第143章

We ride to death of some one. God alone knows who, or where, or what, or when, or how it may be. . .

DR. VAN HELSING'S MEMORANDUM

5 November, afternoon.--I am at least sane. Thank God for that mercy at all events, though the proving it has been dreadful. When I left Madam Mina sleeping within the Holy circle, I took my way to the castle.

The blacksmith hammer which I took in the carriage from Veresti was useful, though the doors were all open I broke them off the rusty hinges, lest some ill intent or ill chance should close them, so that being entered I might not get out. Jonathan's bitter experience served me here.

By memory of his diary I found my way to the old chapel, for I knew that here my work lay. The air was oppressive. It seemed as if there was some sulphurous fume, which at times made me dizzy.

Either there was a roaring in my ears or I heard afar off the howl of wolves.

Then I bethought me of my dear Madam Mina, and I was in terrible plight.

The dilemma had me between his horns.

Her, I had not dare to take into this place, but left safe from the Vampire in that Holy circle. And yet even there would be the wolf!

I resolve me that my work lay here, and that as to the wolves we must submit, if it were God's will. At any rate it was only death and freedom beyond.

So did I choose for her. Had it but been for myself the choice had been easy, the maw of the wolf were better to rest in than the grave of the Vampire!

So I make my choice to go on with my work.

I knew that there were at least three graves to find, graves that are inhabit. So I search, and search, and I find one of them.

She lay in her Vampire sleep, so full of life and voluptuous beauty that I shudder as though I have come to do murder.

Ah, I doubt not that in the old time, when such things were, many a man who set forth to do such a task as mine, found at the last his heart fail him, and then his nerve. So he delay, and delay, and delay, till the mere beauty and the fascination of the wanton Undead have hypnotize him. And he remain on and on, till sunset come, and the Vampire sleep be over.

Then the beautiful eyes of the fair woman open and look love, and the voluptuous mouth present to a kiss, and the man is weak.

And there remain one more victim in the Vampire fold.

One more to swell the grim and grisly ranks of the Undead!. . .

There is some fascination, surely, when I am moved by the mere presence of such an one, even lying as she lay in a tomb fretted with age and heavy with the dust of centuries, though there be that horrid odor such as the lairs of the Count have had.

Yes, I was moved. I, Van Helsing, with all my purpose and with my motive for hate. I was moved to a yearning for delay which seemed to paralyze my faculties and to clog my very soul.

It may have been that the need of natural sleep, and the strange oppression of the air were beginning to overcome me.

Certain it was that I was lapsing into sleep, the open eyed sleep of one who yields to a sweet fascination, when there came through the snow stilled air a long, low wail, so full of woe and pity that it woke me like the sound of a clarion.

For it was the voice of my dear Madam Mina that I heard.

Then I braced myself again to my horrid task, and found by wrenching away tomb tops one other of the sisters, the other dark one.

I dared not pause to look on her as I had on her sister, lest once more I should begin to be enthrall. But I go on searching until, presently, I find in a high great tomb as if made to one much beloved that other fair sister which, like Jonathan I had seen to gather herself out of the atoms of the mist.

She was so fair to look on, so radiantly beautiful, so exquisitely voluptuous, that the very instinct of man in me, which calls some of my sex to love and to protect one of hers, made my head whirl with new emotion. But God be thanked, that soul wail of my dear Madam Mina had not died out of my ears.

And, before the spell could be wrought further upon me, I had nerved myself to my wild work. By this tim e I had searched all the tombs in the chapel, so far as I could tell.

And as there had been only three of these Undead phantoms around us in the night, I took it that there were no more of active Undead existent. There was one great tomb more lordly than all the rest. Huge it was, and nobly proportioned.

On it was but one word.

DRACULA

This then was the Undead home of the King Vampire, to whom so many more were due. Its emptiness spoke eloquent to make certain what I knew.

Before I began to restore these women to their dead selves through my awful work, I laid in Dracula's tomb some of the Wafer, and so banished him from it, Undead, for ever.

Then began my terrible task, and I dreaded it.

Had it been but one, it had been easy, comparative. But three!

To begin twice more after I had been through a deed of horror.

For it was terrible with the sweet Miss Lucy, what would it not be with these strange ones who had survived through centuries, and who had been strenghtened by the passing of the years.

Who would, if they could, have fought for their foul lives. . .

Oh, my friend John, but it was butcher work. Had I not been nerved by thoughts of other dead, and of the living over whom hung such a pall of fear, I could not have gone on.

I tremble and tremble even yet, though till all was over, God be thanked, my nerve did stand. Had I not seen the repose in the first place, and the gladness that stole over it just ere the final dissolution came, as realization that the soul had been won, I could not have gone further with my butchery.

I could not have endured the horrid screeching as the stake drove home, the plunging of writhing form, and lips of bloody foam.

I should have fled in terror and left my work undone.

But it is over! And the poor souls, I can pity them now and weep, as I think of them placid each in her full sleep of death for a short moment ere fading. For, friend John, hardly had my knife severed the head of each, before the whole body began to melt away and crumble into its native dust, as though the death that should have come centuries agone had at last assert himself and say at once and loud, "I am here!"