
getting any false impression from my patient. “But,” he answered, “I
want him to talk of himself and of his delusion as to consuming live
things. He said to Madam Mina, as I see in your diary of yesterday, that
he had once had such a belief. Why do you smile, friend John?”

“Excuse me,” I said, “but the answer is here.” I laid my hand on the
typewritten matter. “When our sane and learned lunatic made that very
statement of how he _used_ to consume life, his mouth was actually
nauseous with the flies and spiders which he had eaten just before Mrs.
Harker entered the room.” Van Helsing smiled in turn. “Good!” he said.
“Your memory is true, friend John. I should have remembered. And yet it
is this very obliquity of thought and memory which makes mental disease
such a fascinating study. Perhaps I may gain more knowledge out of the
folly of this madman than I shall from the teaching of the most wise.
Who knows?” I went on with my work, and before long was through that in
hand. It seemed that the time had been very short indeed, but there was
Van Helsing back in the study. “Do I interrupt?” he asked politely as he
stood at the door.

“Not at all,” I answered. “Come in. My work is finished, and I am free.
I can go with you now, if you like.”

“It is needless; I have seen him!”

“Well?”

“I fear that he does not appraise me at much. Our interview was short.
When I entered the room he was sitting on a stool in the centre,
with his elbows on his knees, and his face was the picture of sullen
discontent. I spoke to him as cheerfully as I could, and with such a
measure of respect as I could assume. He made no reply whatever. ‘Don’t
you know me?’ I asked. His answer was not reassuring: ‘I know you well
enough; you are the old fool Van Helsing. I wish you would take yourself
and your idiotic brain theories somewhere else. Damn all thick-headed
Dutchmen!’ Not a word more would he say, but sat in his implacable
sullenness as indifferent to me as though I had not been in the room at
all. Thus departed for this time my chance of much learning from this
so clever lunatic; so I shall go, if I may, and cheer myself with a
few happy words with that sweet soul Madam Mina. Friend John, it does
rejoice me unspeakable that she is no more to be pained, no more to be
worried, with our terrible things. Though we shall much miss her help,
it is better so.”

“I agree with you with all my heart,” I answered earnestly, for I did
not want him to weaken in this matter. “Mrs. Harker is better out of it.
Things are quite bad enough for us, all men of the world, and who have
been in many tight places in our time; but it is no place for a woman,
and if she had remained in touch with the affair, it would in time
infallibly have wrecked her.”

So Van Helsing has gone to confer with Mrs. Harker and Harker; Quincey
and Art are both out following up the clues as to the earth-boxes. I
shall finish my round of work, and we shall meet to-night.

_Mina Harker’s Journal._

_1 October._--It is strange to me to be kept in the dark as I am
today; after Jonathan’s full confidence for so many years, to see him
manifestly avoid certain matters, and those the most vital of all.
This morning I slept late after the fatigues of yesterday, and though
Jonathan was late too, he was the earlier. He spoke to me before he went
out, never more sweetly or tenderly, but he never mentioned a word of
what had happened in the visit to the Count’s house. And yet he must
have known how terribly anxious I was. Poor dear fellow! I suppose it
must have distressed him even more than it did me. They all agreed that
it was best that I should not be drawn further into this awful work, and
I acquiesced. But to think that he keeps anything from me! And now I am
crying like a silly fool, when I _know_ it comes from my husband’s great
love and from the good, good wishes of those other strong men....

That has done me good. Well, some day Jonathan will tell me all; and
lest it should ever be that he should think for a moment that I kept
anything from him, I still keep my journal as usual. Then if he has
doubted of my trust I shall show it to him, with every thought of my
heart put down for his dear eyes to read. I feel strangely sad and
low-spirited to-day. I suppose it is the reaction from the terrible
excitement.

Last night I went to bed when the men had gone, simply because they told
me to. I didn’t feel sleepy, and I did feel full of devouring anxiety.
I kept thinking over everything that has been ever since Jonathan came
to see me in London, and it all seems like a horrible tragedy, with fate
pressing on relentlessly to some destined end. Everything that one does
seems, no matter how right it may be, to bring on the very thing which
is most to be deplored. If I hadn’t gone to Whitby, perhaps poor dear
Lucy would be with us now. She hadn’t taken to visiting the churchyard
till I came, and if she hadn’t come there in the daytime with me she
wouldn’t have walked there in her sleep; and if she hadn’t gone there
at night and asleep, that monster couldn’t have destroyed her as he
did. Oh, why did I ever go to Whitby? There now, crying again! I wonder
what has come over me to-day. I must hide it from Jonathan, for if he
knew that I had been crying twice in one morning--I, who never cried on
my own account, and whom he has never caused to shed a tear--the dear
fellow would fret his heart out. I shall put a bold face on, and if I do
feel weepy, he shall never see it. I suppose it is one of the lessons
that we poor women have to learn....

I can’t quite remember how I fell asleep last night. I remember
hearing the sudden barking of the dogs and a lot of queer sounds, like
praying on a very tumultuous scale, from Mr. Renfield’s room, which
is somewhere under this. And then there was silence over everything,
silence so profound that it startled me, and I got up and looked out of
the window. All was dark and silent, the black shadows thrown by the
moonlight seeming full of a silent mystery of their own. Not a thing
seemed to be stirring, but all to be grim and fixed as death or fate; so
that a thin streak of white mist, that crept with almost imperceptible
slowness across the grass towards the house, seemed to have a sentience
and a vitality of its own. I think that the digression of my thoughts
must have done me good, for when I got back to bed I found a lethargy
creeping over me. I lay awhile, but could not quite sleep, so I got out
and looked out of the window again. The mist was spreading, and was now
close up to the house, so that I could see it lying thick against the
wall, as though it were stealing up to the windows. The poor man was
more loud than ever, and though I could not distinguish a word he said,
I could in some way recognise in his tones some passionate entreaty on
his part. Then there was the sound of a struggle, and I knew that the
attendants were dealing with him. I was so frightened that I crept into
bed, and pulled the clothes over my head, putting my fingers in my ears.
I was not then a bit sleepy, at least so I thought; but I must have
fallen asleep, for, except dreams, I do not remember anything until the
morning, when Jonathan woke me. I think that it took me an effort and
a little time to realise where I was, and that it was Jonathan who was
bending over me. My dream was very peculiar, and was almost typical of
the way that waking thoughts become merged in, or continued in, dreams.

I thought that I was asleep, and waiting for Jonathan to come back. I
was very anxious about him, and I was powerless to act; my feet, and
my hands, and my brain were weighted, so that nothing could proceed at
the usual pace. And so I slept uneasily and thought. Then it began to
dawn upon me that the air was heavy, and dank, and cold. I put back the
clothes from my face, and found, to my surprise, that all was dim around
me. The gas-light which I had left lit for Jonathan, but turned down,
came only like a tiny red spark through the fog, which had evidently
grown thicker and poured into the room. Then it occurred to me that I
had shut the window before I had come to bed. I would have got out to
make certain on the point, but some leaden lethargy seemed to chain my
limbs and even my will. I lay still and endured; that was all. I closed
my eyes, but could still see through my eyelids. (It is wonderful what
tricks our dreams play us, and how conveniently we can imagine.) The
mist grew thicker and thicker, and I could see now how it came in,
for I could see it like smoke--or with the white energy of boiling
water--pouring in, not through the window, but through the joinings of
the door. It got thicker and thicker, till it seemed as if it became
concentrated into a sort of pillar of cloud in the room, through the
top of which I could see the light of the gas shining like a red eye.
Things began to whirl through my brain just as the cloudy column was now
whirling in the room, and through it all came the scriptural words “a
pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night.” Was it indeed some such
spiritual guidance that was coming to me in my sleep? But the pillar was
composed of both the day and the night-guiding, for the fire was in the
red eye, which at the thought got a new fascination for me; till, as I
looked, the fire divided, and seemed to shine on me through the fog like
two red eyes; such as Lucy told me of in her momentary mental wandering
when, on the cliff, the dying sunlight struck the windows of St. Mary’s
Church. Suddenly the horror burst upon me that it was thus that Jonathan
had seen those awful women growing into reality through the whirling
mist in the moonlight, and in my dream I must have fainted, for all
became black darkness. The last conscious effort which imagination made
was to show me a livid white face bending over me out of the mist. I
must be careful of such dreams, for they would unseat one’s reason if
there was too much of them. I would get Dr. Van Helsing or Dr. Seward to
prescribe something for me which would make me sleep, only that I fear
to alarm them. Such a dream at the present time would become woven into
their fears for me. To-night I shall strive hard to sleep naturally. If
I do not, I shall to-morrow night get them to give me a dose of chloral;
that cannot hurt me for once, and it will give me a good night’s sleep.
Last night tired me more than if I had not slept at all.

_2 October, 10 p.m._--Last night I slept, but did not dream. I must
have slept soundly, for I was not waked by Jonathan coming to bed; but
the sleep has not refreshed me, for to-day I feel terribly weak and
spiritless. I spent all yesterday trying to read, or lying down dozing.
In the afternoon Mr. Renfield asked if he might see me. Poor man, he
was very gentle, and when I came away he kissed my hand and bade God
bless me. Some way it affected me much; I am crying when I think of him.
This is a new weakness, of which I must be careful. Jonathan would be
miserable if he knew I had been crying. He and the others were out until
dinner-time, and they all came in tired. I did what I could to brighten
them up, and I suppose that the effort did me good, for I forgot how
tired I was. After dinner they sent me to bed, and all went off to smoke
together, as they said, but I knew that they wanted to tell each other
of what had occurred to each during the day; I could see from Jonathan’s
manner that he had something important to communicate. I was not so
sleepy as I should have been; so before they went I asked Dr. Seward to
give me a little opiate of some kind, as I had not slept well the night
before. He very kindly made me up a sleeping draught, which he gave to
me, telling me that it would do me no harm, as it was very mild.... I
have taken it, and am waiting for sleep, which still keeps aloof. I hope
I have not done wrong, for as sleep begins to flirt with me, a new fear
comes: that I may have been foolish in thus depriving myself of the
power of waking. I might want it. Here comes sleep. Good-night.

CHAPTER XX.

/Jonathan Harker’s Journal./

_1 October, evening._--I found Thomas Snelling in his house at Bethnal
Green, but unhappily he was not in a condition to remember anything.
The very prospect of beer which my expected coming had opened to
him had proved too much, and he had begun too early on his expected
debauch. I learned, however, from his wife, who seemed a decent, poor
soul, that he was only the assistant to Smollet, who of the two mates
was the responsible person. So off I drove to Walworth, and found Mr.
Joseph Smollet at home and in his shirt-sleeves, taking a late tea out
of a saucer. He is a decent, intelligent fellow, distinctly a good,
reliable type of workman, and with a headpiece of his own. He remembered
all about the incident of the boxes, and from a wonderful dog’s-eared
notebook, which he produced from some mysterious receptacle about the
seat of his trousers, and which had hieroglyphical entries in thick,
half-obliterated pencil, he gave me the destinations of the boxes.
There were, he said, six in the cartload which he took from Carfax and
left at 197 Chicksand Street, Mile End New Town, and another six which
he deposited at Jamaica Lane, Bermondsey. If then the Count meant to
scatter these ghastly refuges of his over London, these places were
chosen at the first of delivery, so that later he might distribute more
fully. The systematic manner in which this was done made me think that
he could not mean to confine himself to two sides of London. He was now
fixed on the far east of the northern shore, on the east of the southern
shore, and on the south. The north and west were surely never meant to
be left out of his diabolical scheme--let alone the City itself and the
very heart of fashionable London in the south-west and west. I went back
to Smollet and asked him if he could tell us if any other boxes had been
taken from Carfax.

He replied:--

“Well, guv’nor, you’ve treated me wery ’an’some”--I had given him half
a sovereign--“an’ I’ll tell yer all I know. I heeard a man by the name
of Bloxam say four nights ago in the ’Are an’ ’Ounds, in Pincher’s
Alley, as ’ow he an’ his mate ’ad ’ad a rare dusty job in a old ’ouse at
Purfleet. There ain’t a-many such jobs as this ’ere, an’ I’m thinkin’
that maybe Sam Bloxam could tell ye summut.” I asked if he could tell
me where to find him. I told him that if he could get me the address it
would be worth another half-sovereign to him. So he gulped down the rest
of his tea and stood up, saying that he was going to begin the search
then and there. At the door he stopped, and said:--

“Look, ’ere, guv’nor, there ain’t no sense in me a-keepin’ you ’ere. I
may find Sam soon, or I mayn’t; but anyhow he ain’t like to be in a way
to tell ye much to-night. Sam is a rare one when he starts on the booze.
If you can give me a envelope with a stamp on it, and put yer address on
it, I’ll find out where Sam is to be found and post it ye to-night. But
ye’d better be up arter ’im soon in the mornin’, or maybe ye won’t ketch
’im; for Sam gets off main early, never mind the booze the night afore.”

This was all practical, so one of the children went off with a penny
to buy an envelope and a sheet of paper, and to keep the change. When
she came back I addressed the envelope and stamped it, and when Smollet
had again faithfully promised to post the address when found, I took my
way to home. We’re on the track anyhow. I am tired to-night, and want
sleep. Mina is fast asleep, and looks a little too pale; her eyes look
as though she had been crying. Poor dear, I’ve no doubt it frets her to
be kept in the dark, and it may make her doubly anxious about me and the
others. But it is best as it is. It is better to be disappointed and
worried in such a way now than to have her nerve broken. The doctors
were quite right to insist on her being kept out of this dreadful
business. I must be firm, for on me this particular burden of silence
must rest. I shall not ever enter on the subject with her under any
circumstances. Indeed, it may not be a hard task, after all, she
herself has become reticent on the subject, and has not spoken of the
Count or his doings ever since we told her of our decision.

_2 October, evening._--A long and trying and exciting day. By the first
post I got my directed envelope with a dirty scrap of paper enclosed, on
which was written with a carpenter’s pencil in a sprawling hand:--

“Sam Bloxam, Korkrans, 4, Poters Cort, Bartel Street, Walworth. Arsk for
the depite.”

I got the letter in bed, and rose without waking Mina. She looked heavy
and sleepy and pale, and far from well. I determined not to wake her,
but that, when I should return from this new search, I would arrange for
her going back to Exeter. I think she would be happier in our own home,
with her daily tasks to interest her, than in being here amongst us and
in ignorance. I only saw Dr. Seward for a moment, and told him where
I was off to, promising to come back and tell the rest so soon as I
should have found out anything. I drove to Walworth and found, with some
difficulty, Potter’s Court. Mr. Smollet’s spelling misled me, as I asked
for Poter’s Court instead of Potter’s Court. However, when I had found
the court I had no difficulty in discovering Corcoran’s lodging-house.
When I asked the man who came to the door for the “depite,” he shook his
head, and said: “I dunno ’im. There ain’t no such person ’ere; I never
’eard of ’im in all my bloomin’ days. Don’t believe there ain’t nobody
of that kind livin’ ’ere or anywheres.” I took out Smollet’s letter, and
as I read it it seemed to me that the lesson of the spelling of the name
of the court might guide me. “What are you?” I asked.

“I’m the depity,” he answered. I saw at once that I was on the right
track; phonetic spelling had again misled me. A half-crown tip put
the deputy’s knowledge at my disposal, and I learned that Mr. Bloxam,
who had slept off the remains of his beer on the previous night at
Corcoran’s, had left for his work at Poplar at five o’clock that
morning. He could not tell me where the place of work was situated, but
he had a vague idea that it was some kind of a “new-fangled ware’us;”
and with this slender clue I had to start for Poplar. It was twelve
o’clock before I got any satisfactory hint of such a building, and this
I got at a coffee-shop, where some workmen were having their dinner.
One of these suggested that there was being erected at Cross Angel
Street a new “cold storage” building; and as this suited the condition
of a “new-fangled ware’us,” I at once drove to it. An interview with a
surly gatekeeper and a surlier foreman, both of whom were appeased with
coin of the realm, put me on the track of Bloxam; he was sent for on my
suggesting that I was willing to pay his day’s wages to his foreman for
the privilege of asking him a few questions on a private matter. He was
a smart enough fellow, though rough of speech and bearing. When I had
promised to pay for his information and given him an earnest, he told me
that he had made two journeys between Carfax and a house in Piccadilly,
and had taken from this house to the latter nine great boxes--“main
heavy ones”--with a horse and cart hired by him for this purpose. I
asked him if he could tell me the number of the house in Piccadilly, to
which he replied:--

“Well, guv’nor, I forgits the number, but it was only a few doors from
a big white church or somethink of the kind, not long built. It was a
dusty old ’ouse, too, though nothin’ to the dustiness of the ’ouse we
tooked the bloomin’ boxes from.”

“How did you get into the house if they were both empty?”

“There was the old party what engaged me a-waitin’ in the ’ouse at
Purfleet. He ’elped me to lift the boxes and put them in the dray. Curse
me, but he was the strongest chap I ever struck, an’ him a old feller,
with a white moustache, one that thin you would think he couldn’t throw
a shadder.”

How this phrase thrilled through me!

“Why, ’e took up ’is end o’ the boxes like they was pounds of tea, and
me a-puffin’ an’ a-blowin’ afore I could up-end mine anyhow--an’ I’m no
chicken, neither.”

“How did you get into the house in Piccadilly?” I asked.

“He was there too. He must ’a’ started off and got there afore me, for
when I rung of the bell he kem an’ opened the door ’isself an’ ’elped me
to carry the boxes into the ’all.”

“The whole nine?” I asked.

“Yus; there was five in the first load an’ four in the second. It
was main dry work, an’ I don’t so well remember ’ow I got ’ome.” I
interrupted him:--

“Were the boxes left in the hall?”

“Yus; it was a big ’all, an’ there was nothin’ else in it.” I made one
more attempt to further matters:--

“You didn’t have any key?”

“Never used no key nor nothink. The old gent, he opened the door ’isself
an’ shut it again when I druv off. I don’t remember the last time--but
that was the beer.”

“And you can’t remember the number of the house?”

“No, sir. But ye needn’t have no difficulty about that. It’s a ’igh ’un
with a stone front with a bow on it, and ’igh steps up to the door. I
know them steps, ’avin’ ’ad to carry the boxes up with three loafers
what come round to earn a copper. The old gent give them shillin’s, an’
they seem’ they got so much, they wanted more; but ’e took one of them
by the shoulder and was like to throw ’im down the steps, till the lot
of them went away cussin’.” I thought that with this description I could
find the house, so having paid my friend for his information, I started
off for Piccadilly. I had gained a new painful experience: the Count
could, it was evident, handle the earth-boxes himself. If so, time was
precious; for, now he had achieved a certain amount of distribution,
he could, by choosing his own time, complete the task unobserved. At
Piccadilly Circus I discharged my cab, and walked westward; beyond
the Junior Constitutional I came across the house described, and was
satisfied that this was the next of the lairs arranged by Dracula. The
house looked as though it had been long untenanted. The windows were
encrusted with dust, and the shutters were up. All the framework was
black with time, and from the iron the paint had mostly scaled away.
It was evident that up to lately there had been a large notice-board
in front of the balcony; it had, however, been roughly torn away, the
uprights which had supported it still remaining. Behind the rails of
the balcony I saw there were some loose boards, whose raw edges looked
white. I would have given a good deal to have been able to see the
notice-board intact, as it would, perhaps, have given some clue to the
ownership of the house. I remembered my experience of the investigation
and purchase of Carfax, and I could not but feel that if I could find
the former owner there might be some means of gaining access to the
house.

There was at present nothing to be learned from the Piccadilly side,
and nothing could be done; so I went round to the back to see if
anything could be gathered from this quarter. The mews were active,
the Piccadilly houses being mostly in occupation. I asked one or two
of the grooms and helpers whom I saw around if they could tell me
anything about the empty house. One of them said he had heard it had
lately been taken, but he couldn’t say from whom. He told me, however,
that up to very lately there had been a notice-board of “For sale” up,
and that perhaps Mitchell, Sons & Candy, the house agents, could tell
me something, as he thought he remembered seeing the name of that firm
on the board. I did not wish to seem too eager, or to let my informant
know or guess too much, so, thanking him in the usual manner, I strolled
away. It was now growing dusk, and the autumn night was closing in, so
I did not lose any time. Having learned the address of Mitchell, Sons &
Candy from a directory at the Berkeley, I was soon at their office in
Sackville Street.

The gentleman who saw me was particularly suave in manner, but
uncommunicative in equal proportion. Having once told me that
the Piccadilly house--which throughout our interview he called a
“mansion”--was sold, he considered my business as concluded. When I
asked who had purchased it, he opened his eyes a thought wider, and
paused a few seconds before replying:--

“It is sold, sir.”

“Pardon me,” I said, with equal politeness, “but I have a special reason
for wishing to know who purchased it.”

Again he paused longer, and raised his eyebrows still more. “It is sold,
sir,” was again his laconic reply.

“Surely,” I said, “you do not mind letting me know so much.”

“But I do mind,” he answered. “The affairs of their clients are
absolutely safe in the hands of Mitchell, Sons & Candy.” This was
manifestly a prig of the first water, and there was no use arguing with
him. I thought I had best meet him on his own ground, so I said:--

“Your clients, sir, are happy in having so resolute a guardian of their
confidence. I am myself a professional man.” Here I handed him my card.
“In this instance I am not prompted by curiosity; I act on the part of
Lord Godalming, who wishes to know something of the property which was,
he understood, lately for sale.” These words put a different complexion
on affairs. He said:--

“I would like to oblige you if I could, Mr. Harker, and especially
would I like to oblige his lordship. We once carried out a small matter
of renting some chambers for him when he was the Honourable Arthur
Holmwood. If you will let me have his lordship’s address I will consult
the House on the subject, and will, in any case, communicate with his
lordship by to-night’s post. It will be a pleasure if we can so far
deviate from our rules as to give the required information to his
lordship.”

I wanted to secure a friend, and not to make an enemy, so I thanked him,
gave the address at Dr. Seward’s, and came away. It was now dark, and I
was tired and hungry. I got a cup of tea at the Aërated Bread Company
and came down to Purfleet by the next train.

I found all the others at home. Mina was looking tired and pale, but
she made a gallant effort to be bright and cheerful; it wrung my heart
to think that I had had to keep anything from her and so caused her
inquietude. Thank God, this will be the last night of her looking
on at our conferences, and feeling the sting of our not showing our
confidence. It took all my courage to hold to the wise resolution of
keeping her out of our grim task. She seems somehow more reconciled; or
else the very subject seems to have become repugnant to her, for when
any accidental allusion is made she actually shudders. I am glad we made
our resolution in time, as with such a feeling as this, our growing
knowledge would be torture to her.

I could not tell the others of the day’s discovery till we were alone;
so after dinner--followed by a little music to save appearances even
amongst ourselves--I took Mina to her room and left her to go to bed.
The dear girl was more affectionate with me than ever, and clung to
me as though she would detain me; but there was much to be talked of
and I came away. Thank God, the ceasing of telling things has made no
difference between us.

When I came down again I found the others all gathered round the fire in
the study. In the train I had written my diary so far, and simply read
it off to them as the best means of letting them get abreast of my own
information; when I had finished Van Helsing said:--

“This has been a great day’s work, friend Jonathan. Doubtless we are on
the track of the missing boxes. If we find them all in that house, then
our work is near the end. But if there be some missing, we must search
until we find them. Then shall we make our final _coup_, and hunt the
wretch to his real death.” We all sat silent awhile, and all at once Mr.
Morris spoke:--

“Say! how are we going to get into that house?”

“We got into the other,” answered Lord Godalming quickly.

“But, Art, this is different. We broke house at Carfax, but we had night
and a walled park to protect us. It will be a mighty different thing
to commit burglary in Piccadilly, either by day or night. I confess I
don’t see how we are going to get in unless that agency duck can find
us a key of some sort; perhaps we shall know when you get his letter in
the morning.” Lord Godalming’s brows contracted, and he stood up and
walked about the room. By-and-by he stopped and said, turning from one
to another of us:--

“Quincey’s head is level. This burglary business is getting serious; we
got off once all right; but we have now a rare job on hand--unless we
can find the Count’s key basket.”

As nothing could well be done before morning, and as it would be at
least advisable to wait till Lord Godalming should hear from Mitchell’s,
we decided not to take any active step before breakfast time. For a good
while we sat and smoked, discussing the matter in its various lights and
bearings; I took the opportunity of bringing this diary right up to the
moment. I am very sleepy and shall go to bed....

Just a line. Mina sleeps soundly and her breathing is regular. Her
forehead is puckered up into little wrinkles, as though she thinks even
in her sleep. She is still too pale, but does not look so haggard as she
did this morning. To-morrow will, I hope, mend all this; she will be
herself at home in Exeter. Oh, but I am sleepy!

_Dr. Seward’s Diary._

_1 October._--I am puzzled afresh about Renfield. His moods change so
rapidly that I find it difficult to keep touch of them, and as they
always mean something more than his own well-being, they form a more
than interesting study. This morning, when I went to see him after
his repulse of Van Helsing, his manner was that of a man commanding
destiny. He was, in fact, commanding destiny--subjectively. He did not
really care for any of the things of mere earth; he was in the clouds
and looked down on all the weaknesses and wants of us poor mortals. I
thought I would improve the occasion and learn something, so I asked
him:--

“What about the flies these times?” He smiled on me in quite a superior
sort of way--such a smile as would have become the face of Malvolio--as
he answered me:--

“The fly, my dear sir, has one striking feature: its wings are typical
of the aërial powers of the psychic faculties. The ancients did well
when they typified the soul as a butterfly!”

I thought I would push his analogy to its utmost logically, so I said
quickly:--

“Oh, it is a soul you are after now, is it?” His madness foiled his
reason, and a puzzled look spread over his face as, shaking his head
with a decision which I had but seldom seen in him, he said:--

“Oh no, oh no! I want no souls. Life is all I want.” Here he brightened
up: “I am pretty indifferent about it at present. Life is all right;
I have all I want. You must get a new patient, doctor, if you wish to
study zoophagy!”

This puzzled me a little, so I drew him on:--

“Then you command life; you are a god, I suppose?” He smiled with an
ineffably benign superiority.

“Oh no! Far be it from me to arrogate to myself the attributes of the
Deity. I am not even concerned in His especially spiritual doings. If
I may state my intellectual position I am, so far as concerns things
purely terrestrial, somewhat in the position which Enoch occupied
spiritually!” This was a poser to me. I could not at the moment recall
Enoch’s appositeness; so I had to ask a simple question, though I felt
that by doing so I was lowering myself in the eyes of the lunatic:--

“And why Enoch?”

“Because he walked with God.” I could not see the analogy, but did not
like to admit it; so I harked back to what he had denied:--

“So you don’t care about life and you don’t want souls. Why not?” I put
my question quickly and somewhat sternly, on purpose to disconcert him.
The effort succeeded; for an instant he unconsciously relapsed into his
old servile manner, bent low before me, and actually fawned upon me as
he replied:--

“I don’t want any souls, indeed, indeed! I don’t. I couldn’t use them
if I had them; they would be no manner of use to me. I couldn’t eat
them or----” He suddenly stopped and the old cunning look spread over
his face, like a wind-sweep on the surface of the water. “And, Doctor,
as to life, what is it after all? When you’ve got all you require, and
you know that you will never want, that is all. I have friends--good
friends--like you Doctor Seward;” this was said with a leer of
inexpressible cunning, “I know that I shall never lack the means of
life!”

I think that through the cloudiness of his insanity he saw some
antagonism in me, for he at once fell back on the last refuge of such as
he--a dogged silence. After a short time I saw that for the present it
was useless to speak to him. He was sulky, and so I came away.

Later in the day he sent for me. Ordinarily I would not have come
without special reason, but just at present I am so interested in him
that I would gladly make an effort. Besides, I am glad to have anything
to help to pass the time. Harker is out, following up clues; and so are
Lord Godalming and Quincey. Van Helsing sits in my study poring over
the record prepared by the Harkers; he seems to think that by accurate
knowledge of all details he will light upon some clue. He does not wish
to be disturbed in the work, without cause. I would have taken him with
me to see the patient, only I thought that after his last repulse he
might not care to go again. There was also another reason: Renfield
might not speak so freely before a third person as when he and I were
alone.

I found him sitting out in the middle of the floor on his stool, a pose
which is generally indicative of some mental energy on his part. When I
came in, he said at once, as though the question had been waiting on his
lips:--

“What about souls?” It was evident then that my surmise had been
correct. Unconscious cerebration was doing its work, even with
the lunatic. I determined to have the matter out. “What about them
yourself?” I asked. He did not reply for a moment but looked all round
him, and up and down, as though he expected to find some inspiration for
an answer.

“I don’t want any souls!” he said in a feeble, apologetic way. The
matter seemed preying on his mind, and so I determined to use it--to “be
cruel only to be kind.” So I said:--

“You like life, and you want life?”

“Oh yes! but that is all right; you needn’t worry about that!”

“But,” I asked, “how are we to get the life without getting the soul
also?” This seemed to puzzle him, so I followed it up:--

“A nice time you’ll have some time when you’re flying out there, with
the souls of thousands of flies and spiders and birds and cats buzzing
and twittering and miauing all round you. You’ve got their lives, you
know, and you must put up with their souls!” Something seemed to affect
his imagination, for he put his fingers to his ears and shut his eyes,
screwing them up tightly just as a small boy does when his face is being
soaped. There was something pathetic in it that touched me; it also gave
me a lesson, for it seemed that before me was a child--only a child,
though the features were worn, and the stubble on the jaws was white. It
was evident that he was undergoing some process of mental disturbance,
and, knowing how his past moods had interpreted things seemingly foreign
to himself, I thought I would enter into his mind as well as I could and
go with him. The first step was to restore confidence, so I asked him,
speaking pretty loud so that he would hear me through his closed ears:--

“Would you like some sugar to get your flies round again!” He seemed to
wake up all at once, and shook his head. With a laugh he replied:--

“Not much! flies are poor things, after all!” After a pause he added,
“But I don’t want their souls buzzing round me, all the same.”

“Or spiders,” I went on.

“Blow spiders! What’s the use of spiders? There isn’t anything in them
to eat or”--he stopped suddenly, as though reminded of a forbidden
topic.

“So, so!” I thought to myself, “this is the second time he has suddenly
stopped at the word ‘drink’; what does it mean?” Renfield seemed himself
aware of having made a lapse, for he hurried on, as though to distract
my attention from it:--

“I don’t take any stock at all in such matters. ‘Rats and mice and such
small deer’ as Shakespeare has it; ‘chicken-feed of the larder’ they
might be called. I’m past all that sort of nonsense. You might as well
ask a man to eat molecules with a pair of chop-sticks, as to try to
interest me about the lesser carnivora, when I know of what is before
me.”

“I see,” I said. “You want big things that you can make your teeth meet
in? How would you like to breakfast on elephant?”

“What ridiculous nonsense you are talking!” He was getting too wide
awake, so I thought I would press him hard. “I wonder,” I said
reflectively, “what an elephant’s soul is like!”

The effect I desired was obtained, for he at once fell from his
high-horse and became a child again.

“I don’t want an elephant’s soul, or any soul at all!” he said. For a
few moments he sat despondently. Suddenly he jumped to his feet, with
his eyes blazing and all the signs of intense cerebral excitement. “To
hell with you and your souls!” he shouted. “Why do you plague me about
souls? Haven’t I got enough to worry, and pain, and distract me already,
without thinking of souls?” He looked so hostile that I thought he
was in for another homicidal fit, so I blew my whistle. The instant,
however, that I did so he became calm, and said apologetically:--

“Forgive me, Doctor; I forgot myself. You do not need any help. I am so
worried in my mind that I am apt to be irritable. If you only knew the
problem I have to face, and that I am working out, you would pity, and
tolerate, and pardon me. Pray do not put me in a strait-waistcoat. I
want to think and I cannot think freely when my body is confined. I am
sure you will understand!” He had evidently self-control; so when the
attendants came I told them not to mind, and they withdrew. Renfield
watched them go; when the door was closed he said, with considerable
dignity and sweetness:--

“Dr. Seward, you have been very considerate towards me. Believe me
that I am very very grateful to you!” I thought it well to leave him in
this mood, and so I came away. There is certainly something to ponder
over in this man’s state. Several points seem to make what the American
interviewer calls “a story,” if one could only get them in proper order.
Here they are:--

Will not mention “drinking.”

Fears the thought of being burdened with the “soul” of anything.

Has no dread of wanting “life” in the future.

Despises the meaner forms of life altogether, though he dreads being
haunted by their souls.

Logically all these things point one way! he has assurance of some kind
that he will acquire some higher life. He dreads the consequence--the
burden of a soul. Then it is a human life he looks to!

And the assurance--?

Merciful God! the Count has been to him, and there is some new scheme of
terror afoot!

_Later._--I went after my round to Van Helsing and told him my
suspicion. He grew very grave; and, after thinking the matter over for a
while asked me to take him to Renfield. I did so. As we came to the door
we heard the lunatic within singing gaily, as he used to do in the time
which now seems so long ago. When we entered we saw with amazement that
he had spread out his sugar as of old; the flies, lethargic with the
autumn, were beginning to buzz into the room. We tried to make him talk
of the subject of our previous conversation, but he would not attend. He
went on with his singing, just as though we had not been present. He had
got a scrap of paper and was folding it into a note-book. We had to come
away as ignorant as we went in.

His is a curious case indeed; we must watch him to-night.

_Letter, Mitchell, Sons and Candy to Lord Godalming_

“_1 October._

“My Lord,

“We are at all times only too happy to meet your wishes. We beg, with
regard to the desire of your Lordship, expressed by Mr. Harker on your
behalf, to supply the following information concerning the sale and
purchase of No. 347, Piccadilly. The original vendors are the executors
of the late Mr. Archibald Winter-Suffield. The purchaser is a foreign
nobleman, Count de Ville, who effected the purchase himself paying the
purchase money in notes ‘over the counter,’ if your Lordship will pardon
us using so vulgar an expression. Beyond this we know nothing whatever
of him.

    “We are, my Lord,
    “Your Lordship’s humble servants,
    “/Mitchell, Sons & Candy./”

_Dr. Seward’s Diary._

_2 October._--I placed a man in the corridor last night, and told him to
make an accurate note of any sound he might hear from Renfield’s room,
and gave him instructions that if there should be anything strange he
was to call me. After dinner, when we had all gathered round the fire in
the study--Mrs. Harker having gone to bed--we discussed the attempts and
discoveries of the day. Harker was the only one who had any result, and
we are in great hopes that his clue may be an important one.

Before going to bed I went round to the patient’s room and looked in
through the observation trap. He was sleeping soundly, and his chest
rose and fell with regular respiration.

This morning the man on duty reported to me that a little after midnight
he was restless and kept saying his prayers somewhat loudly. I asked
him if that was all; he replied that it was all he heard. There was
something about his manner so suspicious that I asked point-blank if he
had been asleep. He denied sleep, but admitted to having “dozed” for a
while. It is too bad that men cannot be trusted unless they are watched.

To-day Harker is out following up his clue, and Art and Quincey are
looking after horses. Godalming thinks that it will be well to have
horses always in readiness, for when we get the information which we
seek there will be no time to lose. We must sterilise all the imported
earth between sunrise and sunset; we shall thus catch the Count at his
weakest, and without a refuge to fly to. Van Helsing is off to the
British Museum, looking up some authorities on ancient medicine. The
old physicians took account of things which their followers do not
accept, and the Professor is searching for witch and demon cures which
may be useful later.

I sometimes think we must be all mad and that we shall wake to sanity in
strait-waistcoats.

_Later._--We have met again. We seem at last to be on the track,
and our work of to-morrow may be the beginning of the end. I wonder
if Renfield’s quiet has anything to do with this. His moods have so
followed the doings of the Count, that the coming destruction of the
monster may be carried to him in some subtle way. If we could only get
some hint as to what passed in his mind, between the time of my argument
with him to-day and his resumption of fly-catching, it might afford us a
valuable clue. He is now seemingly quiet for a spell.... Is he?---- that
wild yell seemed to come from his room....

The attendant came bursting into my room and told me that Renfield had
somehow met with some accident. He had heard him yell; and when he went
to him found him lying on his face on the floor, all covered with blood.
I must go at once....

CHAPTER XXI.

/Dr. Seward’s Diary./

_3 October._--Let me put down with exactness all that happened, as well
as I can remember it, since last I made an entry. Not a detail that I
can recall must be forgotten; in all calmness I must proceed.

When I came to Renfield’s room I found him lying on the floor on his
left side in a glittering pool of blood. When I went to move him, it
became at once apparent that he had received some terrible injuries;
there seemed none of that unity of purpose between the parts of the
body which marks even lethargic sanity. As the face was exposed I could
see that it was horribly bruised, as though it had been beaten against
the floor--indeed it was from the face wounds that the pool of blood
originated. The attendant who was kneeling beside the body said to me as
we turned him over:--

“I think, sir, his back is broken. See, both his right arm and leg
and the whole side of his face are paralysed.” How such a thing could
have happened puzzled the attendant beyond measure. He seemed quite
bewildered, and his brows were gathered in as he said:--

“I can’t understand the two things. He could mark his face like that
by beating his own head on the ground. I saw a young woman do it once
at the Eversfield Asylum before anyone could lay hands on her. And I
suppose he might have broke his back by falling out of bed, if he got
in an awkward kink. But for the life of me I can’t imagine how the two
things occurred. If his back was broke, he couldn’t beat his head; and
if his face was like that before the fall out of bed, there would be
marks of it.” I said to him:--

“Go to Dr. Van Helsing, and ask him to kindly come here at once. I want
him without an instant’s delay.” The man ran off, and within a very few
minutes the Professor, in his dressing-gown and slippers appeared. When
he saw Renfield on the ground, he looked keenly at him a moment and then
turned to me. I think he recognized my thought in my eyes, for he said
very quietly, manifestly for the ears of the attendant:--

“Ah, a sad accident! He will need very careful watching, and much
attention. I shall stay with you myself; but I shall first dress myself.
If you will remain I shall in a few minutes join you.”

The patient was now breathing stertorously, and it was easy to see
that he had suffered some terrible injury. Van Helsing returned with
extraordinary celerity, bearing with him a surgical case. He had
evidently been thinking and had his mind made up; for, almost before he
looked at the patient, he whispered to me:--

“Send the attendant away. We must be alone with him when he becomes
conscious, after the operation.” So I said:--

“I think that will do now, Simmons. We have done all that we can at
present. You had better go your round, and Dr. Van Helsing will operate.
Let me know instantly if there be anything unusual anywhere.”

The man withdrew, and we went into a strict examination of the patient.
The wounds of the face were superficial; the real injury was a depressed
fracture of the skull, extending right up through the motor area. The
Professor thought a moment and said:--

“We must reduce the pressure and get back to normal conditions, as far
as can be; the rapidity of the suffusion shows the terrible nature of
his injury. The whole motor area seems affected. The suffusion of the
brain will increase quickly, so we must trephine at once or it may be
too late.” As he was speaking there was a soft tapping at the door. I
went over and opened it and found in the corridor without, Arthur and
Quincey in pyjamas and slippers: the former spoke:--

“I heard your man call up Dr. Van Helsing and tell him of an accident.
So I woke Quincey, or rather called for him as he was not asleep. Things
are moving too quickly and too strangely for sound sleep for any of
us these times. I’ve been thinking that to-morrow night will not see
things as they have been. We’ll have to look back--and forward a little
more than we have done. May we come in?” I nodded, and held the door
open till they had entered; then I closed it again. When Quincey saw the
attitude and state of the patient, and noted the horrible pool on the
floor, he said softly:--

“My God! what has happened to him? Poor, poor devil!” I told him
briefly, and added that we expected he would recover consciousness after
the operation--for a short time at all events. He went at once and sat
down on the edge of the bed, with Godalming beside him; we all watched
in patience.

“We shall wait,” said Van Helsing, “just long enough to fix the best
spot for trephining, so that we may most quickly and perfectly remove
the blood clot; for it is evident that the hæmorrhage is increasing.”

The minutes during which we waited passed with fearful slowness. I had
a horrible sinking in my heart, and from Van Helsing’s face I gathered
that he felt some fear or apprehension as to what was to come. I
dreaded the words that Renfield might speak. I was positively afraid to
think; but the conviction of what was coming was on me, as I have read
of men who have heard the death-watch. The poor man’s breathing came
in uncertain gasps. Each instant he seemed as though he would open his
eyes and speak; but then would follow a prolonged stertorous breath,
and he would relapse into a more fixed insensibility. Inured as I was
to sick-beds and death, this suspense grew, and grew upon me. I could
almost hear the beating of my own heart; and the blood surging through
my temples sounded like blows from a hammer. The silence finally became
agonising. I looked at my companions, one after another, and saw from
their flushed faces and damp brows that they were enduring equal
torture. There was a nervous suspense over us all, as though overhead
some dread bell would peal out powerfully when we should least expect
it.

At last there came a time when it was evident that the patient was
sinking fast; he might die at any moment. I looked up at the Professor
and caught his eyes fixed on mine. His face was sternly set as he
spoke:--

“There is no time to lose. His words may be worth many lives; I have
been thinking so, as I stood here. It may be there is a soul at stake!
We shall operate just above the ear.”

Without another word he made the operation. For a few moments the
breathing continued to be stertorous. Then there came a breath so
prolonged that it seemed as though it would tear open his chest.
Suddenly his eyes opened, and became fixed in a wild, helpless
stare. This was continued for a few moments; then it softened into
a glad surprise, and from the lips came a sigh of relief. He moved
convulsively, and as he did so, said:--

“I’ll be quiet, Doctor. Tell them to take off the strait-waistcoat. I
have had a terrible dream, and it has left me so weak that I cannot
move. What’s wrong with my face? It feels all swollen, and it smarts
dreadfully.” He tried to turn his head; but even with the effort his
eyes seemed to grow glassy again, so I gently put it back. Then Van
Helsing said in a quiet, grave tone:--

“Tell us your dream, Mr. Renfield.” As he heard the voice his face
brightened through its mutilation, and he said:--

“That is Dr. Van Helsing. How good it is of you to be here. Give me some
water, my lips are dry; and I shall try to tell you. I dreamed”--he
stopped and seemed fainting. I called quietly to Quincey--“The
brandy--it is in my study--quick!” He flew and returned with a glass,
the decanter of brandy and a carafe of water. We moistened the parched
lips, and the patient quickly revived. It seemed, however, that his poor
injured brain had been working in the interval, for, when he was quite
conscious, he looked at me piercingly with an agonised confusion which I
shall never forget, and said:--

“I must not deceive myself; it was no dream, but all a grim reality.”
Then his eyes roved round the room; as they caught sight of the two
figures sitting patiently on the edge of the bed he went on:--

“If I were not sure already, I should know from them.” For an instant
his eyes closed--not with pain or sleep but voluntarily, as though he
were bringing all his faculties to bear; when he opened them he said,
hurriedly, and with more energy than he had yet displayed:--

“Quick, Doctor, quick. I am dying! I feel that I have but a few minutes;
and then I must go back to death--or worse! Wet my lips with brandy
again. I have something that I must say before I die; or before my
poor crushed brain dies anyhow. Thank you! It was that night after you
left me, when I implored you to let me go away. I couldn’t speak then,
for I felt my tongue was tied; but I was as sane then, except in that
way, as I am now. I was in an agony of despair for a long time after
you left me; it seemed hours. Then there came a sudden peace to me. My
brain seemed to become cool again, and I realized where I was. I heard
the dogs bark behind our house, but not where He was!” As he spoke
Van Helsing’s eyes never blinked, but his hand came out and met mine
and gripped it hard. He did not, however, betray himself; he nodded
slightly, and said: “Go on,” in a low voice. Renfield proceeded:--

“He came up to the window in the mist, as I had seen him often before;
but he was solid then--not a ghost, and his eyes were fierce like a
man’s when angry. He was laughing with his red mouth; the sharp white
teeth glinted in the moonlight when He turned to look back over the belt
of trees, to where the dogs were barking. I wouldn’t ask him to come in
at first, though I knew he wanted to--just as he had wanted all along.
Then he began promising me things--not in words but by doing them.” He
was interrupted by a word from the Professor:--

“How?”

“By making them happen; just as he used to send in the flies when the
sun was shining. Great big fat ones with steel and sapphire on their
wings; and big moths, in the night, with skull and cross-bones on their
backs.” Van Helsing nodded to him as he whispered to me unconsciously:--

“The _Acberontia atropos of the Sphinges_--what you call the
‘Death’s-head moth!’” The patient went on without stopping.

“Then he began to whisper: ‘Rats, rats, rats! Hundreds, thousands,
millions of them, and every one a life; and dogs to eat them, and cats
too. All lives! all red blood, with years of life in it; and not merely
buzzing flies!’ I laughed at him, for I wanted to see what he could
do. Then the dogs howled, away beyond the dark trees in His house. He
beckoned me to the window. I got up and looked out, and He raised his
hands, and seemed to call out without using any words. A dark mass
spread over the grass, coming on like the shape of a flame of fire;
and then He moved the mist to the right and left, and I could see that
there were thousands of rats with their eyes blazing red--like His,
only smaller. He held up his hand, and they all stopped; and I thought
He seemed to be saying: ‘All these lives will I give you, ay, and many
more and greater, through countless ages, if you will fall down and
worship me!’ And then a red cloud, like the colour of blood, seemed to
close over my eyes; and before I knew what I was doing, I found myself
opening the sash and saying to Him: ‘Come in, Lord and Master!’ The rats
were all gone, but He slid into the room through the sash, though it
was only open an inch wide--just as the Moon herself has often come in
through the tiniest crack, and has stood before me in all her size and
splendour.”

His voice was weaker, so I moistened his lips with the brandy again, and
he continued; but it seemed as though his memory had gone on working in
the interval, for his story was further advanced. I was about to call
him back to the point, but Van Helsing whispered to me: “Let him go on.
Do not interrupt him; he cannot go back, and maybe could not proceed at
all if once he lost the thread of his thought.” He proceeded:--

“All day I waited to hear from him, but he did not send me anything, not
even a blow-fly, and when the moon got up I was pretty angry with him.
When he slid in through the window, though it was shut, and did not even
knock, I got mad with him. He sneered at me, and his white face looked
out of the mist with his red eyes gleaming, and he went on as though he
owned the whole place, and I was no one. He didn’t even smell the same
as he went by me. I couldn’t hold him. I thought that, somehow, Mrs.
Harker had come into the room.”

The two men sitting on the bed stood up and came over, standing behind
him so that he could not see them, but where they could hear better.
They were both silent, but the Professor started and quivered; his
face, however, grew grimmer and sterner still. Renfield went on without
noticing:--

“When Mrs. Harker came in to see me this afternoon she wasn’t the same;
it was like tea after the teapot had been watered.” Here we all moved,
but no one said a word; he went on:--

“I didn’t know that she was here till she spoke; and she didn’t look the
same. I don’t care for the pale people; I like them with lots of blood
in them, and hers had all seemed to have run out. I didn’t think of it
at the time; but when she went away I began to think, and it made me mad
to know that He had been taking the life out of her.” I could feel that
the rest quivered, as I did; but we remained otherwise still. “So when
He came to-night I was ready for Him. I saw the mist stealing in, and I
grabbed it tight. I had heard that madmen have unnatural strength; and
as I knew I was a madman--at times anyhow--I resolved to use my power.
Ay, and He felt it too, for He had to come out of the mist to struggle
with me. I held tight; and I thought I was going to win, for I didn’t
mean Him to take any more of her life, till I saw His eyes. They burned
into me, and my strength became like water. He slipped through it, and
when I tried to cling to Him, He raised me up and flung me down. There
was a red cloud before me, and a noise like thunder, and the mist seemed
to steal away under the door.” His voice was becoming fainter and his
breath more stertorous. Van Helsing stood up instinctively.

“We know the worst now,” he said. “He is here, and we know his purpose.
It may not be too late. Let us be armed--the same as we were the other
night, but lose no time; there is not an instant to spare.” There was no
need to put our fear, nay our conviction, into words--we shared them in
common. We all hurried and took from our rooms the same things that we
had when we entered the Count’s house. The Professor had his ready and
as we met in the corridor he pointed to them significantly as he said:--

“They never leave me; and they shall not till this unhappy business is
over. Be wise also, my friends. It is no common enemy that we deal with.
Alas! alas! that the dear Madam Mina should suffer.” He stopped; his
voice was breaking, and I do not know if rage or terror predominated in
my own heart.

Outside the Harkers’ door we paused. Art and Quincey held back, and the
latter said:--

“Should we disturb her?”

“We must,” said Van Helsing grimly. “If the door be locked, I shall
break it in.”

“May it not frighten her terribly? It is unusual to break into a lady’s
room!” Van Helsing said solemnly:--

“You are always right; but this is life and death. All chambers are
alike to the doctor; and even were they not they are all as one to me
to-night. Friend John, when I turn the handle, if the door does not
open, do you put your shoulder down and shove; and you too, my friends.
Now!”

He turned the handle as he spoke, but the door did not yield. We threw
ourselves against it; with a crash it burst open, and we almost fell
headlong into the room. The Professor did actually fall, and I saw
across him as he gathered himself up from hands and knees. What I saw
appalled me. I felt my hair rise like bristles on the back of my neck,
and my heart seemed to stand still.

The moonlight was so bright that through the thick yellow blind the
room was light enough to see. On the bed beside the window lay Jonathan
Harker, his face flushed, and breathing heavily as though in a stupor.
Kneeling on the near edge of the bed facing outwards was the white-clad
figure of his wife. By her side stood a tall, thin man, clad in black.
His face was turned from us, but the instant we saw it we all recognised
the Count--in every way, even to the scar on his forehead. With his left
hand he held both Mrs. Harker’s hands, keeping them away with her arms
at full tension; his right hand gripped her by the back of the neck,
forcing her face down on his bosom. Her white nightdress was smeared
with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man’s bare breast which
was shown by his torn-open dress. The attitude of the two had a terrible
resemblance to a child forcing a kitten’s nose into a saucer of milk
to compel it to drink. As we burst into the room, the Count turned his
face, and the hellish look that I had heard described seemed to leap
into it. His eyes flamed red with devilish passion; the great nostrils
of the white aquiline nose opened wide and quivered at the edge; and the
white sharp teeth, behind the full lips of the blood-dripping mouth,
champed together like those of a wild beast. With a wrench, which threw
his victim back upon the bed as though hurled from a height, he turned
and sprang at us. But by this time the Professor had gained his feet,
and was holding towards him the envelope which contained the Sacred
Wafer. The Count suddenly stopped, just as poor Lucy had done outside
the tomb, and cowered back. Further and further back he cowered, as we,
lifting our crucifixes, advanced. The moonlight suddenly failed, as a
great black cloud sailed across the sky; and when the gaslight sprang up
under Quincey’s match, we saw nothing but a faint vapour. This, as we
looked, trailed under the door, which with the recoil from its bursting
open had swung back to its old position. Van Helsing, Art and I moved
forward to Mrs. Harker, who by this time had drawn her breath and with
it had given a scream so wild, so ear-piercing, so despairing that it
seems to me now that it will ring in my ears till my dying day. For a
few seconds she lay in her helpless attitude and disarray. Her face was
ghastly, with a pallor which was accentuated by the blood which smeared
her lips and cheeks and chin; from her throat trickled a thin stream of
blood. Her eyes were mad with terror. Then she put before her face her
poor crushed hands, which bore on their whiteness the red mark of the
Count’s terrible grip, and from behind them came a low desolate wail
which made the terrible scream seem only the quick expression of an
endless grief. Van Helsing stepped forward and drew the coverlet gently
over her body, whilst Art, after looking at her face for an instant
despairingly, ran out of the room. Van Helsing whispered to me:--

“Jonathan is in a stupor such as we know the Vampire can produce.
We can do nothing with poor Madam Mina for a few moments till she
recovers herself; I must wake him!” He dipped the end of a towel in
cold water and with it began to flick him on the face, his wife all
the while holding her face between her hands and sobbing in a way that
was heart-breaking to hear. I raised the blind, and looked out of the
window. There was much moonshine; and as I looked I could see Quincey
Morris run across the lawn and hide himself in the shadow of a great yew
tree. It puzzled me to think why he was doing this; but at the instant
I heard Harker’s quick exclamation as he woke to partial consciousness,
and turned to the bed. On his face, as there might well be, was a look
of wild amazement. He seemed dazed for a few seconds, and then full
consciousness seemed to burst upon him all at once, and he started up.
His wife was aroused by the quick movement, and turned to him with her
arms stretched out, as though to embrace him; instantly, however, she
drew them in again, and putting her elbows together, held her hands
before her face, and shuddered till the bed beneath her shook.

“In God’s name what does this mean?” Harker cried out. “Dr. Seward, Dr.
Van Helsing, what is it? What has happened? What is wrong? Mina, dear,
what is it? What does that blood mean? My God, my God! has it come to
this!” and, raising himself to his knees, he beat his hands wildly
together. “Good God help us! help her! oh, help her!” With a quick
movement he jumped from the bed, and began to pull on his clothes--all
the man in him awake at the need for instant exertion. “What has
happened? Tell me all about it!” he cried without pausing. “Dr. Van
Helsing, you love Mina, I know. Oh, do something to save her. It cannot
have gone too far yet. Guard her while I look for _him_!” His wife,
through her terror and horror and distress, saw some sure danger to him;
instantly forgetting her own grief, she seized hold of him and cried
out:--

“No! no! Jonathan, you must not leave me. I have suffered enough
to-night, God knows, without the dread of his harming you. You must
stay with me. Stay with these friends who will watch over you!” Her
expression became frantic as she spoke; and, he yielding to her, she
pulled him down sitting on the bedside, and clung to him fiercely.

Van Helsing and I tried to calm them both. The Professor held up his
little golden crucifix, and said with wonderful calmness:--

“Do not fear, my dear. We are here; and whilst this is close to you
no foul thing can approach. You are safe for to-night; and we must be
calm and take counsel together.” She shuddered and was silent, holding
down her head on her husband’s breast. When she raised it, his white
night-robe was stained with blood where her lips had touched, and where
the thin open wound in her neck had sent forth drops. The instant she
saw it she drew back, with a low wail, and whispered, amidst choking
sobs:--

“Unclean, unclean! I must touch him or kiss him no more. Oh, that it
should be that it is I who am now his worst enemy, and whom he may have
most cause to fear.” To this he spoke out resolutely:--

“Nonsense, Mina. It is a shame to me to hear such a word. I would not
hear it of you; and I shall not hear it from you. May God judge me by my
deserts, and punish me with more bitter suffering than even this hour,
if by any act or will of mine anything ever come between us!” He put out
his arms and folded her to his breast; and for a while she lay there
sobbing. He looked at us over her bowed head, with eyes that blinked
damply above his quivering nostrils; his mouth was set as steel. After
a while her sobs became less frequent and more faint, and then he said
to me, speaking with a studied calmness which I felt tried his nervous
power to the utmost:--

“And now, Dr. Seward, tell me all about it. Too well I know the broad
fact; tell me all that has been.” I told him exactly what had happened,
and he listened with seeming impassiveness; but his nostrils twitched
and his eyes blazed as I told how the ruthless hands of the Count had
held his wife in that terrible and horrid position, with her mouth to
the open wound in his breast. It interested me, even at that moment, to
see that whilst the face of white set passion worked convulsively over
the bowed head, the hands tenderly and lovingly stroked the ruffled
hair. Just as I had finished, Quincey and Godalming knocked at the
door. They entered in obedience to our summons. Van Helsing looked at
me questioningly. I understood him to mean if we were to take advantage
of their coming to divert if possible the thoughts of the unhappy
husband and wife from each other and from themselves; so on my nodding
acquiescence to him he asked them what they had seen or done. To which
Lord Godalming answered:--

“I could not see him anywhere in the passage, or in any of our rooms. I
looked in the study, but, though he had been there, he had gone. He had,
however----” He stopped suddenly, looking at the poor drooping figure on
the bed. Van Helsing said gravely:--

“Go on friend Arthur. We want no more concealments. Our hope now is in
knowing all. Tell freely!” So Art went on:--

“He had been there, and though it could only have been for a few
seconds, he made rare hay of the place. All the manuscript had been
burned, and the blue flames were flickering amongst the white ashes;
the cylinders of your phonograph too were thrown on the fire, and the
wax had helped the flames.” Here I interrupted. “Thank God there is the
other copy in the safe!” His face lit for a moment, but fell again as he
went on: “I ran downstairs then, but could see no sign of him. I looked
into Renfield’s room; but there was no trace there except----!” Again
he paused. “Go on,” said Harker hoarsely; so he bowed his head, and
moistening his lips with his tongue, added: “except that the poor fellow
is dead.” Mrs. Harker raised her head, looking from one to the other of
us as she said solemnly:--

“God’s will be done!” I could not but feel that Art was keeping back
something; but, as I took it that it was with a purpose, I said nothing.
Van Helsing turned to Morris and asked:--

“And you, friend Quincey, have you any to tell?”

“A little,” he answered. “It may be much eventually, but at present I
can’t say. I thought it well to know if possible where the Count would
go when he left the house. I did not see him; but I saw a bat rise from
Renfield’s window, and flap westward. I expected to see him in some
shape go back to Carfax; but he evidently sought some other lair. He
will not be back to-night; for the sky is reddening in the east, and the
dawn is close. We must work to-morrow!”

He said the latter words through his shut teeth. For a space of perhaps
a couple of minutes there was silence, and I could fancy that I could
hear the sound of our hearts beating; then Van Helsing said, placing his
hand very tenderly on Mrs. Harker’s head:--

“And now, Madam Mina--poor, dear, dear Madam Mina--tell us exactly what
happened. God knows that I do not want that you be pained; but it is
need that we know all. For now more than ever has all work to be done
quick and sharp, and in deadly earnest. The day is close to us that must
end all, if it may so be; and now is the chance that we may live and
learn.”

The poor, dear lady shivered, and I could see the tension of her nerves
as she clasped her husband closer to her and bent her head lower and
lower still on his breast. Then she raised her head proudly, and held
out one hand to Van Helsing, who took it in his, and, after stooping and
kissing it reverently, held it fast. The other hand was locked in that
of her husband, who held his other arm thrown round her protectingly.
After a pause in which she was evidently ordering her thoughts, she
began:--

“I took the sleeping draught which you had so kindly given me, but
for a long time it did not act. I seemed to become more wakeful, and
myriads of horrible fancies began to crowd in upon my mind--all of them
connected with death, and vampires; with blood, and pain, and trouble.”
Her husband involuntarily groaned as she turned to him and said
lovingly: “Do not fret, dear. You must be brave and strong, and help me
through the horrible task. If you only knew what an effort it is to me
to tell of this fearful thing at all, you would understand how much I
need your help. Well, I saw I must try to help the medicine do its work
with my will, if it was to do me any good, so I resolutely set myself to
sleep. Sure enough sleep must soon have come to me, for I remembered no
more. Jonathan coming in had not waked me, for he lay by my side when
next I remember. There was in the room the same thin white mist that
I had before noticed. But I forget now if you know of this; you will
find it in my diary which I shall show you later. I felt the same vague
terror which had come to me before, and the same sense of some presence.
I turned to wake Jonathan, but found that he slept so soundly that it
seemed as if it was he who had taken the sleeping draught and not I. I
tried, but could not wake him. This caused me a great fear, and I looked
around terrified. Then indeed, my heart sank within me: beside the bed,
as if he had stepped out of the mist--or rather as if the mist had
turned into his figure, for it had entirely disappeared--stood a tall,
thin man, all in black. I knew him at once from the descriptions of the
others. The waxen face; the high aquiline nose, on which the light fell
in a thin white line; the parted red lips, with the sharp white teeth
showing between; and the red eyes that I had seemed to see in the sunset
on the windows of St. Mary’s Church at Whitby. I knew, too, the red scar
on his forehead where Jonathan had struck him. For an instant my heart
stood still, and I would have screamed out, only that I was paralysed.
In the pause he spoke in a sort of keen, cutting whisper, pointing as he
spoke to Jonathan:--

“‘Silence! If you make a sound I shall take him and dash his brains out
before your very eyes.’ I was appalled and was too bewildered to do or
say anything. With a mocking smile, he placed one hand upon my shoulder
and, holding me tight, bared my throat with the other, saying as he did
so: ‘First, a little refreshment to reward my exertions. You may as well
be quiet; it is not the first time, or the second, that your veins have
appeased my thirst!’ I was bewildered, and, strangely enough, I did not
want to hinder him. I suppose it is a part of the horrible curse that
such is, when his touch is on his victim. And oh, my God, my God, pity
me! He placed his reeking lips upon my throat!” Her husband groaned
again. She clasped his hand harder, and looked at him pityingly, as if
he were the injured one, and went on:--

“I felt my strength fading away, and I was in a half swoon. How long
this horrible thing lasted I know not; but it seemed that a long time
must have passed before he took his foul, awful sneering mouth away. I
saw it drip with the fresh blood!” The remembrance seemed for a while
to overpower her, and she drooped and would have sunk down but for her
husband’s sustaining arm. With a great effort she recovered herself and
went on:--

“Then he spoke to me mockingly: ‘And so you, like the others, would
play your brains against mine. You would help these men to hunt me
and frustrate me in my designs! You know now, and they know in part
already, and will know in full before long, what it is to cross my path.
They should have kept their energies for use closer to home. Whilst
they played wits against me--against me who commanded nations, and
intrigued for them, and fought for them, hundreds of years before they
were born--I was countermining them. And you, their best beloved one,
are now to me flesh of my flesh; blood of my blood; kin of my kin; my
bountiful wine-press for a while; and shall be later on my companion and