_Later._--Sunset has come and gone.Fortunately it came at a time when there was no distraction;for had it occurred whilst we were at a station,we might not have secured the necessary calm and isolation.Mrs. Harker yielded to the hypnotic influence even less readily than this morning. I am in fear that her power of reading the Count’s sensations may die away, just when we want it most. It seems to me that her imagination is beginning to work. Whilst she has been in the trance hitherto she has confined herself to the simplest of facts. If this goes on it may ultimately mislead us. If I thought that the Count’s power over her would die away equally with her power of knowledge it would be a happy thought; but I am afraid that it may not be so. When she did speak, her words were enigmatical:--
“Something is going out;I can feel it pass me like a cold wind. I can hear,far off, confused sounds--as of men talking in strange tongues,fierce-falling water, and the howling of wolves.” She stopped and a shudder ran through her,increasing in intensity for a few seconds, till,at the end, she shook as though in a palsy.She said no more, even in answer to the Professor’s imperative questioning.When she woke from the trance, she was cold,and exhausted, and languid; but her mind was all alert.She could not remember anything,but asked what she had said; when she was told,she pondered over it deeply for a long time and in silence.
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_30 October, 7 a. m._--We are near Galatz now,and I may not have time to write later.Sunrise this morning was anxiously looked for by us all.Knowing of the increasing difficulty of procuring the hypnotic trance,Van Helsing began his passes earlier than usual.They produced no effect, however,until the regular time,when she yielded with a still greater difficulty,only a minute before the sun rose.The Professor lost no time in his questioning;her answer came with equal quickness:--
“All is dark. I hear water swirling by,level with my ears, and the creaking of wood on wood.Cattle low far off. There is another sound,a queer one like----” She stopped and grew white, and whiter still.
“Go on; go on!Speak, I command you!” said Van Helsing in an agonised voice.At the same time there was despair in his eyes,for the risen sun was reddening even Mrs.Harker’s pale face. She opened her eyes,and we all started as she said,sweetly and seemingly with the utmost unconcern:--
“Oh, Professor, why ask me to do what you know I can’t?I don’t remember anything.” Then,seeing the look of amazement on our faces, she said,turning from one to the other with a troubled look:--
“What have I said?What have I done?I know nothing, only that I was lying here, half asleep,and heard you say ‘go on!speak, I command you!’ It seemed so funny to hear you order me about,as if I were a bad child!”
“Oh, Madam Mina,” he said, sadly, “it is proof,if proof be needed, of how I love and honour you,when a word for your good,spoken more earnest than ever,can seem so strange because it is to order her whom I am proud to obey!”
The whistles are sounding; we are nearing Galatz.We are on fire with anxiety and eagerness.
_Mina Harker’s Journal._
_30 October._--Mr. Morris took me to the hotel where our rooms had been ordered by telegraph, he being the one who could best be spared, since he does not speak any foreign language. The forces were distributed much as they had been at Varna, except that Lord Godalming went to the Vice-Consul, as his rank might serve as an immediate guarantee of some sort to the official, we being in extreme hurry. Jonathan and the two doctors went to the shipping agent to learn particulars of the arrival of the _Czarina Catherine_.
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_Later._--Lord Godalming has returned.The Consul is away, and the Vice-Consul sick;so the routine work has been attended to by a clerk.He was very obliging,and offered to do anything in his power.
_Jonathan Harker’s Journal._
_30 October._--At nine o’clock Dr. Van Helsing, Dr.Seward, and I called on Messrs. Mackenzie & Steinkoff,the agents of the London firm of Hapgood.They had received a wire from London,in answer to Lord Godalming’s telegraphed request,asking us to show them any civility in their power.They were more than kind and courteous,and took us at once on board the _Czarina Catherine_,which lay at anchor out in the river harbour.There we saw the Captain, Donelson by name,who told us of his voyage.He said that in all his life he had never had so favourable a run.
“Man!” he said, “but it made us afeard,for we expeckit that we should have to pay for it wi’ some rare piece o’ ill luck, so as to keep up the average. It’s no canny to run frae London to the Black Sea wi’ a wind ahint ye, as though the Deil himself were blawin’ on yer sail for his ain purpose. An’ a’ the time we could no speer a thing. Gin we were nigh a ship, or a port, or a headland, a fog fell on us and travelled wi’ us, till when after it had lifted and we looked out, the deil a thing could we see. We ran by Gibraltar wi’oot bein’ able to signal; an’ till we came to the Dardanelles and had to wait to get our permit to pass, we never were within hail o’ aught. At first I inclined to slack off sail and beat about till the fog was lifted; but whiles, I thocht that if the Deil was minded to get us into the Black Sea quick, he was like to do it whether we would or no. If we had a quick voyage it would be no to our miscredit wi’ the owners, or no hurt to our traffic; an’ the Old Mon who had served his ain purpose wad be decently grateful to us for no hinderin’ him.” This mixture of simplicity and cunning, of superstition and commercial reasoning, aroused Van Helsing, who said:--
“Mine friend, that Devil is more clever than he is thought by some;and he know when he meet his match!” The skipper was not displeased with the compliment, and went on:--