“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 to 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 remember 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 I 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 description 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 my helper.You shall be avenged in turn;for not one of them but shall minister to your needs.But as yet you are to be punished for what you have done.You have aided in thwarting me;now you shall come to my call.When my brain says “Come!” to you, you shall cross land or sea to do my bidding;and to that end this!’ With that he pulled open his shirt,and with his long sharp nails opened a vein in his breast.When the blood began to spurt out,he took my hands in one of his, holding them tight,and with the other seized my neck and pressed my mouth to the wound,so that I must either suffocate or swallow some of the---- Oh my God!my God!what have I done?What have I done to deserve such a fate,I who have tried to walk in meekness and righteousness all my days. God pity me!Look down on a poor soul in worse than mortal peril;and in mercy pity those to whom she is dear!” Then she began to rub her lips as though to cleanse them from pollution.
As she was telling her terrible story,the eastern sky began to quicken,and everything became more and more clear.Harker was still and quiet; but over his face,as the awful narrative went on,came a grey look which deepened and deepened in the morning light,till when the first red streak of the coming dawn shot up,the flesh stood darkly out against the whitening hair.
We have arranged that one of us is to stay within call of the unhappy pair till we can meet together and arrange about taking action.
Of this I am sure: the sun rises to-day on no more miserable house in all the great round of its daily course.
CHAPTER XXII
JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL
_3 October._--As I must do something or go mad,I write this diary. It is now six o’clock,and we are to meet in the study in half an hour and take something to eat;for Dr. Van Helsing and Dr.Seward are agreed that if we do not eat we cannot work our best.Our best will be, God knows, required to-day.I must keep writing at every chance,for I dare not stop to think. All, big and little,must go down; perhaps at the end the little things may teach us most.The teaching, big or little,could not have landed Mina or me anywhere worse than we are to-day.However, we must trust and hope.Poor Mina told me just now,with the tears running down her dear cheeks,that it is in trouble and trial that our faith is tested--that we must keep on trusting; and that God will aid us up to the end. The end!oh my God!what end?... To work!To work!
When Dr. Van Helsing and Dr.Seward had come back from seeing poor Renfield,we went gravely into what was to be done. First, Dr.Seward told us that when he and Dr.Van Helsing had gone down to the room below they had found Renfield lying on the floor, all in a heap. His face was all bruised and crushed in, and the bones of the neck were broken.