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the time.  That he scatter his money in making quick inquiry as to
what ship sails for the Black Sea and for where.  Some took him to the
office and then to the ship, where he will not go aboard but halt at
shore end of gangplank, and ask that the captain come to him.  The
captain come, when told that he will be pay well, and though he swear
much at the first he agree to term.  Then the thin man go and some one
tell him where horse and cart can be hired.  He go there and soon he
come again, himself driving cart on which a great box.  This he
himself lift down, though it take several to put it on truck for the
ship.  He give much talk to captain as to how and where his box is to
be place.  But the captain like it not and swear at him in many
tongues, and tell him that if he like he can come and see where it
shall be.  But he say 'no,' that he come not yet, for that he have
much to do.  Whereupon the captain tell him that he had better be
quick, with blood, for that his ship will leave the place, of blood,
before the turn of the tide, with blood.  Then the thin man smile and
say that of course he must go when he think fit, but he will be
surprise if he go quite so soon.  The captain swear again, polyglot,
and the thin man make him bow, and thank him, and say that he will so
far intrude on his kindness as to come aboard before the sailing.
Final the captain, more red than ever, and in more tongues, tell him
that he doesn't want no Frenchmen, with bloom upon them and also with
blood, in his ship, with blood on her also.  And so, after asking
where he might purchase ship forms, he departed.

"No one knew where he went 'or bloomin' well cared' as they said, for
they had something else to think of, well with blood again.  For it
soon became apparent to all that the Czarina Catherine would not sail
as was expected.  A thin mist began to creep up from the river, and it
grew, and grew.  Till soon a dense fog enveloped the ship and all
around her.  The captain swore polyglot, very polyglot, polyglot with
bloom and blood, but he could do nothing.  The water rose and rose,
and he began to fear that he would lose the tide altogether.  He was
in no friendly mood, when just at full tide, the thin man came up the
gangplank again and asked to see where his box had been stowed.  Then
the captain replied that he wished that he and his box, old and with
much bloom and blood, were in hell.  But the thin man did not be
offend, and went down with the mate and saw where it was place, and
came up and stood awhile on deck in fog.  He must have come off by
himself, for none notice him.  Indeed they thought not of him, for
soon the fog begin to melt away, and all was clear again.  My friends
of the thirst and the language that was of bloom and blood laughed, as
they told how the captain's swears exceeded even his usual polyglot,
and was more than ever full of picturesque, when on questioning other
mariners who were on movement up and down the river that hour, he
found that few of them had seen any of fog at all, except where it lay
round the wharf.  However, the ship went out on the ebb tide, and was
doubtless by morning far down the river mouth.  She was then, when
they told us, well out to sea.

"And so, my dear Madam Mina, it is that we have to rest for a time,
for our enemy is on the sea, with the fog at his command, on his way
to the Danube mouth.  To sail a ship takes time, go she never so
quick.  And when we start to go on land more quick, and we meet him
there.  Our best hope is to come on him when in the box between
sunrise and sunset.  For then he can make no struggle, and we may deal
with him as we should.  There are days for us, in which we can make
ready our plan.  We know all about where he go.  For we have seen the
owner of the ship, who have shown us invoices and all papers that can
be.  The box we seek is to be landed in Varna, and to be given to an
agent, one Ristics who will there present his credentials.  And so our
merchant friend will have done his part.  When he ask if there be any
wrong, for that so, he can telegraph and have inquiry made at Varna,
we say 'no,' for what is to be done is not for police or of the
customs.  It must be done by us alone and in our own way."

When Dr. Van Helsing had done speaking, I asked him if he were certain
that the Count had remained on board the ship.  He replied, "We have
the best proof of that, your own evidence, when in the hypnotic trance
this morning."

I asked him again if it were really necessary that they should pursue
the Count, for oh!  I dread Jonathan leaving me, and I know that he
would surely go if the others went.  He answered in growing passion,
at first quietly.  As he went on, however, he grew more angry and more
forceful, till in the end we could not but see wherein was at least
some of that personal dominance which made him so long a master
amongst men.

"Yes, it is necessary, necessary, necessary!  For your sake in the
first, and then for the sake of humanity.  This monster has done much
harm already, in the narrow scope where he find himself, and in the
short time when as yet he was only as a body groping his so small
measure in darkness and not knowing.  All this have I told these
others.  You, my dear Madam Mina, will learn it in the phonograph of
my friend John, or in that of your husband.  I have told them how the
measure of leaving his own barren land, barren of peoples, and coming
to a new land where life of man teems till they are like the multitude
of standing corn, was the work of centuries.  Were another of the
Undead, like him, to try to do what he has done, perhaps not all the
centuries of the world that have been, or that will be, could aid him.
With this one, all the forces of nature that are occult and deep and
strong must have worked together in some wonderous way.  The very
place, where he have been alive, Undead for all these centuries, is
full of strangeness of the geologic and chemical world.  There are
deep caverns and fissures that reach none know whither.  There have
been volcanoes, some of whose openings still send out waters of
strange properties, and gases that kill or make to vivify.  Doubtless,
there is something magnetic or electric in some of these combinations
of occult forces which work for physical life in strange way, and in
himself were from the first some great qualities.  In a hard and
warlike time he was celebrate that he have more iron nerve, more
subtle brain, more braver heart, than any man.  In him some vital
principle have in strange way found their utmost.  And as his body
keep strong and grow and thrive, so his brain grow too.  All this
without that diabolic aid which is surely to him.  For it have to
yield to the powers that come from, and are, symbolic of good.  And
now this is what he is to us.  He have infect you, oh forgive me, my
dear, that I must say such, but it is for good of you that I speak.  He
infect you in such wise, that even if he do no more, you have only to
live, to live in your own old, sweet way, and so in time, death, which
is of man's common lot and with God's sanction, shall make you like to
him.  This must not be!  We have sworn together that it must not.
Thus are we ministers of God's own wish.  That the world, and men for
whom His Son die, will not be given over to monsters, whose very
existence would defame Him.  He have allowed us to redeem one soul
already, and we go out as the old knights of the Cross to redeem
more.  Like them we shall travel towards the sunrise.  And like them,
if we fall, we fall in good cause."

He paused and I said, "But will not the Count take his rebuff wisely?