"Are you satisfied now?"
"No," I said, in a way that I felt was aggressive.
"Do you not see the child?"
"Yes, it is a child, but who brought it here? And is it wounded?" Iasked.
"We shall see," said the Professor, and with one impulse we took our wayout of the churchyard, he carrying the sleeping child.
When we had got some little distance away, we went into a clump oftrees, and struck a match, and looked at the child's throat. It waswithout a scratch or scar of any kind.
"Was I right?" I asked triumphantly.
"We were just in time," said the Professor thankfully.
We had now to decide what we were to do with the child, and so consultedabout it. If we were to take it to a police-station we should have togive some account of our movements during the night; at least, we shouldhave had to make some statement as to how we had come to find the child.So finally we decided that we would take it to the Heath, and when weheard a policeman coming, would leave it where he could not fail to findit; we would then seek our way home as quickly as we could. All fell outwell. At the edge of Hampstead Heath we heard a policeman's heavy tramp,and laying the child on the pathway, we waited and watched until he sawit as he flashed his lantern to and fro. We heard his exclamation ofastonishment, and then we went away silently. By good chance we got acab near the "Spaniards," and drove to town.
I cannot sleep, so I make this entry. But I must try to get a few hours'sleep, as Van Helsing is to call for me at noon. He insists that I shallgo with him on another expedition.
_27 September._--It was two o'clock before we found a suitableopportunity for our attempt. The funeral held at noon was all completed,and the last stragglers of the mourners had taken themselves lazilyaway, when, looking carefully from behind a clump of alder-trees, wesaw the sexton lock the gate after him. We knew then that we were safetill morning did we desire it; but the Professor told me that we shouldnot want more than an hour at most. Again I felt that horrid senseof the reality of things, in which any effort of imagination seemedout of place; and I realised distinctly the perils of the law whichwe were incurring in our unhallowed work. Besides, I felt it was allso useless. Outrageous as it was to open a leaden coffin, to see if awoman dead nearly a week were really dead, it now seemed the height offolly to open the tomb again, when we knew, from the evidence of our owneyesight, that the coffin was empty. I shrugged my shoulders, however,and rested silent, for Van Helsing had a way of going on his own road,no matter who remonstrated. He took the key, opened the vault, andagain courteously motioned me to precede. The place was not so gruesomeas last night, but oh, how unutterably mean-looking when the sunshinestreamed in. Van Helsing walked over to Lucy's coffin, and I followed.He bent over and again forced back the leaden flange; and then a shockof surprise and dismay shot through me.
There lay Lucy, seemingly just as we had seen her the night before herfuneral. She was, if possible, more radiantly beautiful than ever; and Icould not believe that she was dead. The lips were red, nay redder thanbefore; and on the cheeks was a delicate bloom.
"Is this a juggle?" I said to him.
"Are you convinced now?" said the Professor in response, and as he spokehe put over his hand, and in a way that made me shudder, pulled back thedead lips and showed the white teeth.
"See," he went on, "see, they are even sharper than before. With thisand this"--and he touched one of the canine teeth and that belowit--"the little children can be bitten. Are you of belief now, friendJohn?" Once more, argumentative hostility woke within me. I _could_ notaccept such an overwhelming idea as he suggested; so, with an attempt toargue of which I was even at the moment ashamed, I said:--
"She may have been placed here since last night."
"Indeed? That is so, and by whom?"
"I do not know. Some one has done it."
"And yet she has been dead one week. Most peoples in that time would notlook so." I had no answer for this, so was silent. Van Helsing did notseem to notice my silence; at any rate, he showed neither chagrin nortriumph. He was looking intently at the face of the dead woman, raisingthe eyelids and looking at the eyes, and once more opening the lips andexamining the teeth. Then he turned to me and said:--
"Here, there is one thing which is different from all recorded: here issome dual life that is not as the common. She was bitten by the vampirewhen she was in a trance, sleep-walking--oh, you start; you do not knowthat, friend John, but you shall know it all later--and in trance couldhe best come to take more blood. In trance she died, and in trance sheis Un-Dead, too. So it is that she differ from all other. Usually whenthe Un-Dead sleep at home"--as he spoke he made a comprehensive sweep ofhis arm to designate what to a vampire was "home"--"their face show whatthey are, but this so sweet that-was when she not Un-Dead she go back tothe nothings of the common dead. There is no malign there, see, and soit make hard that I must kill her in her sleep." This turned my bloodcold, and it began to dawn upon me that I was accepting Van Helsing'stheories; but if she were really dead, what was there of terror in theidea of killing her? He looked up at me, and evidently saw the change inmy face, for he said almost joyously:--
"Ah, you believe now?"
I answered: "Do not press me too hard all at once. I am willing toaccept. How will you do this bloody work?"
"I shall cut off her head and fill her mouth with garlic, and I shalldrive a stake through her body." It made me shudder to think of somutilating the body of the woman whom I had loved. And yet the feelingwas not so strong as I had expected. I was, in fact, beginning toshudder at the presence of this being, this Un-Dead, as Van Helsingcalled it, and to loathe it. Is it possible that love is all subjective,or all objective?
I waited a considerable time for Van Helsing to begin, but he stood asif wrapped in thought. Presently he closed the catch of his bag with asnap, and said:--
"I
have been thinking, and have made up my mind as to what is best. IfI did simply follow my inclining I would do now, at this moment, whatis to be done; but there are other things to follow, and things thatare thousand times more difficult in that them we do not know. This issimple. She have yet no life taken, though that is of time; and to actnow would be to take danger from her for ever. But then we may haveto want Arthur, and how shall we tell him of this? If you, who saw thewounds on Lucy's throat, and saw the wounds so similar on the child'sat the hospital; if you, who saw the coffin empty last night and fullto-day with a woman who have not change only to be more rose and morebeautiful in a whole week after she die--if you know of this and know ofthe 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 expectArthur, who know none of those things, to believe? He doubted me whenI took him from her kiss when she was dying. I know he has forgiven mebecause in some mistaken idea I have done things that prevent him saygood-bye as he ought; and he may think that in some more mistaken ideathis woman was buried alive; and that in most mistake of all we havekilled her. He will then argue back that it is we, mistaken ones, thathave 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 willsometimes think that she he loved was buried alive, and that will painthis dreams with horrors of what she must have suffered; and, again, hewill think that we may be right, and that his so beloved was, after all,an Un-Dead. No! I told him once, and since then I learn much. Now, sinceI know it is all true, a hundred thousand times more do I know that hemust 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 tohim; then we can act for good all round and send him peace. My mind ismade up. Let us go. You return home for to-night to your asylum, andsee that all be well. As for me, I shall spend the night here in thischurchyard in my own way. To-morrow night you will come to me to theBerkeley Hotel at ten of the clock. I shall send for Arthur to come too,and also that so fine young man of America that gave his blood. Laterwe shall all have work to do. I come with you so far as Piccadilly andthere dine, for I must be back here before the sun set."
So we locked the tomb and came away, and got over the wall of thechurchyard, which was not much of a task, and drove back to Piccadilly.
_Note left by Van Helsing in his portmanteau, Berkeley Hotel, directedto John Seward, M.D._
(Not delivered.)
"_27 September._