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women.  The fourth was only a young girl, and the drug had evidently
affected her more strongly so I lifted her on the sofa and let her
sleep.

The others were dazed at first, but as remembrance came back to them
they cried and sobbed in a hysterical manner.  I was stern with them,
however, and would not let them talk.  I told them that one life was
bad enough to lose, and if they delayed they would sacrifice Miss
Lucy.  So, sobbing and crying they went about their way, half clad as
they were, and prepared fire and water.  Fortunately, the kitchen and
boiler fires were still alive, and there was no lack of hot water.  We
got a bath and carried Lucy out as she was and placed her in it.
Whilst we were busy chafing her limbs there was a knock at the hall
door.  One of the maids ran off, hurried on some more clothes, and
opened it.  Then she returned and whispered to us that there was a
gentleman who had come with a message from Mr. Holmwood.  I bade her
simply tell him that he must wait, for we could see no one now.  She
went away with the message, and, engrossed with our work, I clean
forgot all about him.

I never saw in all my experience the Professor work in such deadly

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reason for not answering, so I answered in the same phrase.

"That's so."

"And how long has this been going on?"

"About ten days."

"Ten days!  Then I guess, Jack Seward, that that poor pretty creature
that we all love has had put into her veins within that time the blood
of four strong men.  Man alive, her whole body wouldn't hold it."  Then
coming close to me, he spoke in a fierce half-whisper.  "What took it
out?"

I shook my head.  "That," I said, "is the crux.  Van Helsing is simply
frantic about it, and I am at my wits' end.  I can't even hazard a
guess.  There has been a series of little circumstances which have
thrown out all our calculations as to Lucy being properly watched.
But these shall not occur again.  Here we stay until all be well, or
ill."

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puzzle than before.  But even if the burial service was comic, what
about poor Art and his trouble?  Why his heart was simply breaking."

"Just so.  Said he not that the transfusion of his blood to her veins
had made her truly his bride?"

"Yes, and it was a sweet and comforting idea for him."

"Quite so.  But there was a difficulty, friend John.  If so that, then
what about the others?  Ho, ho!  Then this so sweet maid is a
polyandrist, and me, with my poor wife dead to me, but alive by
Church's law, though no wits, all gone, even I, who am faithful
husband to this now-no-wife, am bigamist."

"I don't see where the joke comes in there either!" I said, and I did
not feel particularly pleased with him for saying such things.  He
laid his hand on my arm, and said,

"Friend John, forgive me if I pain.  I showed not my feeling to others
when it would wound, but only to you, my old friend, whom I can trust.
If you could have looked into my heart then when I want to laugh, if

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the child's at the hospital, if you, who saw the coffin empty last
night and full today with a woman who have not change only to be more
rose and more beautiful in a whole week, after she die, if you know of
this and know of the white figure last night that brought the child to
the churchyard, and yet of your own senses you did not believe, how
then, can I expect Arthur, who know none of those things, to believe?

"He doubted me when I took him from her kiss when she was dying.  I
know he has forgiven me because in some mistaken idea I have done
things that prevent him say goodbye as he ought, and he may think that
in some more mistaken idea this woman was buried alive, and that in
most mistake of all we have killed her.  He will then argue back that
it is we, mistaken ones, that have killed her by our ideas, and so he
will be much unhappy always.  Yet he never can be sure, and that is
the worst of all.  And he will sometimes think that she he loved was
buried alive, and that will paint his dreams with horrors of what she
must have suffered, and again, he will think that we may be right, and
that his so beloved was, after all, an UnDead.  No!  I told him once,
and since then I learn much.  Now, since I know it is all true, a
hundred thousand times more do I know that he must pass through the
bitter waters to reach the sweet.  He, poor fellow, must have one hour
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

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"And then you will at least know the limit of my purpose.  Shall I go
on?"

"That's fair enough," broke in Morris.

After a pause Van Helsing went on, evidently with an effort, "Miss
Lucy is dead, is it not so?  Yes!  Then there can be no wrong to her.
But if she be not dead . . ."

Arthur jumped to his feet, "Good God!" he cried.  "What do you mean?
Has there been any mistake, has she been buried alive?"  He groaned in
anguish that not even hope could soften.

"I did not say she was alive, my child.  I did not think it.  I go no
further than to say that she might be UnDead."

"UnDead!  Not alive!  What do you mean?  Is this all a nightmare, or
what is it?"

"There are mysteries which men can only guess at, which age by age
they may solve only in part.  Believe me, we are now on the verge of
one.  But I have not done.  May I cut off the head of dead Miss Lucy?"

"Heavens and earth, no!" cried Arthur in a storm of passion.  "Not for
the wide world will I consent to any mutilation of her dead body.  Dr.
Van Helsing, you try me too far.  What have I done to you that you
should torture me so?  What did that poor, sweet girl do that you

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lamp in the direction, and stepped into the passage.  There was no
sign of anyone, 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

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"I want you to hypnotize me!" she said.  "Do it before the dawn, for I
feel that then I can speak, and speak freely.  Be quick, for the time
is short!"  Without a word he motioned her to sit up in bed.

Looking fixedly at her, he commenced to make passes in front of her,
from over the top of her head downward, with each hand in turn.  Mina
gazed at him fixedly for a few minutes, during which my own heart beat
like a trip hammer, for I felt that some crisis was at hand.
Gradually her eyes closed, and she sat, stock still.  Only by the
gentle heaving of her bosom could one know that she was alive.  The
Professor made a few more passes and then stopped, and I could see
that his forehead was covered with great beads of perspiration.  Mina
opened her eyes, but she did not seem the same woman.  There was a
far-away look in her eyes, and her voice had a sad dreaminess which
was new to me.  Raising his hand to impose silence, the Professor
motioned to me to bring the others in.  They came on tiptoe, closing
the door behind them, and stood at the foot of the bed, looking on.
Mina appeared not to see them.  The stillness was broken by Van
Helsing's voice speaking in a low level tone which would not break the
current of her thoughts.

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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

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to be done, and other places to be made sanctify, so that that nest of
vipers be obliterated."

Here Jonathan interrupted him hotly, "Do you mean to say, Professor
Van Helsing, that you would bring Mina, in her sad case and tainted as
she is with that devil's illness, right into the jaws of his
deathtrap?  Not for the world!  Not for Heaven or Hell!"

He became almost speechless for a minute, and then went on, "Do you
know what the place is?  Have you seen that awful den of hellish
infamy, with the very moonlight alive with grisly shapes, and every
speck of dust that whirls in the wind a devouring monster in embryo?
Have you felt the Vampire's lips upon your throat?"

Here he turned to me, and as his eyes lit on my forehead he threw up
his arms with a cry, "Oh, my God, what have we done to have this
terror upon us?" and he sank down on the sofa in a collapse of misery.

The Professor's voice, as he spoke in clear, sweet tones, which seemed
to vibrate in the air, calmed us all.

t/dracula.DOS.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

MEMORANDUM BY ABRAHAM VAN HELSING

4 November.--This to my old and true friend John Seward, M.D.,
of Purfleet, London, in case I may not see him.  It may
explain.  It is morning, and I write by a fire which all
the night I have kept alive, Madam Mina aiding me.  It is
cold, cold.  So cold that the grey heavy sky is full of
snow, which when it falls will settle for all winter as the
ground is hardening to receive it.  It seems to have affected
Madam Mina.  She has been so heavy of head all day that she was
not like herself.  She sleeps, and sleeps, and sleeps!  She who
is usual so alert, have done literally nothing all the day.  She
even have lost her appetite.  She make no entry into her little
diary, she who write so faithful at every pause.  Something
whisper to me that all is not well.  However, tonight she is more
/vif/.  Her long sleep all day have refresh and restore her, for