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table, and I had to get the little shaving glass from my bag before I
could either shave or brush my hair.  I have not yet seen a servant
anywhere, or heard a sound near the castle except the howling of
wolves.  Some time after I had finished my meal, I do not know whether
to call it breakfast or dinner, for it was between five and six
o'clock when I had it, I looked about for something to read, for I did
not like to go about the castle until I had asked the Count's
permission.  There was absolutely nothing in the room, book,
newspaper, or even writing materials, so I opened another door in the
room and found a sort of library.  The door opposite mine I tried, but
found locked.

In the library I found, to my great delight, a vast number of English
books, whole shelves full of them, and bound volumes of magazines and
newspapers.  A table in the centre was littered with English magazines
and newspapers, though none of them were of very recent date.  The
books were of the most varied kind, history, geography, politics,
political economy, botany, geology, law, all relating to England and
English life and customs and manners.  There were even such books of
reference as the London Directory, the "Red" and "Blue" books,
Whitaker's Almanac, the Army and Navy Lists, and it somehow gladdened

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so that by our talking I may learn the English intonation.  And I
would that you tell me when I make error, even of the smallest, in my
speaking.  I am sorry that I had to be away so long today, but you
will, I know forgive one who has so many important affairs in hand."

Of course I said all I could about being willing, and asked if I might
come into that room when I chose.  He answered, "Yes, certainly," and
added.

"You may go anywhere you wish in the castle, except where the doors
are locked, where of course you will not wish to go.  There is reason
that all things are as they are, and did you see with my eyes and know
with my knowledge, you would perhaps better understand."  I said I was
sure of this, and then he went on.

"We are in Transylvania, and Transylvania is not England.  Our ways
are not your ways, and there shall be to you many strange things.  Nay,
from what you have told me of your experiences already, you know
something of what strange things there may be."

This led to much conversation, and as it was evident that he wanted to

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The view was magnificent, and from where I stood there was every
opportunity of seeing it.  The castle is on the very edge of a
terrific precipice.  A stone falling from the window would fall a
thousand feet without touching anything!  As far as the eye can reach
is a sea of green tree tops, with occasionally a deep rift where there
is a chasm.  Here and there are silver threads where the rivers wind
in deep gorges through the forests.

But I am not in heart to describe beauty, for when I had seen the view
I explored further.  Doors, doors, doors everywhere, and all locked
and bolted.  In no place save from the windows in the castle walls is
there an available exit.  The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a
prisoner!




CHAPTER 3

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were proud, that when the Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar,
or the Turk poured his thousands on our frontiers, we drove them back?
Is it strange that when Arpad and his legions swept through the
Hungarian fatherland he found us here when he reached the frontier,
that the Honfoglalas was completed there?  And when the Hungarian
flood swept eastward, the Szekelys were claimed as kindred by the
victorious Magyars, and to us for centuries was trusted the guarding
of the frontier of Turkeyland.  Aye, and more than that, endless duty
of the frontier guard, for as the Turks say, 'water sleeps, and the
enemy is sleepless.'  Who more gladly than we throughout the Four
Nations received the 'bloody sword,' or at its warlike call flocked
quicker to the standard of the King?  When was redeemed that great
shame of my nation, the shame of Cassova, when the flags of the
Wallach and the Magyar went down beneath the Crescent?  Who was it but
one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk
on his own ground?  This was a Dracula indeed!  Woe was it that his
own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk
and brought the shame of slavery on them!  Was it not this Dracula,
indeed, who inspired that other of his race who in a later age again
and again brought his forces over the great river into Turkeyland,
who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, though he had to

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15 May.--Once more I have seen the count go out in his lizard fashion.
He moved downwards in a sidelong way, some hundred feet down, and a
good deal to the left.  He vanished into some hole or window.  When
his head had disappeared, I leaned out to try and see more, but
without avail.  The distance was too great to allow a proper angle of
sight.  I knew he had left the castle now, and thought to use the
opportunity to explore more than I had dared to do as yet.  I went
back to the room, and taking a lamp, tried all the doors.  They were
all locked, as I had expected, and the locks were comparatively new.
But I went down the stone stairs to the hall where I had entered
originally.  I found I could pull back the bolts easily enough and
unhook the great chains.  But the door was locked, and the key was
gone!  That key must be in the Count's room.  I must watch should his
door be unlocked, so that I may get it and escape.  I went on to make
a thorough examination of the various stairs and passages, and to try
the doors that opened from them.  One or two small rooms near the hall
were open, but there was nothing to see in them except old furniture,
dusty with age and moth-eaten.  At last, however, I found one door at
the top of the stairway which, though it seemed locked, gave a little
under pressure.  I tried it harder, and found that it was not really
locked, but that the resistance came from the fact that the hinges had
fallen somewhat, and the heavy door rested on the floor.  Here was an
opportunity which I might not have again, so I exerted myself, and
with many efforts forced it back so that I could enter.  I was now in
a wing of the castle further to the right than the rooms I knew and a
storey lower down.  From the windows I could see that the suite of
rooms lay along to the south of the castle, the windows of the end
room looking out both west and south.  On the latter side, as well as
to the former, there was a great precipice.  The castle was built on
the corner of a great rock, so that on three sides it was quite
impregnable, and great windows were placed here where sling, or bow,

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the flame of the lamp till they were consumed.

Then he went on, "The letter to Hawkins, that I shall, of course send
on, since it is yours.  Your letters are sacred to me.  Your pardon,
my friend, that unknowingly I did break the seal.  Will you not cover
it again?"  He held out the letter to me, and with a courteous bow
handed me a clean envelope.

I could only redirect it and hand it to him in silence.  When he went
out of the room I could hear the key turn softly.  A minute later I
went over and tried it, and the door was locked.

When, an hour or two after, the Count came quietly into the room, his
coming awakened me, for I had gone to sleep on the sofa.  He was very
courteous and very cheery in his manner, and seeing that I had been
sleeping, he said, "So, my friend, you are tired?  Get to bed.  There
is the surest rest.  I may not have the pleasure of talk tonight,
since there are many labours to me, but you will sleep, I pray."

I passed to my room and went to bed, and, strange to say, slept
without dreaming.  Despair has its own calms.

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rope.  These were evidently empty by the ease with which the Slovaks
handled them, and by their resonance as they were roughly moved.

When they were all unloaded and packed in a great heap in one corner
of the yard, the Slovaks were given some money by the Szgany, and
spitting on it for luck, lazily went each to his horse's head.
Shortly afterwards, I heard the crackling of their whips die away in
the distance.


24 June.--Last night the Count left me early, and locked himself into
his own room.  As soon as I dared I ran up the winding stair, and
looked out of the window, which opened South.  I thought I would watch
for the Count, for there is something going on.  The Szgany are
quartered somewhere in the castle and are doing work of some kind.  I
know it, for now and then, I hear a far-away muffled sound as of
mattock and spade, and, whatever it is, it must be the end of some
ruthless villainy.

I had been at the window somewhat less than half an hour, when I saw
something coming out of the Count's window.  I drew back and watched

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The phantom shapes, which were becoming gradually materialised from
the moonbeams, were those three ghostly women to whom I was doomed.

I fled, and felt somewhat safer in my own room, where there was no
moonlight, and where the lamp was burning brightly.

When a couple of hours had passed I heard something stirring in the
Count's room, something like a sharp wail quickly suppressed.  And
then there was silence, deep, awful silence, which chilled me.  With a
beating heart, I tried the door, but I was locked in my prison, and
could do nothing.  I sat down and simply cried.

As I sat I heard a sound in the courtyard without, the agonised cry of
a woman.  I rushed to the window, and throwing it up, peered between
the bars.

There, indeed, was a woman with dishevelled hair, holding her hands
over her heart as one distressed with running.  She was leaning
against the corner of the gateway.  When she saw my face at the window
she threw herself forward, and shouted in a voice laden with menace,

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me.  Last night one of my post-dated letters went to post, the first
of that fatal series which is to blot out the very traces of my
existence from the earth.

Let me not think of it.  Action!

It has always been at night-time that I have been molested or
threatened, or in some way in danger or in fear.  I have not yet seen
the Count in the daylight.  Can it be that he sleeps when others wake,
that he may be awake whilst they sleep?  If I could only get into his
room!  But there is no possible way.  The door is always locked, no
way for me.

Yes, there is a way, if one dares to take it.  Where his body has gone
why may not another body go?  I have seen him myself crawl from his
window.  Why should not I imitate him, and go in by his window?  The
chances are desperate, but my need is more desperate still.  I shall
risk it.  At the worst it can only be death, and a man's death is not
a calf's, and the dreaded Hereafter may still be open to me.  God help
me in my task!  Goodbye, Mina, if I fail.  Goodbye, my faithful friend
and second father.  Goodbye, all, and last of all Mina!

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Come!"  With a stately gravity, he, with the lamp, preceded me down
the stairs and along the hall.  Suddenly he stopped.  "Hark!"

Close at hand came the howling of many wolves.  It was almost as if
the sound sprang up at the rising of his hand, just as the music of a
great orchestra seems to leap under the baton of the conductor.  After
a pause of a moment, he proceeded, in his stately way, to the door,
drew back the ponderous bolts, unhooked the heavy chains, and began to
draw it open.

To my intense astonishment I saw that it was unlocked.  Suspiciously,
I looked all round, but could see no key of any kind.

As the door began to open, the howling of the wolves without grew
louder and angrier.  Their red jaws, with champing teeth, and their
blunt-clawed feet as they leaped, came in through the opening door.  I
knew than that to struggle at the moment against the Count was
useless.  With such allies as these at his command, I could do
nothing.

But still the door continued slowly to open, and only the Count's body

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I am dear!


30 June.--These may be the last words I ever write in this diary.  I
slept till just before the dawn, and when I woke threw myself on my
knees, for I determined that if Death came he should find me ready.

At last I felt that subtle change in the air, and knew that the
morning had come.  Then came the welcome cockcrow, and I felt that I
was safe.  With a glad heart, I opened the door and ran down the hall.
I had seen that the door was unlocked, and now escape was before me.
With hands that trembled with eagerness, I unhooked the chains and
threw back the massive bolts.

But the door would not move.  Despair seized me.  I pulled and pulled
at the door, and shook it till, massive as it was, it rattled in its
casement.  I could see the bolt shot.  It had been locked after I left
the Count.

Then a wild desire took me to obtain the key at any risk, and I
determined then and there to scale the wall again, and gain the
Count's room.  He might kill me, but death now seemed the happier
choice of evils.  Without a pause I rushed up to the east window, and
scrambled down the wall, as before, into the Count's room.  It was
empty, but that was as I expected.  I could not see a key anywhere,
but the heap of gold remained.  I went through the door in the corner
and down the winding stair and along the dark passage to the old

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on fire, and I waited with a despairing feeling growing over me.  As I
waited I heard in the distance a gipsy song sung by merry voices
coming closer, and through their song the rolling of heavy wheels and
the cracking of whips.  The Szgany and the Slovaks of whom the Count
had spoken were coming.  With a last look around and at the box which
contained the vile body, I ran from the place and gained the Count's
room, determined to rush out at the moment the door should be opened.
With strained ears, I listened, and heard downstairs the grinding of
the key in the great lock and the falling back of the heavy door.
There must have been some other means of entry, or some one had a key
for one of the locked doors.

Then there came the sound of many feet tramping and dying away in some
passage which sent up a clanging echo.  I turned to run down again
towards the vault, where I might find the new entrance, but at the
moment there seemed to come a violent puff of wind, and the door to
the winding stair blew to with a shock that set the dust from the
lintels flying.  When I ran to push it open, I found that it was
hopelessly fast.  I was again a prisoner, and the net of doom was
closing round me more closely.

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3 August.--Another week gone by, and no news from Jonathan, not even
to Mr. Hawkins, from whom I have heard.  Oh, I do hope he is not ill.
He surely would have written.  I look at that last letter of his, but
somehow it does not satisfy me.  It does not read like him, and yet it
is his writing.  There is no mistake of that.

Lucy has not walked much in her sleep the last week, but there is an
odd concentration about her which I do not understand, even in her
sleep she seems to be watching me.  She tries the door, and finding it
locked, goes about the room searching for the key.


6 August.--Another three days, and no news.  This suspense is getting
dreadful.  If I only knew where to write to or where to go to, I
should feel easier.  But no one has heard a word of Jonathan since
that last letter.  I must only pray to God for patience.

Lucy is more excitable than ever, but is otherwise well.  Last night
was very threatening, and the fishermen say that we are in for a
storm.  I must try to watch it and learn the weather signs.

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God bless and keep him.


11 August.--Diary again.  No sleep now, so I may as well write.  I am
too agitated to sleep.  We have had such an adventure, such an
agonizing experience.  I fell asleep as soon as I had closed my diary.
. . .  Suddenly I became broad awake, and sat up, with a horrible sense
of fear upon me, and of some feeling of emptiness around me.  The room
was dark, so I could not see Lucy's bed.  I stole across and felt for
her.  The bed was empty.  I lit a match and found that she was not in
the room.  The door was shut, but not locked, as I had left it.  I feared
to wake her mother, who has been more than usually ill lately, so threw
on some clothes and got ready to look for her.  As I was leaving the
room it struck me that the clothes she wore might give me some clue to
her dreaming intention.  Dressing-gown would mean house, dress outside.
Dressing-gown and dress were both in their places.  "Thank God," I said
to myself, "she cannot be far, as she is only in her nightdress."

I ran downstairs and looked in the sitting room.  Not there!  Then I
looked in all the other rooms of the house, with an ever-growing fear
chilling my heart.  Finally, I came to the hall door and found it open.

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reputation in case the story should get wind.  When we got in, and had
washed our feet, and had said a prayer of thankfulness together, I
tucked her into bed.  Before falling asleep she asked, even implored,
me not to say a word to any one, even her mother, about her
sleep-walking adventure.

I hesitated at first, to promise, but on thinking of the state of her
mother's health, and how the knowledge of such a thing would fret her,
and think too, of how such a story might become distorted, nay,
infallibly would, in case it should leak out, I thought it wiser to do
so.  I hope I did right.  I have locked the door, and the key is tied
to my wrist, so perhaps I shall not be again disturbed.  Lucy is
sleeping soundly.  The reflex of the dawn is high and far over the
sea . . .


Same day, noon.--All goes well.  Lucy slept till I woke her and seemed
not to have even changed her side.  The adventure of the night does not
seem to have harmed her, on the contrary, it has benefited her, for she
looks better this morning than she has done for weeks.  I was sorry to
notice that my clumsiness with the safety-pin hurt her.  Indeed, it

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whatever.  Just then, the moonlight crept round an angle of the
building, and the light fell on the window.  There distinctly was Lucy
with her head lying up against the side of the window sill and her eyes
shut.  She was fast asleep, and by her, seated on the window sill, was
something that looked like a good-sized bird.  I was afraid she might
get a chill, so I ran upstairs, but as I came into the room she was
moving back to her bed, fast asleep, and breathing heavily.  She was
holding her hand to her throat, as though to protect if from the cold.

I did not wake her, but tucked her up warmly.  I have taken care that
the door is locked and the window securely fastened.

She looks so sweet as she sleeps, but she is paler than is her wont,
and there is a drawn, haggard look under her eyes which I do not like.
I fear she is fretting about something.  I wish I could find out what it
is.


15 August.--Rose later than usual.  Lucy was languid and tired, and
slept on after we had been called.  We had a happy surprise at
breakfast.  Arthur's father is better, and wants the marriage to come

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act.  Devils or no devils, or all the devils at once, it matters not.
We must fight him all the same."  He went to the hall door for his
bag, and together we went up to Lucy's room.

Once again I drew up the blind, whilst Van Helsing went towards the
bed.  This time he did not start as he looked on the poor face with
the same awful, waxen pallor as before.  He wore a look of stern
sadness and infinite pity.

"As I expected," he murmured, with that hissing inspiration of his
which meant so much.  Without a word he went and locked the door, and
then began to set out on the little table the instruments for yet
another operation of transfusion of blood.  I had long ago recognized
the necessity, and begun to take off my coat, but he stopped me with a
warning hand.  "No!" he said.  "Today you must operate.  I shall
provide.  You are weakened already."  As he spoke he took off his coat
and rolled up his shirtsleeve.

Again the operation.  Again the narcotic.  Again some return of colour
to the ashy cheeks, and the regular breathing of healthy sleep.  This
time I watched whilst Van Helsing recruited himself and rested.

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solicitude, and when he had finished with his penitent
said,

"There, I knew the poor old chap would get into some kind of
trouble.  Didn't I say it all along?  Here's his head all
cut and full of broken glass.  'E's been a-gettin' over
some bloomin' wall or other.  It's a shyme that people are
allowed to top their walls with broken bottles.  This 'ere's
what comes of it.  Come along, Bersicker."

He took the wolf and locked him up in a cage, with a piece
of meat that satisfied, in quantity at any rate, the elementary
conditions of the fatted calf, and went off to report.

I came off too, to report the only exclusive information
that is given today regarding the strange escapade at the
Zoo.



DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

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knocked again, but more impatiently, but still without response.
Hitherto I had blamed only the servants, but now a terrible fear began
to assail me.  Was this desolation but another link in the chain of
doom which seemed drawing tight round us?  Was it indeed a house of
death to which I had come, too late?  I know that minutes, even
seconds of delay, might mean hours of danger to Lucy, if she had had
again one of those frightful relapses, and I went round the house to
try if I could find by chance an entry anywhere.

I could find no means of ingress.  Every window and door was fastened
and locked, and I returned baffled to the porch.  As I did so, I heard
the rapid pit-pat of a swiftly driven horse's feet.  They stopped at
the gate, and a few seconds later I met Van Helsing running up the
avenue.  When he saw me, he gasped out, "Then it was you, and just
arrived.  How is she?  Are we too late?  Did you not get my telegram?"

I answered as quickly and coherently as I could that I had only got
his telegram early in the morning, and had not a minute in coming
here, and that I could not make any one in the house hear me.  He
paused and raised his hat as he said solemnly, "Then I fear we are too
late.  God's will be done!"

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"Perhaps a body-snatcher," I suggested.  "Some of the undertaker's
people may have stolen it."  I felt that I was speaking folly, and yet
it was the only real cause which I could suggest.

The Professor sighed.  "Ah well!" he said, "we must have more proof.
Come with me."

He put on the coffin lid again, gathered up all his things and placed
them in the bag, blew out the light, and placed the candle also in the
bag.  We opened the door, and went out.  Behind us he closed the door
and locked it.  He handed me the key, saying, "Will you keep it?  You
had better be assured."

I laughed, it was not a very cheerful laugh, I am bound to say, as I
motioned him to keep it.  "A key is nothing," I said, "there are many
duplicates, and anyhow it is not difficult to pick a lock of this
kind."

He said nothing, but put the key in his pocket.  Then he told me to
watch at one side of the churchyard whilst he would watch at the
other.

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that will make the very face of heaven grow black to him, then we can
act for good all round and send him peace.  My mind is made up.  Let
us go.  You return home for tonight to your asylum, and see that all
be well.  As for me, I shall spend the night here in this churchyard
in my own way.  Tomorrow night you will come to me to the Berkeley
Hotel at ten of the clock.  I shall send for Arthur to come too, and
also that so fine young man of America that gave his blood.  Later we
shall all have work to do.  I come with you so far as Piccadilly and
there dine, for I must be back here before the sun set."

So we locked the tomb and came away, and got over the wall of the
churchyard, which was not much of a task, and drove back to
Piccadilly.




NOTE LEFT BY VAN HELSING IN HIS PORTMANTEAU, BERKELEY HOTEL DIRECTED TO
JOHN SEWARD, M. D. (Not Delivered)

27 September

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DR SEWARD'S DIARY-cont.

It was just a quarter before twelve o'clock when we got into the
churchyard over the low wall.  The night was dark with occasional
gleams of moonlight between the dents of the heavy clouds that scudded
across the sky.  We all kept somehow close together, with Van Helsing
slightly in front as he led the way.  When we had come close to the
tomb I looked well at Arthur, for I feared the proximity to a place
laden with so sorrowful a memory would upset him, but he bore himself
well.  I took it that the very mystery of the proceeding was in some
way a counteractant to his grief.  The Professor unlocked the door,
and seeing a natural hesitation amongst us for various reasons, solved
the difficulty by entering first himself.  The rest of us followed,
and he closed the door.  He then lit a dark lantern and pointed to a
coffin.  Arthur stepped forward hesitatingly.  Van Helsing said to me,
"You were with me here yesterday.  Was the body of Miss Lucy in that
coffin?"

"It was."

The Professor turned to the rest saying, "You hear, and yet there is

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So we all slept with more or less reality of sleep.


29 September, night.--A little before twelve o'clock we three, Arthur,
Quincey Morris, and myself, called for the Professor.  It was odd to
notice that by common consent we had all put on black clothes.  Of
course, Arthur wore black, for he was in deep mourning, but the rest
of us wore it by instinct.  We got to the graveyard by half-past one,
and strolled about, keeping out of official observation, so that when
the gravediggers had completed their task and the sexton, under the
belief that every one had gone, had locked the gate, we had the place
all to ourselves.  Van Helsing, instead of his little black bag, had
with him a long leather one, something like a cricketing bag.  It was
manifestly of fair weight.

When we were alone and had heard the last of the footsteps die out up
the road, we silently, and as if by ordered intention, followed the
Professor to the tomb.  He unlocked the door, and we entered, closing
it behind us.  Then he took from his bag the lantern, which he lit,
and also two wax candles, which, when lighted, he stuck by melting
their own ends, on other coffins, so that they might give light
sufficient to work by.  When he again lifted the lid off Lucy's coffin
we all looked, Arthur trembling like an aspen, and saw that the corpse
lay there in all its death beauty.  But there was no love in my own
heart, nothing but loathing for the foul Thing which had taken Lucy's
shape without her soul.  I could see even Arthur's face grow hard as
he looked.  Presently he said to Van Helsing, "Is this really Lucy's
body, or only a demon in her shape?"

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you may kiss her.  Kiss her dead lips if you will, as she would have
you to, if for her to choose.  For she is not a grinning devil now,
not any more a foul Thing for all eternity.  No longer she is the
devil's UnDead.  She is God's true dead, whose soul is with Him!"

Arthur bent and kissed her, and then we sent him and Quincey out of the
tomb.  The Professor and I sawed the top off the stake, leaving the
point of it in the body.  Then we cut off the head and filled the
mouth with garlic.  We soldered up the leaden coffin, screwed on the
coffin lid, and gathering up our belongings, came away.  When the
Professor locked the door he gave the key to Arthur.

Outside the air was sweet, the sun shone, and the birds sang, and it
seemed as if all nature were tuned to a different pitch.  There was
gladness and mirth and peace everywhere, for we were at rest ourselves
on one account, and we were glad, though it was with a tempered joy.

Before we moved away Van Helsing said, "Now, my friends, one step of
our work is done, one the most harrowing to ourselves.  But there
remains a greater task: to find out the author of all this our sorrow
and to stamp him out.  I have clues which we can follow, but it is a

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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

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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 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 tonight.  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!"

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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 be so, 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