of the country could hardly fail to have some
importance in dealing with a nobleman of
that country.

I find that the district he named is in the
extreme east of the country, just on the
borders of three states, Transylvania,
Moldavia, and Bukovina, in the midst of the
Carpathian mountains; one of the wildest
and least known portions of Europe.

I was not able to light on any map or work
giving the exact locality of the Castle
Dracula, as there are no maps of this
country as yet to compare with our own
Ordance Survey Maps; but I found that
Bistritz, the post town named by Count
Dracula, is a fairly well-known place. I shall
enter here some of my notes, as they may
refresh my memory when I talk over my
travels with Mina.

In the population of Transylvania there are
four distinct nationalities: Saxons in the
South, and mixed with them the Wallachs,
who are the descendants of the Dacians;
Magyars in the West, and Szekelys in the
East and North. I am going among the latter,
who claim to be descended from Attila and
the Huns. This may be so, for when the
Magyars conquered the country in the
eleventh century they found the Huns settled
in it.

I read that every known superstition in the
world is gathered into the horseshoe of the
Carpathians, as if it were the centre of
some sort of imaginative whirlpool; if so my
stay may be very interesting. (Mem., I must
ask the Count all about them.)

I did not sleep well, though my bed was
comfortable enough, for I had all sorts of
queer dreams. There was a dog howling all
night under my window, which may have
had something to do with it; or it may have

sleeves of some kind or other, and most of
them had big belts with a lot of strips of
something fluttering from them like the
dresses in a ballet, but of course there were
petticoats under them.

The strangest figures we saw were the
Slovaks, who were more barbarian than the
rest, with their big cow-boy hats, great
baggy dirty-white trousers, white linen
shirts, and enormous heavy leather belts,
nearly a foot wide, all studded over with
brass nails. They wore high boots, with their
trousers tucked into them, and had long
black hair and heavy black moustaches.
They are very picturesque, but do not look
prepossessing. On the stage they would be
set down at once as some old Oriental band
of brigands. They are, however, I am told,
very harmless and rather wanting in natural
self-assertion.

It was on the dark side of twilight when we
got to Bistritz, which is a very interesting old
place. Being practically on the frontier--for
the Borgo Pass leads from it into Bukovina-
-it has had a very stormy existence, and it
certainly shows marks of it. Fifty years ago
a series of great fires took place, which
made terrible havoc on five separate
occasions. At the very beginning of the
seventeenth century it underwent a siege of
three weeks and lost 13,000 people, the
casualties of war proper being assisted by
famine and disease.

Count Dracula had directed me to go to the
Golden Krone Hotel, which I found, to my
great delight, to be thoroughly old-
fashioned, for of course I wanted to see all I
could of the ways of the country.

I was evidently expected, for when I got near
the door I faced a cheery-looking elderly
woman in the usual peasant dress--white
undergarment with a long double apron,

was all very mysterious and not by any
means comforting.

Just before I was leaving, the old lady came
up to my room and said in a hysterical way:
"Must you go? Oh! Young Herr, must you
go?" She was in such an excited state that
she seemed to have lost her grip of what
German she knew, and mixed it all up with
some other language which I did not know
at all. I was just able to follow her by asking
many questions. When I told her that I must
go at once, and that I was engaged on
important business, she asked again:

"Do you know what day it is?" I answered
that it was the fourth of May. She shook her
head as she said again:

"Oh, yes! I know that! I know that, but do you
know what day it is?"

On my saying that I did not understand, she
went on:

"It is the eve of St. George's Day. Do you not
know that to-night, when the clock strikes
midnight, all the evil things in the world will
have full sway? Do you know where you are
going, and what you are going to?" She was
in such evident distress that I tried to
comfort her, but without effect. Finally, she
went down on her knees and implored me
not to go; at least to wait a day or two before
starting.

It was all very ridiculous but I did not feel
comfortable. However, there was business
to be done, and I could allow nothing to
interfere with it.

I tried to raise her up, and said, as gravely
as I could, that I thanked her, but my duty
was imperative, and that I must go.

She then rose and dried her eyes, and

roasted over the fire, in simple style of the
London cat's meat!

The wine was Golden Mediasch, which
produces a queer sting on the tongue,
which is, however, not disagreeable.

I had only a couple of glasses of this, and
nothing else.

When I got on the coach, the driver had not
taken his seat, and I saw him talking to the
landlady.

They were evidently talking of me, for every
now and then they looked at me, and some
of the people who were sitting on the bench
outside the door--came and listened, and
then looked at me, most of them pityingly. I
could hear a lot of words often repeated,
queer words, for there were many
nationalities in the crowd, so I quietly got my
polyglot dictionary from my bag and looked
them out.

I must say they were not cheering to me, for
amongst them were "Ordog"--Satan,
"Pokol"--hell, "stregoica"--witch, "vrolok"
and "vlkoslak"--both mean the same thing,
one being Slovak and the other Servian for
something that is either werewolf or
vampire. (Mem.,I must ask the Count about
these superstitions.)

When we started, the crowd round the inn
door, which had by this time swelled to a
considerable size, all made the sign of the
cross and pointed two fingers towards me.

With some difficulty, I got a fellow
passenger to tell me what they meant. He
would not answer at first, but on learning
that I was English, he explained that it was a
charm or guard against the evil eye.

This was not very pleasant for me, just

been put in order after the winter snows. In
this respect it is different from the general
run of roads in the Carpathians, for it is an
old tradition that they are not to be kept in
too good order. Of old the Hospadars would
not repair them, lest the Turk should think
that they were preparing to bring in foreign
troops, and so hasten the war which was
always really at loading point.

Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel
Land rose mighty slopes of forest up to the
lofty steeps of the Carpathians themselves.
Right and left of us they towered, with the
afternoon sun falling full upon them and
bringing out all the glorious colours of this
beautiful range, deep blue and purple in the
shadows of the peaks, green and brown
where grass and rock mingled, and an
endless perspective of jagged rock and
pointed crags, till these were themselves
lost in the distance, where the snowy peaks
rose grandly. Here and there seemed
mighty rifts in the mountains, through which,
as the sun began to sink, we saw now and
again the white gleam of falling water. One
of my companions touched my arm as we
swept round the base of a hill and opened
up the lofty, snow-covered peak of a
mountain, which seemed, as we wound on
our serpentine way, to be right before us.

"Look! Isten szek!"--"God's seat!"--and he
crossed himself reverently.

As we wound on our endless way, and the
sun sank lower and lower behind us, the
shadows of the evening began to creep
round us. This was emphasized by the fact
that the snowy mountain-top still held the
sunset, and seemed to glow out with a
delicate cool pink. Here and there we
passed Cszeks and slovaks, all in
picturesque attire, but I noticed that goitre
was painfully prevalent. By the roadside
were many crosses, and as we swept by,

must not walk here. The dogs are too
fierce." And then he added, with what he
evidently meant for grim pleasantry--for he
looked round to catch the approving smile
of the rest--"And you may have enough of
such matters before you go to sleep." The
only stop he would make was a moment's
pause to light his lamps.

When it grew dark there seemed to be some
excitement amongst the passengers, and
they kept speaking to him, one after the
other, as though urging him to further speed.
He lashed the horses unmercifully with his
long whip, and with wild cries of
encouragement urged them on to further
exertions. Then through the darkness I could
see a sort of patch of grey light ahead of us,
as though there were a cleft in the hills. The
excitement of the passengers grew greater.
The crazy coach rocked on its great leather
springs, and swayed like a boat tossed on a
stormy sea. I had to hold on. The road grew
more level, and we appeared to fly along.
Then the mountains seemed to come
nearer to us on each side and to frown
down upon us. We were entering on the
Borgo Pass. One by one several of the
passengers offered me gifts, which they
pressed upon me with an earnestness
which would take no denial. These were
certainly of an odd and varied kind, but each
was given in simple good faith, with a kindly
word, and a blessing, and that same
strange mixture of fear-meaning
movements which I had seen outside the
hotel at Bistritz the sign of the cross and the
guard against the evil eye. Then, as we flew
along, the driver leaned forward, and on
each side the passengers, craning over the
edge of the coach, peered eagerly into the
darkness. It was evident that something very
exciting was either happening or expected,
but though I asked each passenger, no one
would give me the slightest explanation.
This state of excitement kept on for some

bright eyes, which seemed red in the
lamplight, as he turned to us.

He said to the driver, "You are early tonight,
my friend."

The man stammered in reply, "The English
Herr was in a hurry."

To which the stranger replied, "That is why, I
suppose, you wished him to go on to
Bukovina. You cannot deceive me, my
friend. I know too much, and my horses are
swift."

As he spoke he smiled, and the lamplight
fell on a hardlooking mouth, with very red
lips and sharp-looking teeth, as white as
ivory. One of my companions whispered to
another the line from Burger's "Lenore".

"Denn die Todten reiten Schnell." ("For the
dead travel fast.")

The strange driver evidently heard the
words, for he looked up with a gleaming
smile. The passenger turned his face away,
at the same time putting out his two fingers
and crossing himself. "Give me the Herr's
luggage," said the driver, and with
exceeding alacrity my bags were handed
out and put in the caleche. Then I
descended from the side of the coach, as
the caleche was close alongside, the driver
helping me with a hand which caught my
arm in a grip of steel. His strength must have
been prodigious.

Without a word he shook his reins, the
horses turned, and we swept into the
darkness of the pass. As I looked back I
saw the steam from the horses of the coach
by the light of the lamps, and projected
against it the figures of my late companions
crossing themselves. Then the driver
cracked his whip and called to his horses,

wild howling began, which seemed to come
from all over the country, as far as the
imagination could grasp it through the
gloom of the night.

At the first howl the horses began to strain
and rear, but the driver spoke to them
soothingly, and they quieted down, but
shivered and sweated as though after a
runaway from sudden fright. Then, far off in
the distance, from the mountains on each
side of us began a louder and a sharper
howling, that of wolves, which affected both
the horses and myself in the same way. For I
was minded to jump from the caleche and
run, whilst they reared again and plunged
madly, so that the driver had to use all his
great strength to keep them from bolting. In
a few minutes, however, my own ears got
accustomed to the sound, and the horses
so far became quiet that the driver was able
to descend and to stand before them.

He petted and soothed them, and
whispered something in their ears, as I have
heard of horse-tamers doing, and with
extraordinary effect, for under his caresses
they became quite manageable again,
though they still trembled. The driver again
took his seat, and shaking his reins, started
off at a great pace. This time, after going to
the far side or the Pass, he suddenly turned
down a narrow roadway which ran sharply
to the right.

Soon we were hemmed in with trees, which
in places arched right over the roadway till
we passed as through a tunnel. And again
great frowning rocks guarded us boldly on
either side. Though we were in shelter, we
could hear the rising wind, for it moaned
and whistled through the rocks, and the
branches of the trees crashed together as
we swept along. It grew colder and colder
still, and fine, powdery snow began to fall,
so that soon we and all around us were

At last there came a time when the driver
went further afield than he had yet gone,
and during his absence, the horses began
to tremble worse than ever and to snort and
scream with fright. I could not see any cause
for it, for the howling of the wolves had
ceased altogether. But just then the moon,
sailing through the black clouds, appeared
behind the jagged crest of a beetling, pine-
clad rock, and by its light I saw around us a
ring of wolves, with white teeth and lolling
red tongues, with long, sinewy limbs and
shaggy hair. They were a hundred times
more terrible in the grim silence which held
them than even when they howled. For
myself, I felt a sort of paralysis of fear. It is
only when a man feels himself face to face
with such horrors that he can understand
their true import.

All at once the wolves began to howl as
though the moonlight had had some
peculiar effect on them. The horses jumped
about and reared, and looked helplessly
round with eyes that rolled in a way painful
to see. But the living ring of terror
encompassed them on every side, and they
had perforce to remain within it. I called to
the coachman to come, for it seemed to me
that our only chance was to try to break out
through the ring and to aid his approach, I
shouted and beat the side of the caleche,
hoping by the noise to scare the wolves
from the side, so as to give him a chance of
reaching the trap. How he came there, I
know not, but I heard his voice raised in a
tone of imperious command, and looking
towards the sound, saw him stand in the
roadway. As he swept his long arms, as
though brushing aside some impalpable
obstacle, the wolves fell back and back
further still. Just then a heavy cloud passed
across the face of the moon, so that we
were again in darkness.

When I could see again the driver was

jumped again into his seat and shook the
reins. The horses started forward, and trap
and all disappeared down one of the dark
openings.

I stood in silence where I was, for I did not
know what to do. Of bell or knocker there
was no sign. Through these frowning walls
and dark window openings it was not likely
that my voice could penetrate. The time I
waited seemed endless, and I felt doubts
and fears crowding upon me. What sort of
place had I come to, and among what kind
of people? What sort of grim adventure was
it on which I had embarked? Was this a
customary incident in the life of a solicitor's
clerk sent out to explain the purchase of a
London estate to a foreigner? Solicitor's
clerk! Mina would not like that. Solicitor, for
just before leaving London I got word that
my examination was successful, and I am
now a full-blown solicitor! I began to rub my
eyes and pinch myself to see if I were
awake. It all seemed like a horrible
nightmare to me, and I expected that I
should suddenly awake, and find myself at
home, with the dawn struggling in through
the windows, as I had now and again felt in
the morning after a day of overwork. But my
flesh answered the pinching test, and my
eyes were not to be deceived. I was indeed
awake and among the Carpathians. All I
could do now was to be patient, and to wait
the coming of morning.

Just as I had come to this conclusion I heard
a heavy step approaching behind the great
door, and saw through the chinks the gleam
of a coming light. Then there was the sound
of rattling chains and the clanking of
massive bolts drawn back. A key was
turned with the loud grating noise of long
disuse, and the great door swung back.

Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven
save for a long white moustache, and clad

comfort myself."He insisted on carrying my
traps along the passage, and then up a
great winding stair, and along another great
passage, on whose stone floor our steps
rang heavily. At the end of this he threw
open a heavy door, and I rejoiced to see
within a well-lit room in which a table was
spread for supper, and on whose mighty
hearth a great fire of logs, freshly
replenished, flamed and flared.

The Count halted, putting down my bags,
closed the door, and crossing the room,
opened another door, which led into a small
octagonal room lit by a single lamp, and
seemingly without a window of any sort.
Passing through this, he opened another
door, and motioned me to enter. It was a
welcome sight. For here was a great
bedroom well lighted and warmed with
another log fire, also added to but lately, for
the top logs were fresh, which sent a hollow
roar up the wide chimney. The Count
himself left my luggage inside and
withdrew, saying, before he closed the
door.

"You will need, after your journey, to refresh
yourself by making your toilet. I trust you will
find all you wish. When you are ready, come
into the other room, where you will find your
supper prepared."

The light and warmth and the Count's
courteous welcome seemed to have
dissipated all my doubts and fears. Having
then reached my normal state, I discovered
that I was half famished with hunger. So
making a hasty toilet, I went into the other
room.

I found supper already laid out. My host,
who stood on one side of the great
fireplace, leaning against the stonework,
made a graceful wave of his hand to the
table, and said,

and peculiarly arched nostrils, with lofty
domed forehead, and hair growing scantily
round the temples but profusely elsewhere.
His eyebrows were very massive, almost
meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair
that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The
mouth, so far as I could see it under the
heavy moustache, was fixed and rather
cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white
teeth. These protruded over the lips, whose
remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing
vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his
ears were pale, and at the tops extremely
pointed. The chin was broad and strong,
and the cheeks firm though thin. The general
effect was one of extraordinary pallor.

Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands
as they lay on his knees in the firelight, and
they had seemed rather white and fine. But
seeing them now close to me, I could not but
notice that they were rather coarse, broad,
with squat fingers. Strange to say, there
were hairs in the centre of the palm. The
nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp
point. As the Count leaned over me and his
hands touched me, I could not repress a
shudder. It may have been that his breath
was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea
came over me, which, do what I would, I
could not conceal.

The Count, evidently noticing it, drew back.
And with a grim sort of smile, which showed
more than he had yet done his protruberant
teeth, sat himself down again on his own
side of the fireplace. We were both silent for
a while, and as I looked towards the
window I saw the first dim streak of the
coming dawn. There seemed a strange
stillness over everything. But as I listened, I
heard as if from down below in the valley the
howling of many wolves. The Count's eyes
gleamed, and he said.

"Listen to them, the children of the night.

worn and frayed and moth-eaten. But still in
none of the rooms is there a mirror. There is
not even a toilet glass on my table, and I had
to get the little shaving glass from my bag
before I could either shave or brush my hair.
I have not yet seen a servant anywhere, or
heard a sound near the castle except the
howling of wolves. Some time after I had
finished my meal, I do not know whether to
call it breakfast of dinner, for it was
between five and six o'clock when I had it, I
looked about for something to read, for I did
not like to go about the castle until I had
asked the Count's permission. There was
absolutely nothing in the room, book,
newspaper, or even writing materials, so I
opened another door in the room and found
a sort of library. The door opposite mine I
tried, but found locked.

In the library I found, to my great delight, a
vast number of English books, whole
shelves full of them, and bound volumes of
magazines and newspapers. A table in the
center was littered with English magazines
and newspapers, though none of them
were of very recent date. The books were of
the most varied kind, history, geography,
politics, political economy, botany,
geology, law, all relating to England and
English life and customs and manners.
There were even such books of reference
as the London Directory, the "Red" and
"Blue" books, Whitaker's Almanac, the
Army and Navy Lists, and it somehow
gladdened my heart to see it, the Law List.

Whilst I was looking at the books, the door
opened, and the Count entered. He saluted
me in a hearty way, and hoped that I had
had a good night's rest. Then he went on.

"I am glad you found your way in here, for I
am sure there is much that will interest you.
These companions," and he laid his hand
on some of the books, "have been good

sorry that I had to be away so long today, but
you will, I know forgive one who has so
many important affairs in hand." Of course I
said all I could about being willing, and
asked if I might come into that room when I
chose. He answered, "Yes, certainly," and
added.

"You may go anywhere you wish in the
castle, except where the doors are locked,
where of course you will not wish to go.
There is reason that all things are as they
are, and did you see with my eyes and know
with my knowledge, you would perhaps
better understand." I said I was sure of this,
and then he went on.

"We are in Transylvania, and Transylvania is
not England. Our ways are not your ways,
and there shall be to you many strange
things. Nay, from what you have told me of
your experiences already, you know
something of what strange things there may
be."

This led to much conversation, and as it was
evident that he wanted to talk, if only for
talking's sake, I asked him many questions
regarding things that had already happened
to me or come within my notice. Sometimes
he sheered off the subject, or turned the
conversation by pretending not to
understand, but generally he answered all I
asked most frankly. Then as time went on,
and I had got somewhat bolder, I asked him
of some of the strange things of the
preceding night, as for instance, why the
coachman went to the places where he had
seen the blue flames. He then explained to
me that it was commonly believed that on a
certain night of the year, last night, in fact,
when all evil spirits are supposed to have
unchecked sway, a blue flame is seen over
any place where treasure has been
concealed.

I went into my own room to get the papers
from my bag. Whilst I was placing them in
order I heard a rattling of china and silver in
the next room, and as I passed through,
noticed that the table had been cleared and
the lamp lit, for it was by this time deep into
the dark. The lamps were also lit in the study
or library, and I found the Count lying on the
sofa, reading, of all things in the world, and
English Bradshaw's Guide. When I came in
he cleared the books and papers from the
table, and with him I went into plans and
deeds and figures of all sorts. He was
interested in everything, and asked me a
myriad questions about the place and its
surroundings. He clearly had studied
beforehand all he could get on the subject
of the neighborhood, for he evidently at the
end knew very much more than I did. When I
remarked this, he answered.

"Well, but, my friend, is it not needful that I
should? When I go there I shall be all alone,
and my friend Harker Jonathan, nay, pardon
me. I fall into my country's habit of putting
your patronymic first, my friend Jonathan
Harker will not be by my side to correct and
aid me. He will be in Exeter, miles away,
probably working at papers of the law with
my other friend, Peter Hawkins. So!"

We went thoroughly into the business of the
purchase of the estate at Purfleet. When I
had told him the facts and got his signature
to the necessary papers, and had written a
letter with them ready to post to Mr.
Hawkins, he began to ask me how I had
come across so suitable a place. I read to
him the notes which I had made at the time,
and which I inscribe here.

"At Purfleet, on a by-road, I came across
just such a place as seemed to be required,
and where was displayed a dilapidated
notice that the place was for sale. It was
surrounded by a high wall, of ancient

young, and my heart, through weary years
of mourning over the dead, is attuned to
mirth. Moreover, the walls of my castle are
broken. The shadows are many, and the
wind breathes cold through the broken
battlements and casements. I love the
shade and the shadow, and would be alone
with my thoughts when I may." Somehow his
words and his look did not seem to accord,
or else it was that his cast of face made his
smile look malignant and saturnine.

Presently, with an excuse, he left me,
asking me to pull my papers together. He
was some little time away, and I began to
look at some of the books around me. One
was an atlas, which I found opened naturally
to England, as if that map had been much
used. On looking at it I found in certain
places little rings marked, and on examining
these I noticed that one was near London on
the east side, manifestly where his new
estate was situated. The other two were
Exeter, and Whitby on the Yorkshire coast.

It was the better part of an hour when the
Count returned. "Aha!" he said. "Still at your
books? Good! But you must not work
always. Come! I am informed that your
supper is ready." He took my arm, and we
went into the next room, where I found an
excellent supper ready on the table. The
Count again excused himself, as he had
dined out on his being away from home. But
he sat as on the previous night, and chatted
whilst I ate. After supper I smoked, as on the
last evening, and the Count stayed with me,
chatting and asking questions on every
conceivable subject, hour after hour. I felt
that it was getting very late indeed, but I did
not say anything, for I felt under obligation to
meet my host's wishes in every way. I was
not sleepy, as the long sleep yesterday had
fortified me, but I could not help
experiencing that chill which comes over
one at the coming of the dawn, which is like,

got up. I had hung my shaving glass by the
window, and was just beginning to shave.
Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder, and
heard the Count's voice saying to me,
"Good morning." I started, for it amazed me
that I had not seen him, since the reflection
of the glass covered the whole room behind
me. In starting I had cut myself slightly, but
did not notice it at the moment. Having
answered the Count's salutation, I turned to
the glass again to see how I had been
mistaken. This time there could be no error,
for the man was close to me, and I could
see him over my shoulder. But there was no
reflection of him in the mirror! The whole
room behind me was displayed, but there
was no sign of a man in it, except myself.

This was startling, and coming on the top of
so many strange things, was beginning to
increase that vague feeling of uneasiness
which I always have when the Count is near.
But at the instant I saw the the cut had bled a
little, and the blood was trickling over my
chin. I laid down the razor, turning as I did so
half round to look for some sticking plaster.
When the Count saw my face, his eyes
blazed with a sort of demoniac fury, and he
suddenly made a grab at my throat. I drew
away and his hand touched the string of
beads which held the crucifix. It made an
instant change in him, for the fury passed so
quickly that I could hardly believe that it was
ever there.

"Take care," he said, "take care how you cut
yourself. It is more dangerous that you think
in this country." Then seizing the shaving
glass, he went on, "And this is the wretched
thing that has done the mischief. It is a foul
bauble of man's vanity. Away with it!" And
opening the window with one wrench of his
terrible hand, he flung out the glass, which
was shattered into a thousand pieces on the
stones of the courtyard far below. Then he
withdrew without a word. It is very annoying,

however, the conviction had come to me
that I was helpless I sat down quietly, as
quietly as I have ever done anything in my
life, and began to think over what was best
to be done. I am thinking still, and as yet
have come to no definite conclusion. Of one
thing only am I certain. That it is no use
making my ideas known to the Count. He
knows well that I am imprisoned, and as he
has done it himself, and has doubtless his
own motives for it, he would only deceive
me if I trusted him fully with the facts. So far
as I can see, my only plan will be to keep my
knowledge and my fears to myself, and my
eyes open. I am, I know, either being
deceived, like a baby, by my own fears, or
else I am in desperate straits, and if the
latter be so, I need, and shall need, all my
brains to get through.

I had hardly come to this conclusion when I
heard the great door below shut, and knew
that the Count had returned. He did not
come at once into the library, so I went
cautiously to my own room and found him
making the bed. This was odd, but only
confirmed what I had all along thought, that
there are no servants in the house. When
later I saw him through the chink of the
hinges of the door laying the table in the
dining room, I was assured of it. For if he
does himself all these menial offices, surely
it is proof that there is no one else in the
castle, it must have been the Count himself
who was the driver of the coach that brought
me here. This is a terrible thought, for if so,
what does it mean that he could control the
wolves, as he did, by only holding up his
hand for silence? How was it that all the
people at Bistritz and on the coach had
some terrible fear for me? What meant the
giving of the crucifix, of the garlic, of the
wild rose, of the mountain ash?

Bless that good, good woman who hung the
crucifix round my neck! For it is a comfort

Iceland the fighting spirit which Thor and
Wodin game them, which their Berserkers
displayed to such fell intent on the
seaboards of Europe, aye, and of Asia and
Africa too, till the peoples thought that the
werewolves themselves had come. Here,
too, when they came, they found the Huns,
whose warlike fury had swept the earth like
a living flame, till the dying peoples held that
in their veins ran the blood of those old
witches, who, expelled from Scythia had
mated with the devils in the desert. Fools,
fools! What devil or what witch was ever so
great as Attila, whose blood is in these
veins?" He held up his arms. "Is it a wonder
that we were a conquering race, that we
were proud, that when the Magyar, the
Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar, or the Turk
poured his thousands on our frontiers, we
drove them back? Is it strange that when
Arpad and his legions swept through the
Hungarian fatherland he found us here
when he reached the frontier, that the
Honfoglalas was completed there?And
when the Hungarian flood swept eastward,
the Szekelys were claimed as kindred by
the victorious Magyars, and to us for
centuries was trusted the guarding of the
frontier of Turkeyland. Aye, and more than
that, endless duty of the frontier guard, for
as the Turks say, `water sleeps, and the
enemy is sleepless.' Who more gladly than
we throughout the Four Nations received
the `bloody sword,' or at its warlike call
flocked quicker to the standard of the King?
When was redeemed that great shame of
my nation, the shame of Cassova, when the
flags of the Wallach and the Magyar went
down beneath the Crescent?Who was it but
one of my own race who as Voivode
crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on
his own ground? This was a Dracula
indeed! Woe was it that his own unworthy
brother, when he had fallen, sold his people
to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery
on them! Was it not this Dracula, indeed,

Count's inquiries, so I shall try to put them
down in sequence. The knowledge may
somehow or some time be useful to me.

First, he asked if a man in England might
have two solicitors or more. I told him he
might have a dozen if he wished, but that it
would not be wise to have more than one
solicitor engaged in one transaction, as only
one could act at a time, and that to change
would be certain to militate against his
interest. He seemed thoroughly to
understand, and went on to ask if there
would be any practical difficulty in having
one man to attend, say, to banking, and
another to look after shipping, in case local
help were needed in a place far from the
home of the banking solicitor. I asked to
explain more fully, so that I might not by any
chance mislead him, so he said,

"I shall illustrate. Your friend and mine, Mr.
Peter Hawkins, from under the shadow of
your beautiful cathedral at Exeter, which is
far from London, buys for me through your
good self my place at London. Good! Now
here let me say frankly, lest you should think
it strange that I have sought the services of
one so far off from London instead of some
one resident there, that my motive was that
no local interest might be served save my
wish only, and as one of London residence
might, perhaps, have some purpose of
himself or friend to serve, I went thus afield
to seek my agent, whose labours should be
only to my interest. Now, suppose I, who
have much of affairs, wish to ship goods,
say, to Newcastle, or Durham, or Harwich,
or Dover, might it not be that it could with
more ease be done by consigning to one in
these ports?"

I answered that certainly it would be most
easy, but that we solicitors had a system of
agency one for the other, so that local work
could be done locally on instruction from any

for my heart grew cold at the thought.

"I desire it much, nay I will take no refusal.
When your master, employer, what you will,
engaged that someone should come on his
behalf, it was understood that my needs
only were to be consulted. I have not stinted.
Is it not so?"

What could I do but bow acceptance? It was
Mr. Hawkins' interest, not mine, and I had to
think of him, not myself, and besides, while
Count Dracula was speaking, there was
that in his eyes and in his bearing which
made me remember that I was a prisoner,
and that if I wished it I could have no choice.
The Count saw his victory in my bow, and
his mastery in the trouble of my face, for he
began at once to use them, but in his own
smooth, resistless way.

"I pray you, my good young friend, that you
will not discourse of things other than
business in your letters. It will doubtless
please your friends to know that you are
well, and that you look forward to getting
home to them. Is it not so?" As he spoke he
handed me three sheets of note paper and
three envelopes. They were all of the
thinnest foreign post, and looking at them,
then at him, and noticing his quiet smile,
with the sharp, canine teeth lying over the
red underlip, I understood as well as if he
had spoken that I should be more careful
what I wrote, for he would be able to read it.
So I determined to write only formal notes
now, but to write fully to Mr. Hawkins in
secret, and also to Mina, for to her I could
write shorthand, which would puzzle the
Count, if he did see it. When I had written my
two letters I sat quiet, reading a book whilst
the Count wrote several notes, referring as
he wrote them to some books on his table.
Then he took up my two and placed them
with his own, and put by his writing
materials, after which, the instant the door

not fear to sleep in any place where he is
not. I have placed the crucifix over the head
of my bed, I imagine that my rest is thus
freer from dreams, and there it shall remain.

When he left me I went to my room. After a
little while, not hearing any sound, I came
out and went up the stone stair to where I
could look out towards the South. There
was some sense of freedom in the vast
expanse, inaccessible though it was to me,
as compared with the narrow darkness of
the courtyard. Looking out on this, I felt that I
was indeed in prison, and I seemed to want
a breath of fresh air, though it were of the
night. I am beginning to feel this nocturnal
existence tell on me. It is destroying my
nerve. I start at my own shadow, and am full
of all sorts of horrible imaginings. God
knows that there is ground for my terrible
fear in this accursed place!I looked out over
the beautiful expanse, bathed in soft yellow
moonlight till it was almost as light as day. In
the soft light the distant hills became
melted, and the shadows in the valleys and
gorges of velvety blackness. The mere
beauty seemed to cheer me. There was
peace and comfort in every breath I drew.
As I leaned from the window my eye was
caught by something moving a storey below
me, and somewhat to my left, where I
imagined, from the order of the rooms, that
the windows of the Count's own room
would look out. The window at which I stood
was tall and deep, stone-mullioned, and
though weatherworn, was still complete.
But it was evidently many a day since the
case had been there. I drew back behind
the stonework, and looked carefully out.

What I saw was the Count's head coming
out from the window. I did not see the face,
but I knew the man by the neck and the
movement of his back and arms. In any
case I could not mistake the hands which I
had had some many opportunities of

great chains. But the door was locked, and
the key was gone! That key must be in the
Count's room. I must watch should his door
be unlocked, so that I may get it and
escape. I went on to make a thorough
examination of the various stairs and
passages, and to try the doors that opened
from them. One or two small rooms near the
hall were open, but there was nothing to see
in them except old furniture, dusty with age
and moth-eaten. At last, however, I found
one door at the top of the stairway which,
though it seemed locked, gave a little under
pressure. I tried it harder, and found that it
was not really locked, but that the resistance
came from the fact that the hinges had fallen
somewhat, and the heavy door rested on
the floor. Here was an opportunity which I
might not have again, so I exerted myself,
and with many efforts forced it back so that I
could enter. I was now in a wing of the castle
further to the right than the rooms I knew and
a storey lower down. From the windows I
could see that the suite of rooms lay along to
the south of the castle, the windows of the
end room looking out both west and south.
On the latter side, as well as to the former,
there was a great precipice. The castle was
built on the corner of a great rock, so that on
three sides it was quite impregnable, and
great windows were placed here where
sling, or bow, or culverin could not reach,
and consequently light and comfort,
impossible to a position which had to be
guarded, were secured. To the west was a
great valley, and then, rising far away, great
jagged mountain fastnesses, rising peak
on peak, the sheer rock studded with
mountain ash and thorn, whose roots clung
in cracks and crevices and crannies of the
stone. This was evidently the portion of the
castle occupied by the ladies in bygone
days, for the furniture had more an air of
comfort than any I had seen.

The windows were curtainless, and the

must end in its undoing, I turn to my diary for
repose. The habit of entering accurately
must help to soothe me.

The Count's mysterious warning frightened
me at the time. It frightens me more not
when I think of it, for in the future he has a
fearful hold upon me. I shall fear to doubt
what he may say!

When I had written in my diary and had
fortunately replaced the book and pen in my
pocket I felt sleepy. The Count's warning
came into my mind, but I took pleasure in
disobeying it. The sense of sleep was upon
me, and with it the obstinacy which sleep
brings as outrider. The soft moonlight
soothed, and the wide expanse without
gave a sense of freedom which refreshed
me. I determined not to return tonight to the
gloom-haunted rooms, but to sleep here,
where, of old, ladies had sat and sung and
lived sweet lives whilst their gentle breasts
were sad for their menfolk away in the midst
of remorseless wars. I drew a great couch
out of its place near the corner, so that as I
lay, I could look at the lovely view to east and
south, and unthinking of and uncaring for the
dust, composed myself for sleep. I suppose
I must have fallen asleep. I hope so, but I
fear, for all that followed was startlingly real,
so real that now sitting here in the broad, full
sunlight of the morning, I cannot in the least
believe that it was all sleep.

I was not alone. The room was the same,
unchanged in any way since I came into it. I
could see along the floor, in the brilliant
moonlight, my own footsteps marked where
I had disturbed the long accumulation of
dust. In the moonlight opposite me were
three young women, ladies by their dress
and manner. I thought at the time that I must
be dreaming when I saw them, they threw
no shadow on the floor. They came close to
me, and looked at me for some time, and

out and saw perfectly under the lashes. The
girl went on her knees, and bent over me,
simply gloating. There was a deliberate
voluptuousness which was both thrilling and
repulsive, and as she arched her neck she
actually licked her lips like an animal, till I
could see in the moonlight the moisture
shining on the scarlet lips and on the red
tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth.
Lower and lower went her head as the lips
went below the range of my mouth and chin
and seemed to fasten on my throat. Then
she paused, and I could hear the churning
sound of her tongue as it licked her teeth
and lips, and I could feel the hot breath on
my neck. Then the skin of my throat began to
tingle as one's flesh does when the hand
that is to tickle it approaches nearer, nearer.
I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the
lips on the super sensitive skin of my throat,
and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just
touching and pausing there. I closed my
eyes in languorous ecstasy and waited,
waited with beating heart.

But at that instant, another sensation swept
through me as quick as lightning. I was
conscious of the presence of the Count,
and of his being as if lapped in a storm of
fury. As my eyes opened involuntarily I saw
his strong hand grasp the slender neck of
the fair woman and with giant's power draw
it back, the blue eyes transformed with fury,
the white teeth champing with rage, and the
fair cheeks blazing red with passion. But the
Count! Never did I imagine such wrath and
fury, even to the demons of the pit. His eyes
were positively blazing. The red light in them
was lurid, as if the flames of hell fire blazed
behind them. His face was deathly pale,
and the lines of it were hard like drawn
wires. The thick eyebrows that met over the
nose now seemed like a heaving bar of
white-hot metal. With a fierce sweep of his
arm, he hurled the woman from him, and
then motioned to the others, as though he

the dim, shadowy forms for a moment
before they entirely faded away.

Then the horror overcame me, and I sank
down unconscious.

Chapter 4

Jonathan Harker's Journal Continued

I awoke in my own bed. If it be that I had not
dreamt, the Count must have carried me
here. I tried to satisfy myself on the subject,
but could not arrive at any unquestionable
result. To be sure, there were certain small
evidences, such as that my clothes were
folded and laid by in a manner which was
not my habit. My watch was still unwound,
and I am rigorously accustomed to wind it
the last thing before going to bed, and many
such details. But these things are no proof,
for they may have been evidences that my
mind was not as usual, and, for some cause
or another, I had certainly been much upset.
I must watch for proof. Of one thing I am
glad. If it was that the Count carried me here
and undressed me, he must have been
hurried in his task, for my pockets are intact.
I am sure this diary would have been a
mystery to him which he would not have
brooked. He would have taken or destroyed
it. As I look round this room, although it has
been to me so full of fear, it is now a sort of
sanctuary, for nothing can be more dreadful
than those awful women, who were, who
are, waiting to suck my blood.

18 May.--I have been down to look at that
room again in daylight, for I must know the
truth. When I got to the doorway at the top of
the stairs I found it closed. It had been so
forcibly driven against the jamb that part of
the woodwork was splintered. I could see
that the bolt of the lock had not been shot,
but the door is fastened from the inside. I
fear it was no dream, and must act on this

are gipsies. I have notes of them in my
book. They are peculiar to this part of the
world, though allied to the ordinary gipsies
all the world over. There are thousands of
them in Hungary and Transylvania, who are
almost outside all law. They attach
themselves as a rule to some great noble or
boyar, and call themselves by his name.
They are fearless and without religion, save
superstition, and they talk only their own
varieties of the Romany tongue.

I shall write some letters home, and shall try
to get them to have them posted. I have
already spoken to them through my window
to begin acquaintanceship. They took their
hats off and made obeisance and many
signs, which however, I could not
understand any more than I could their
spoken language . . .

I have written the letters. Mina's is in
shorthand, and I simply ask Mr. Hawkins to
communicate with her. To her I have
explained my situation, but without the
horrors which I may only surmise. It would
shock and frighten her to death were I to
expose my heart to her. Should the letters
not carry, then the Count shall not yet know
my secret or the extent of my knowledge . . .

I have given the letters. I threw them through
the bars of my window with a gold piece,
and made what signs I could to have them
posted. The man who took them pressed
them to his heart and bowed, and then put
them in his cap. I could do no more. I stole
back to the study, and began to read. As the
Count did not come in, I have written here . .
.

The Count has come. He sat down beside
me, and said in his smoothest voice as he
opened two letters, "The Szgany has given
me these, of which, though I know not
whence they come, I shall, of course, take

should get an opportunity, but again a
surprise, again a shock!

Every scrap of paper was gone, and with it
all my notes, my memoranda, relating to
railways and travel, my letter of credit, in
fact all that might be useful to me were I
once outside the castle. I sat and pondered
awhile, and then some thought occurred to
me, and I made search of my portmanteau
and in the wardrobe where I had placed my
clothes.

The suit in which I had travelled was gone,
and also my overcoat and rug. I could find no
trace of them anywhere. This looked like
some new scheme of villainy . . .

17 June.--This morning, as I was sitting on
the edge of my bed cudgelling my brains, I
heard without a crackling of whips and
pounding and scraping of horses' feet up
the rocky path beyond the courtyard. With
joy I hurried to the window, and saw drive
into the yard two great leiter-wagons, each
drawn by eight sturdy horses, and at the
head of each pair a Slovak, with his wide
hat, great nail-studded belt, dirty
sheepskin, and high boots. They had also
their long staves in hand. I ran to the door,
intending to descend and try and join them
through the main hall, as I thought that way
might be opened for them. Again a shock,
my door was fastened on the outside.

Then I ran to the window and cried to them.
They looked up at me stupidly and pointed,
but just then the "hetman" of the Szgany
came out, and seeing them pointing to my
window, said something, at which they
laughed.

Henceforth no effort of mine, no piteous cry
or agonized entreaty, would make them
even look at me. They resolutely turned
away. The leiter-wagons contained great,

and whilst I am shut up here, a veritable
prisoner, but without that protection of the
law which is even a criminal's right and
consolation.

I thought I would watch for the Count's
return, and for a long time sat doggedly at
the window. Then I began to notice that
there were some quaint little specks floating
in the rays of the moonlight. They were like
the tiniest grains of dust, and they whirled
round and gathered in clusters in a nebulous
sort of way. I watched them with a sense of
soothing, and a sort of calm stole over me. I
leaned back in the embrasure in a more
comfortable position, so that I could enjoy
more fully the aerial gambolling.

Something made me start up, a low,
piteous howling of dogs somewhere far
below in the valley, which was hidden from
my sight. Louder it seemed to ring in my
ears, and the floating moats of dust to take
new shapes to the sound as they danced in
the moonlight. I felt myself struggling to
awake to some call of my instincts. Nay, my
very soul was struggling, and my half-
remembered sensibilities were striving to
answer the call. I was becoming
hypnotised!

Quicker and quicker danced the dust. The
moonbeams seemed to quiver as they went
by me into the mass of gloom beyond. More
and more they gathered till they seemed to
take dim phantom shapes. And then I
started, broad awake and in full possession
of my senses, and ran screaming from the
place.

The phantom shapes, which were
becoming gradually materialised from the
moonbeams, were those three ghostly
women to whom I was doomed.

I fled, and felt somewhat safer in my own

There was no cry from the woman, and the
howling of the wolves was but short. Before
long they streamed away singly, licking their
lips.

I could not pity her, for I knew now what had
become of her child, and she was better
dead.

What shall I do? What can I do? How can I
escape from this dreadful thing of night,
gloom, and fear?

25 June.--No man knows till he has suffered
from the night how sweet and dear to his
heart and eye the morning can be. When the
sun grew so high this morning that it struck
the top of the great gateway opposite my
window, the high spot which it touched
seemed to me as if the dove from the ark
had lighted there. My fear fell from me as if it
had been a vaporous garment which
dissolved in the warmth.

I must take action of some sort whilst the
courage of the day is upon me. Last night
one of my post-dated letters went to post,
the first of that fatal series which is to blot
out the very traces of my existence from the
earth.

Let me not think of it. Action!

It has always been at night-time that I have
been molested or threatened, or in some
way in danger or in fear. I have not yet seen
the Count in the daylight. Can it be that he
sleeps when others wake, that he may be
awake whilst they sleep? If I could only get
into his room! But there is no possible way.
The door is always locked, no way for me.

Yes, there is a way, if one dares to take it.
Where his body has gone why may not
another body go? I have seen him myself
crawl from his window. Why should not I

Hungarian,and Greek and Turkish money,
covered with a film of dust, as though it had
lain long in the ground. None of it that I
noticed was less than three hundred years
old. There were also chains and ornaments,
some jewelled, but all of them old and
stained.

At one corner of the room was a heavy door.
I tried it, for, since I could not find the key of
the room or the key of the outer door, which
was the main object of my search, I must
make further examination, or all my efforts
would be in vain. It was open, and led
through a stone passage to a circular
stairway, which went steeply down.

I descended, minding carefully where I went
for the stairs were dark, being only lit by
loopholes in the heavy masonry. At the
bottom there was a dark, tunnel-like
passage, through which came a deathly,
sickly odour, the odour of old earth newly
turned. As I went through the passage the
smell grew closer and heavier. At last I
pulled open a heavy door which stood ajar,
and found myself in an old ruined chapel,
which had evidently been used as a
graveyard. The roof was broken, and in two
places were steps leading to vaults, but the
ground had recently been dug over, and the
earth placed in great wooden boxes,
manifestly those which had been brought by
the Slovaks.

There was nobody about, and I made a
search over every inch of the ground, so as
not to lose a chance. I went down even into
the vaults, where the dim light struggled,
although to do so was a dread to my very
soul. Into two of these I went, but saw
nothing except fragments of old coffins and
piles of dust. In the third, however, I made a
discovery.

There, in one of the great boxes, of which

be here, but all shall be ready for your
journey. In the morning come the Szgany,
who have some labours of their own here,
and also come some Slovaks. When they
have gone, my carriage shall come for you,
and shall bear you to the Borgo Pass to
meet the diligence from Bukovina to Bistritz.
But I am in hopes that I shall see more of you
at Castle Dracula."

I suspected him, and determined to test his
sincerity. Sincerity! It seems like a
profanation of the word to write it in
connection with such a monster, so I asked
him pointblank, "Why may I not go tonight?"

"Because, dear sir, my coachman and
horses are away on a mission."

"But I would walk with pleasure. I want to get
away at once."

He smiled, such a soft, smooth, diabolical
smile that I knew there was some trick
behind his smoothness. He said, "And your
baggage?"

"I do not care about it. I can send for it some
other time."

The Count stood up, and said, with a sweet
courtesy which made me rub my eyes, it
seemed so real, "You English have a saying
which is close to my heart, for its spirit is
that which rules our boyars, `Welcome the
coming, speed the parting guest.' Come
with me, my dear young friend. Not an hour
shall you wait in my house against your will,
though sad am I at your going, and that you
so suddenly desire it. Come!" With a stately
gravity, he, with the lamp, preceded me
down the stairs and along the hall. Suddenly
he stopped. "Hark!"

Close at hand came the howling of many
wolves. It was almost as if the sound sprang

down, I thought I heard a whispering at my
door. I went to it softly and listened. Unless
my ears deceived me, I heard the voice of
the Count.

"Back! Back to your own place! Your time is
not yet come. Wait! Have patience! Tonight
is mine. Tomorrow night is yours!"

There was a low, sweet ripple of laughter,
and in a rage I threw open the door, and
saw without the three terrible women licking
their lips. As I appeared, they all joined in a
horrible laugh, and ran away.

I came back to my room and threw myself
on my knees. It is then so near the end?
Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Lord, help me, and
those to whom I am dear!

30 June.--These may be the last words I
ever write in this diary. I slept till just before
the dawn, and when I woke threw myself on
my knees, for I determined that if Death
came he should find me ready.

At last I felt that subtle change in the air, and
knew that the morning had come. Then
came the welcome cock-crow, and I felt
that I was safe. With a glad heart, I opened
the door and ran down the hall. I had seen
that the door was unlocked, and now
escape was before me. With hands that
trembled with eagerness, I unhooked the
chains and threw back the massive bolts.

But the door would not move. Despair
seized me. I pulled and pulled at the door,
and shook it till, massive as it was, it rattled
in its casement. I could see the bolt shot. It
had been locked after I left the Count.

Then a wild desire took me to obtain the key
at any risk, and I determined then and there
to scale the wall again, and gain the Count's
room. He might kill me, but death now

centuries to come he might, amongst its
teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood,
and create a new and ever-widening circle
of semi-demons to batten on the helpless.

The very thought drove me mad. A terrible
desire came upon me to rid the world of
such a monster. There was no lethal
weapon at hand, but I seized a shovel which
the workmen had been using to fill the
cases, and lifting it high, struck, with the
edge downward, at the hateful face. But as I
did so the head turned, and the eyes fell
upon me, with all their blaze of basilisk
horror. The sight seemed to paralyze me,
and the shovel turned in my hand and
glanced from the face, merely making a
deep gash above the forehead. The shovel
fell from my hand across the box, and as I
pulled it away the flange of the blade caught
the edge of the lid which fell over again, and
hid the horrid thing from my sight. The last
glimpse I had was of the bloated face,
blood-stained and fixed with a grin of
malice which would have held its own in the
nethermost hell. I thought and thought what
should be my next move, but my brain
seemed on fire, and I waited with a
despairing feeling growing over me. As I
waited I heard in the distance a gipsy song
sung by merry voices coming closer, and
through their song the rolling of heavy
wheels and the cracking of whips. The
Szgany and the Slovaks of whom the Count
had spoken were coming. With a last look
around and at the box which contained the
vile body, I ran from the place and gained
the Count's room, determined to rush out at
the moment the door should be opened.
With strained ears, I listened, and heard
downstairs the grinding of the key in the
great lock and the falling back of the heavy
door. There must have been some other
means of entry, or some one had a key for
one of the locked doors.

quickest and nearest train! Away from the
cursed spot, from this cursed land, where
the devil and his children still walk with
earthly feet!

At least God's mercy is better than that of
those monsters, and the precipice is steep
and high. At its foot a man may sleep, as a
man. Goodbye, all. Mina!

Chapter 5

LETTER FROM MISS MINA MURRAY TO
MISS LUCY WESTENRA

9 May.

My dearest Lucy,

Forgive my long delay in writing, but I have
been simply overwhelmed with work. The
life of an assistant schoolmistress is
sometimes trying. I am longing to be with
you, and by the sea, where we can talk
together freely and build our castles in the
air. I have been working very hard lately,
because I want to keep up with Jonathan's
studies, and I have been practicing
shorthand very assiduously. When we are
married I shall be able to be useful to
Jonathan, and if I can stenograph well
enough I can take down what he wants to
say in this way and write it out for him on the
typewriter, at which also I am practicing very
hard.

He and I sometimes write letters in
shorthand, and he is keeping a
stenographic journal of his travels abroad.
When I am with you I shall keep a diary in the
same way. I don't mean one of those two-
pages-to-the-week-with-Sunday-
squeezed-in-a-corner diaries, but a sort of
journal which I can write in whenever I feel
inclined.

walks and rides in the park. As to the tall,
curly-haired man, I suppose it was the one
who was with me at the last Pop. Someone
has evidently been telling tales.

That was Mr. Holmwood. He often comes to
see us, and he and Mamma get on very well
together, they have so many things to talk
about in common.

We met some time ago a man that would
just do for you, if you were not already
engaged to Jonathan. He is an excellant
parti, being handsome, well off, and of
good birth. He is a doctor and really clever.
Just fancy! He is only nine-and twenty, and
he has an immense lunatic asylum all under
his own care. Mr. Holmwood introduced him
to me, and he called here to see us, and
often comes now. I think he is one of the
most resolute men I ever saw, and yet the
most calm. He seems absolutely
imperturbable. I can fancy what a wonderful
power he must have over his patients. He
has a curious habit of looking one straight in
the face, as if trying to read one's thoughts.
He tries this on very much with me, but I
flatter myself he has got a tough nut to crack.
I know that from my glass.

Do you ever try to read your own face? I do,
and I can tell you it is not a bad study, and
gives you more trouble than you can well
fancy if you have never tried it.

He say that I afford him a curious
psychological study, and I humbly think I do. I
do not, as you know, take sufficient interest
in dress to be able to describe the new
fashions. Dress is a bore. That is slang
again, but never mind. Arthur says that every
day.

There, it is all out, Mina, we have told all our
secrets to each other since we were
children. We have slept together and eaten

if in their very first day at home they did not
get six at least. Some girls are so vain! You
and I, Mina dear, who are engaged and are
going to settle down soon soberly into old
married women, can despise vanity. Well, I
must tell you about the three, but you must
keep it a secret, dear, from every one
except, of course, Jonathan. You will tell
him, because I would, if I were in your place,
certainly tell Arthur. A woman ought to tell
her husband everything. Don't you think so,
dear? And I must be fair. Men like women,
certainly their wives, to be quite as fair as
they are. And women, I am afraid, are not
always quite as fair as they should be.

Well, my dear, number One came just
before lunch. I told you of him, Dr. John
Seward, the lunatic asylum man, with the
strong jaw and the good forehead. He was
very cool outwardly, but was nervous all the
same. He had evidently been schooling
himself as to all sorts of little things, and
remembered them, but he almost managed
to sit down on his silk hat, which men don't
generally do when they are cool, and then
when he wanted to appear at ease he kept
playing with a lancet in a way that made me
nearly scream. He spoke to me, Mina, very
straightfordwardly. He told me how dear I
was to him, though he had known me so
little, and what his life would be with me to
help and cheer him. He was going to tell me
how unhappy he would be if I did not care
for him, but when he saw me cry he said he
was a brute and would not add to my
present trouble. Then he broke off and
asked if I could love him in time, and when I
shook my head his hands trembled, and
then with some hesitation he asked me if I
cared already for any one else. He put it very
nicely, saying that he did not want to wring
my confidence from me, but only to know,
because if a woman's heart was free a man
might have hope. And then, Mina, I felt a sort
of duty to tell him that there was some one. I

chance, and I helping him all I could, I am not
ashamed to say it now. I must tell you
beforehand that Mr. Morris doesn't always
speak slang, that is to say, he never does
so to strangers or before them, for he is
really well educated and has exquisite
manners, but he found out that it amused
me to hear him talk American slang, and
whenever I was present, and there was no
one to be shocked, he said such funny
things. I am afraid, my dear, he has to invent
it all, for it fits exactly into whatever else he
has to say. But this is a way slang has. I do
not know myself if I shall ever speak slang. I
do not know if Arthur likes it, as I have never
heard him use any as yet.

Well, Mr. Morris sat down beside me and
looked as happy and jolly as he could, but I
could see all the same that he was very
nervous. He took my hand in his, and said
ever so sweetly . . .

"Miss Lucy, I know I ain't good enough to
regulate the fixin's of your little shoes, but I
guess if you wait till you find a man that is
you will go join them seven young women
with the lamps when you quit. Won't you just
hitch up along-side of me and let us go
down the long road together, driving in
double harness?"

Well, he did look so hood humoured and so
jolly that it didn't seem half so hard to refuse
him as it did poor Dr. Seward. So I said, as
lightly as I could, that I did not know anything
of hitching, and that I wasn't broken to
harness at all yet. Then he said that he had
spoken in a light manner, and he hoped that
if he had made a mistake in doing so on so
grave, so momentous, and occasion for
him, I would forgive him. He really did look
serious when he was saying it, and I
couldn't help feeling a sort of exultation that
he was number Two in one day. And then,
my dear, before I could say a word he

cry, my dear. If it's for me, I'm a hard nut to
crack, and I take it standing up. If that other
fellow doesn't know his happiness, well,
he'd better look for it soon, or he'll have to
deal with me. Little girl, your honesty and
pluck have made me a friend, and that's
rarer than a lover, it's more selfish anyhow.
My dear, I'm going to have a pretty lonely
walk between this and Kingdom Come.
Won't you give me one kiss? It'll be
something to keep off the darkness now
and then. You can, you know, if you like, for
that other good fellow, or you could not love
him, hasn't spoken yet."

That quite won me, Mina, for it was brave
and sweet of him, and noble too, to a rival,
wasn't it? And he so sad, so I leant over and
kissed him.

He stood up with my two hands in his, and
as he looked down into my face, I am afraid
I was blushing very much, he said, "Little
girl, I hold your hand, and you've kissed me,
and if these things don't make us friends
nothing ever will. Thank you for your sweet
honesty to me, and goodbye." He wrung my
hand, and taking up his hat, went straight
out of the room without looking back,
without a tear or a quiver or a pause, and I
am crying like a baby.

Oh, why must a man like that be made
unhappy when there are lots of girls about
who would worship the very ground he trod
on? I know I would if I were free, only I don't
want to be free My dear, this quite upset
me, and I feel I cannot write of happiness
just at once, after telling you of it, and I don't
wish to tell of the number Three until it can
be all happy. Ever your loving . . . Lucy

P. S.--Oh, about number Three, I needn't
tell you of number Three, need I? Besides, it
was all so confused. It seemed only a
moment from his coming into the room till

ending in some fixed idea which I cannot
make out. I presume that the sanguine
temperament itself and the disturbing
influence end in a mentally-accomplished
finish, a possibly dangerous man, probably
dangerous if unselfish. In selfish men
caution is as secure an armour for their foes
as for themselves. What I think of on this
point is, when self is the fixed point the
centripetal force is balanced with the
centrifugal. When duty, a cause, etc., is the
fixed point, the latter force is paramount,
and only accident of a series of accidents
can balance it.

LETTER, QUINCEY P. MORRIS TO HON.
ARTHUR HOLMOOD

25 May.

My dear Art,

We've told yarns by the campfire in the
prairies, and dressed one another's
wounds after trying a landing at the
Marquesas, and drunk healths on the shore
of Titicaca. There are more yarns to be told,
and other wounds to be healed, and another
health to be drunk. Won't you let this be at my
campfire tomorrow night? I have no
hesitation in asking you, as I know a certain
lady is engaged to a certain dinner party,
and that you are free. There will only be one
other, our old pal at the Korea, Jack
Seward. He's coming, too, and we both
want to mingle our weeps over the wine
cup, and to drink a health with all our hearts
to the happiest man in all the wide world,
who has won the noblest heart that God has
made and best worth winning. We promise
you a hearty welcome, and a loving
greeting, and a health as true as your own
right hand. We shall both swear to leave you
at home if you drink too deep to a certain
pair of eyes. Come!

headland called Kettleness stretches out
into the sea. It descends so steeply over the
harbour that part of the bank has fallen
away, and some of the graves have been
destroyed.

In one place part of the stonework of the
graves stretches out over the sandy
pathway far below. There are walks, with
seats beside them, through the churchyard,
and people go and sit there all day long
looking at the beautiful view and enjoying
the breeze.

I shall come and sit here often myself and
work. Indeed, I am writing now, with my
book on my knee, and listening to the talk of
three old men who are sitting beside me.
They seem to do nothing all day but sit here
and talk.

The harbour lies below me, with, on the far
side, one long granite wall stretching out
into the sea, with a curve outwards at the
end of it, in the middle of which is a
lighthouse. A heavy seawall runs along
outside of it. On the near side, the seawall
makes an elbow crooked inversely, and its
end too has a lighthouse. Between the two
piers there is a narrow opening into the
harbour, which then suddenly widens.

It is nice at high water, but when the tide is
out it shoals away to nothing, and there is
merely the stream of the Esk, running
between banks of sand, with rocks here
and there. Outside the harbour on this side
there rises for about half a mile a great reef,
the sharp of which runs straight out from
behind the south lighthouse. At the end of it
is a buoy with a bell, which swings in bad
weather, and sends in a mournful sound on
the wind.

They have a legend here that when a ship is
lost bells are heard out at sea. I must ask the

know how many, and they wind up in a
delicate curve. The slope is so gentle that a
horse could easily walk up and down them. I
think they must originally have had
something to do with the abbey. I shall go
home too. Lucy went out, visiting with her
mother, and as they were only duty calls, I
did not go.

1 August.--I came up here an hour ago with
Lucy, and we had a most interesting talk
with my old friend and the two others who
always come and join him. He is evidently
the Sir Oracle of them, and I should think
must have been in his time a most
dictatorial person.

He will not admit anything, and down faces
everybody. If he can't out-argue them he
bullies them, and then takes their silence for
agreement with his views.

Lucy was looking sweetly pretty in her white
lawn frock. She has got a beautiful colour
since she has been here.

I noticed that the old men did not lose any
time in coming and sitting near her when we
sat down. She is so sweet with old people, I
think they all fell in love with her on the spot.
Even my old man succumbed and did not
contradict her, but gave me double share
instead. I got him on the subject of the
legends , and he went off at once into a sort
of sermon. I must try to remember it and put
it down.

"It be all fool-talk, lock, stock, and barrel,
that's what it be and nowt else. These bans
an' wafts an' boh-ghosts an' bar-guests
an' bogles an' all anent them is only fit to set
bairns an' dizzy women a'belderin'. They
be nowt but air-blebs. They, an' all grims
an' signs an' warnin's, be all invented by
parsons an' illsome berk-bodies an'
railway touters to skeer an' scunner

church.

He went on, "And you consate that all these
steans be aboon folk that be haped here,
snod an' snog?" I assented again. "Then
that be just where the lie comes in. Why,
there be scores of these laybeds that be
toom as old Dun's `baccabox on Friday
night."

He nudged one of his companions, and they
all laughed. "And, my gog! How could they
be otherwise? Look at that one, the aftest
abaft the bier-bank, read it!"

I went over and read, "Edward Spencelagh,
master mariner, murdered by pirates off the
coast of Andres, April, 1854, age 30." When I
came back Mr. Swales went on,

"Who brought him home, I wonder, to hap
him here? Murdered off the coast of
Andres! An' you consated his body lay
under! Why, I could name ye a dozen whose
bones lie in the Greenland seas above," he
pointed northwards, "or where the currants
may have drifted them. There be the steans
around ye. Ye can, with your young eyes,
read the small print of the lies from here.
This Braithwaite Lowery, I knew his father,
lost in the Lively off Greenland in `20, or
Andrew Woodhouse, drowned in the same
seas in 1777, or John Paxton, drowned off
Cape Farewell a year later, or old John
Rawlings, whose grandfather sailed with
me, drowned in the Gulf of Finland in `50. Do
ye think that all these men will have to make
a rush to Whitby when the trumpet sounds? I
have me antherums aboot it! I tell ye that
when they got here they'd be jommlin' and
jostlin' one another that way that it `ud be
like a fight up on the ice in the old days,
when we'd be at one another from daylight
to dark, an' tryin' to tie up our cuts by the
aurora borealis." This was evidently local
pleasantry, for the old man cackled over it,

nigh the top of his head off with an old
musket that they had for scarin' crows with.
`twarn't for crows then, for it brought the
clegs and the dowps to him. That's the way
he fell off the rocks. And, as to hopes of a
glorious resurrection, I've often heard him
say masel' that he hoped he'd go to hell, for
his mother was so pious that she'd be sure
to go to heaven, an' he didn't want to addle
where she was. Now isn't that stean at any
rate,"he hammered it with his stick as he
spoke, "a pack of lies? And won't it make
Gabriel keckle when Geordie comes
pantin' ut the grees with the tompstean
balanced on his hump, and asks to be took
as evidence!"

I did not know what to say, but Lucy turned
the conversation as she said, rising up, "Oh,
why did you tell us of this? It is my favorite
seat, and I cannot leave it, and now I find I
must go on sitting over the grave of a
suicide."

"That won't harm ye, my pretty, an' it may
make poor Geordie gladsome to have so
trim a lass sittin' on his lap. That won't hurt
ye. Why, I've sat here off an' on for nigh
twenty years past, an' it hasn't done me no
harm. Don't ye fash about them as lies
under ye, or that doesn' lie there either! It'll
be time for ye to be getting scart when ye
see the tombsteans all run away with, and
the place as bare as a stubble-field.
There's the clock, and'I must gang. My
service to ye, ladies!" And off he hobbled.

Lucy and I sat awhile, and it was all so
beautiful before us that we took hands as
we sat, and she told me all over again about
Arthur and their coming marriage. That
made me just a little heart-sick, for I haven't
heard from Jonathan for a whole month.

The same day. I came up here alone, for I
am very sad. There was no letter for me. I

18 June.--He has turned his mind now to
spiders, and has got several very big
fellows in a box. He keeps feeding them his
flies, and the number of the latter is
becoming sensibly diminished, although he
has used half his food in attracting more
flies from outside to his room.

1 July.--His spiders are now becoming as
great a nuisance as his flies, and today I told
him that he must get rid of them.

He looked very sad at this, so I said that he
must some of them, at all events. He
cheerfully acquiesced in this, and I gave him
the same time as before for reduction.

He disgusted me much while with him, for
when a horrid blowfly, bloated with some
carrion food, buzzed into the room, he
caught it, held it exultantly for a few
moments between his finger and thumb,
and before I knew what he was going to do,
put it in his mouth and ate it.

I scolded him for it, but he argued quietly
that it was very good and very wholesome,
that it was life, strong life, and gave life to
him. This gave me an idea, or the rudiment
of one. I must watch how he gets rid of his
spiders.

He has evidently some deep problem in his
mind, for he keeps a little notebook in which
he is always jotting down something. whole
pages of it are filled with masses of figures,
generally single numbers added up in
batches, and then the totals added in
batches again, as though he were
focussing some account, as the auditors
put it.

8 July.--There is a method in his madness,
and the rudimentary idea in my mind is
growing. It will be a whole idea soon, and
then, oh, unconscious cerebration, you will

feared it would not be possible, but that I
would see about it. His face fell, and I could
see a warning of danger in it, for there was
a sudden fierce, sidelong look which meant
killing. The man is an undeveloped
homicidal maniac. I shall test him with his
present craving and see how it will work out,
then I shall know more.

10 pm.--I have visited him again and found
him sitting in a corner brooding. When I
came in he threw himself on his knees
before me and implored me to let him have
a cat, that his salvation depended upon it.

I was firm, however, and told him that he
could not have it, whereupon he went
without a word, and sat down, gnawing his
fingers, in the corner where I had found him.
I shall see him in the morning early.

20 July.--Visited Renfield very early, before
attendant went his rounds. Found him up
and humming a tune. He was spreading out
his sugar, which he had saved, in the
window, and was manifestly beginning his
fly catching again, and beginning it
cheerfully and with a good grace.

I looked around for his birds, and not seeing
them,asked him where they were. He
replied, without turning round, that they had
all flown away. There were a few feathers
about the room and on his pillow a drop of
blood. I said nothing, but went and told the
keeper to report to me if there were
anything odd about him during the day.

11 am.--The attendant has just been to see
me to say that Renfield has been very sick
and has disgorged a whole lot of feathers.
"My belief is, doctor," he said, "that he has
eaten his birds, and that he just took and
ate them raw!"

11 pm.--I gave Renfield a strong opiate

whole life ended with my new hope, and
that truly I began a new record. So it shall be
until the Great Recorder sums me up and
closes my ledger account with a balance to
profit or loss.

Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot be angry with you,
nor can I be angry with my friend whose
happiness is yours, but I must only wait on
hopeless and work. Work! Work!

If I could have as strong a cause as my poor
mad friend there, a good, unselfish cause
to make me work, that would be indeed
happiness.

MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL

26 July.--I am anxious, and it soothes me to
express myself here. It is like whispering to
one's self and listening at the same time.
And there is also something about the
shorthand symbols that makes it different
from writing. I am unhappy about Lucy and
about Jonathan. I had not heard from
Jonathan for some time, and was very
concerned, but yesterday dear Mr.
Hawkins, who is always so kind, sent me a
letter from him. I had written asking him if he
had heard, and he said the enclosed had
just been received. It is only a line dated
from Castle Dracula, and says that he is
just starting for home. That is not like
Jonathan. I do not understand it, and it
makes me uneasy.

Then, too, Lucy , although she is so well,
has lately taken to her old habit of walking in
her sleep. Her mother has spoken to me
about it, and we have decided that I am to
lock the door of our room every night.

Mrs. Westenra has got an idea that sleep-
walkers always go out on roofs of houses
and along the edges of cliffs and then get
suddenly wakened and fall over with a

him, but it does not touch her looks. She is a
trifle stouter, and her cheeks are a lovely
rose-pink. She has lost the anemic look
which she had. I pray it will all last.

3 August.--Another week gone by, and no
news from Jonathan, not even to Mr.
Hawkins, from whom I have heard. Oh, I do
hope he is not ill. He surely would have
written. I look at that last letter of his, but
somehow it does not satisfy me. It does not
read like him, and yet it is his writing. There
is no mistake of that.

Lucy has not walked much in her sleep the
last week, but there is an odd concentration
about her which I do not understand, even in
her sleep she seems to be watching me.
She tries the door, and finding it locked,
goes about the room searching for the key.

6 August.--Another three days, and no
news. This suspense is getting dreadful. If I
only knew where to write to or where to go
to, I should feel easier. But no one has
heard a word of Jonathan since that last
letter. I must only pray to God for patience.

Lucy is more excitable than ever, but is
otherwise well. Last night was very
threatening, and the fishermen say that we
are in for a storm. I must try to watch it and
learn the weather signs.

Today is a gray day, and the sun as I write is
hidden in thick clouds, high over Kettleness.
Everything is gray except the green grass,
which seems like emerald amongst it, gray
earthy rock, gray clouds, tinged with the
sunburst at the far edge, hang over the gray
sea, into which the sandpoints stretch like
gray figures. The sea is tumbling in over the
shallows and the sandy flats with a roar,
muffled in the sea-mists drifting inland. The
horizon is lost in a gray mist. All vastness,
the clouds are piled up like giant rocks, and

somethin' else than what we're doin', and
death be all that we can rightly depend on.
But I'm content, for it's comin' to me, my
deary, and comin' quick. It may be comin'
while we be lookin' and wonderin'. Maybe
it's in that wind out over the sea that's
bringin' with it loss and wreck, and sore
distress, and sad hearts. Look! Look!" he
cried suddenly. "There's something in that
wind and in the hoast beyont that sounds,
and looks, and tastes, and smells like
death. It's in the air. I feel it comin'. Lord,
make me answer cheerful, when my call
comes!" He held up his arms devoutly, and
raised his hat. His mouth moved as though
he were praying. After a few minutes'
silence, he got up, shook hands with me,
and blessed me, and said good-bye, and
hobbled off. It all touched me, and upset me
very much.

I was glad when the coastguard came
along, with his spyglass under his arm. He
stopped to talk with me, as he always does,
but all the time kept looking at a strange
ship.

"I can't make her out," he said. "She's a
Russian, by the look of her. But she's
knocking about in the queerest way. She
doesn't know her mind a bit. She seems to
see the storm coming, but can't decide
whether to run up north in the open, or to put
in here. Look there again! She is steered
mighty strangely, for she doesn't mind the
hand on the wheel, changes about with
every puff of wind. We'll hear more of her
before this time tomorrow."

Chapter 7

CUTTING FROM "THE DAILYGRAPH," 8
AUGUST

(PASTED IN MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL)

there masses not large, but of seemingly
absolute blackness, in all sorts of shapes,
as well outlined as colossal silhouettes. The
experience was not lost on the painters, and
doubtless some of the sketches of the
`Prelude to the Great Storm' will grace the
R. A and R. I. walls in May next.

More than one captain made up his mind
then and there that his `cobble' or his
`mule', as they term the different classes of
boats, would remain in the harbour till the
storm had passed. The wind fell away
entirely during the evening, and at midnight
there was a dead calm, a sultry heat, and
that prevailing intensity which, on the
approach of thunder, affects persons of a
sensitive nature.

There were but few lights in sight at sea, for
even the coasting steamers, which usually
hug the shore so closely, kept well to
seaward, and but few fishing boats were in
sight. The only sail noticeable was a foreign
schooner with all sails set, which was
seemingly going westwards. The
foolhardiness or ignorance of her officers
was a prolific theme for comment whilst she
remained in sight, and efforts were made to
signal her to reduce sail in the face of her
danger. Before the night shut down she was
seen with sails idly flapping as she gently
rolled on the undulating swell of the sea.

"As idle as a painted ship upon a painted
ocean."

Shortly before ten o'clock the stillness of the
air grew quite oppressive, and the silence
was so marked that the bleating of a sheep
inland or the barking of a dog in the town
was distinctly heard, and the band on the
pier, with its lively French air, was like a
dischord in the great harmony of nature's
silence. A little after midnight came a
strange sound from over the sea, and high

immeasurable grandeur and of absorbing
interest. The sea, running mountains high,
threw skywards with each wave mighty
masses of white foam, which the tempest
seemed to snatch at and whirl away into
space. Here and there a fishing boat, with a
rag of sail, running madly for shelter before
the blast, now and again the white wings of
a storm-tossed seabird. On the summit of
the East Cliff the new searchlight was ready
for experiment, but had not yet been tried.
The officers in charge of it got it into
working order, and in the pauses of
onrushing mist swept with it the surface of
the sea. Once or twice its service was most
effective, as when a fishing boat, with
gunwale under water, rushed into the
harbour, able, by the guidance of the
sheltering light, to avoid the danger of
dashing against the piers. As each boat
achieved the safety of the port there was a
shout of joy from the mass of people on the
shore, a shout which for a moment seemed
to cleave the gale and was then swept away
in its rush.

Before long the searchlight discovered
some distance away a schooner with all
sails set, apparently the same vessel which
had been noticed earlier in the evening. The
wind had by this time backed to the east,
and there was a shudder amongst the
watchers on the cliff as they realized the
terrible danger in which she now was.

Between her and the port lay the great flat
reef on which so many good ships have
from time to time suffered, and, with the
wind blowing from its present quarter, it
would be quite impossible that she should
fetch the entrance of the harbour.

It was now nearly the hour of high tide, but
the waves were so great that in their troughs
the shallows of the shore were almost
visible, and the schooner, with all sails set,

came crashing down. But, strangest of all,
the very instant the shore was touched, an
immense dog sprang up on deck from
below, as if shot up by the concussion, and
running forward, jumped from the bow on
the sand.

Making straight for the steep cliff, where the
churchyard hangs over the laneway to the
East Pier so steeply that some of the flat
tombstones, thruffsteans or through-
stones, as they call them in Whitby
vernacular, actually project over where the
sustaining cliff has fallen away, it
disappeared in the darkness, which
seemed intensified just beyond the focus of
the searchlight.

It so happened that there was no one at the
moment on Tate Hill Pier, as all those
whose houses are in close proximity were
either in bed or were out on the heights
above. Thus the coastguard on duty on the
eastern side of the harbour, who at once ran
down to the little pier, was the first to climb
aboard. The men working the searchlight,
after scouring the entrance of the harbour
without seeing anything, then turned the light
on the derelict and kept it there. The
coastguard ran aft, and when he came
beside the wheel, bent over to examine it,
and recoiled at once as though under some
sudden emotion. This seemed to pique
general curiosity, and quite a number of
people began to run.

It is a good way round from the West Cliff by
the Drawbridge to Tate Hill Pier, but your
correspondent is a fairly good runner, and
came well ahead of the crowd. When I
arrived, however, I found already
assembled on the pier a crowd, whom the
coastguard and police refused to allow to
come on board. By the courtesy of the chief
boatman, I was, as your correspondent,
permitted to climb on deck, and was one of

It is needless to say that the dead
steersman has been reverently removed
from the place where he held his
honourable watch and ward till death, a
steadfastness as noble as that of the young
Casabianca, and placed in the mortuary to
await inquest.

Already the sudden storm is passing, and
its fierceness is abating. Crowds are
scattering backward, and the sky is
beginning to redden over the Yorkshire
wolds.

I shall send, in time for your next issue,
further details of the derelict ship which
found her way so miraculously into harbour
in the storm.

9 August.--The sequel to the strange arrival
of the derelict in the storm last night is
almost more startling than the thing itself. It
turns out that the schooner is Russian from
Varna, and is called the Demeter. She is
almost entirely in ballast of silver sand, with
only a small amount of cargo, a number of
great wooden boxes filled with mould.

This cargo was consigned to a Whitby
solicitor, Mr. S. F. Billington, of 7, The
Crescent, who this morning went aboard
and took formal possession of the goods
consigned to him.

The Russian consul, too, acting for the
charter-party, took formal possession of
the ship, and paid all harbour dues, etc.

Nothing is talked about here today except
the strange coincidence. The officials of the
Board of Trade have been most exacting in
seeing that every compliance has been
made with existing regulations. As the
matter is to be a `nine days wonder', they
are evidently determined that there shall be
no cause of other complaint.

course my statement must be taken cum
grano, since I am writing from the dictation
of a clerk of the Russian consul, who kindly
translated for me, time being short.

LOG OF THE "DEMETER" Varna to Whitby

Written 18 July, things so strange happening,
that I shall keep accurate note henceforth till
we land.

On 6 July we finished taking in cargo, silver
sand and boxes of earth. At noon set sail.
East wind, fresh. Crew, five hands . . . two
mates, cook, and myself, (captain).

On 11 July at dawn entered Bosphorus.
Boarded by Turkish Customs officers.
Backsheesh. All correct. Under way at 4 p.
m.

On 12 July through Dardanelles. More
Customs officers and flagboat of guarding
squadron. Backsheesh again. Work of
officers thorough, but quick. Want us off
soon. At dark passed into Archipelago.

On 13 July passed Cape Matapan. Crew
dissatisfied about something. Seemed
scared, but would not speak out.

On 14 July was somewhat anxious about
crew. Men all steady fellows, who sailed
with me before. Mate could not make out
what was wrong. They only told him there
was SOME THING, and crossed
themselves. Mate lost temper with one of
them that day and struck him. Expected
fierce quarrel, but all was quiet.

On 16 July mate reported in the morning that
one of the crew, Petrofsky, was missing.
Could not account for it. Took larboard
watch eight bells last night, was relieved by
Amramoff, but did not go to bunk. Men more
downcast than ever. All said they expected

24 July.--There seems some doom over this
ship. Already a hand short, and entering the
Bay of Biscay with wild weather ahead, and
yet last night another man lost,
disappeared. Like the first, he came off his
watch and was not seen again. Men all in a
panic of fear, sent a round robin, asking to
have double watch, as they fear to be alone.
Mate angry. Fear there will be some trouble,
as either he or the men will do some
violence.

28 July.--Four days in hell, knocking about in
a sort of malestrom, and the wind a
tempest. No sleep for any one. Men all worn
out. Hardly know how to set a watch, since
no one fit to go on. Second mate
volunteered to steer and watch, and let men
snatch a few hours sleep. Wind abating,
seas still terrific, but feel them less, as ship
is steadier.

29 July.--Another tragedy. Had single watch
tonight, as crew too tired to double. When
morning watch came on deck could find no
one except steersman. Raised outcry, and
all came on deck. Thorough search, but no
one found. Are now without second mate,
and crew in a panic. Mate and I agreed to
go armed henceforth and wait for any sign
of cause.

30 July.--Last night. Rejoiced we are
nearing England. Weather fine, all sails set.
Retired worn out, slept soundly, awakened
by mate telling me that both man of watch
and steersman missing. Only self and mate
and two hands left to work ship.

1 August.--Two days of fog, and not a sail
sighted. Had hoped when in the English
Channel to be able to signal for help or get
in somewhere. Not having power to work
sails, have to run before wind. Dare not
lower, as could not raise them again. We
seem to be drifting to some terrible doom.

deck again with a tool chest and lantern,
and go down the forward hatchway. He is
mad, stark, raving mad, and it's no use my
trying to stop him. He can't hurt those big
boxes, they are invoiced as clay, and to pull
them about is as harmless a thing as he can
do. So here I stay and mind the helm, and
write these notes. I can only trust in God and
wait till the fog clears. Then, if I can't steer to
any harbour with the wind that is, I shall cut
down sails, and lie by, and signal for help . .
.

It is nearly all over now. Just as I was
beginning to hope that the mate would
come out calmer, for I heard him knocking
away at something in the hold, and work is
good for him, there came up the hatchway a
sudden, startled scream, which made my
blood run cold, and up on the deck he came
as if shot from a gun, a raging madman,
with his eyes rolling and his face convulsed
with fear. "Save me! Save me!" he cried,
and then looked round on the blanket of fog.
His horror turned to despair, and in a steady
voice he said,"You had better come too,
captain, before it is too late. He is there! I
know the secret now. The sea will save me
from Him, and it is all that is left!" Before I
could say a word, or move forward to seize
him, he sprang on the bulwark and
deliberately threw himself into the sea. I
suppose I know the secret too, now. It was
this madman who had got rid of the men
one by one, and now he has followed them
himself. God help me! How am I to account
for all these horrors when I get to port? When
I get to port! Will that ever be?

4 August.--Still fog, which the sunrise
cannot pierce, I know there is sunrise
because I am a sailor, why else I know not. I
dared not go below, I dared not leave the
helm, so here all night I stayed, and in the
dimness of the night I saw it, Him! God,
forgive me, but the mate was right to jump

fearful, and as it boomed loudly among the
chimney pots, it made me shudder. When a
sharp puff came it seemed to be like a
distant gun. Strangely enough, Lucy did not
wake, but she got up twice and dressed
herself. Fortunately, each time I awoke in
time and managed to undress her without
waking her, and got her back to bed. It is a
very strange thing, this sleep-walking, for
as soon as her will is thwarted in any
physical way, her intention, if there be any,
disappears, and she yields herself almost
exactly to the routine of her life.

Early in the morning we both got up and
went down to the harbour to see if anything
had happened in the night. There were very
few people about, and though the sun was
bright, and the air clear and fresh, the big,
grim-looking waves, that seemed dark
themselves because the foam that topped
them was like snow, forced themselves in
through the mouth of the harbour, like a
bullying man going through a crowd.
Somehow I felt glad that Jonathan was not
on the sea last night, but on land. But, oh, is
he on land or sea? Where is he, and how? I
am getting fearfully anxious about him. If I
only knew what to do, and could do
anything!

10 August.--The funeral of the poor sea
captain today was most touching. Every
boat in the harbour seemed to be there, and
the coffin was carried by captains all the
way from Tate Hill Pier up to the churchyard.
Lucy came with me, and we went early to
our old seat, whilst the cortege of boats
went up the river to the Viaduct and came
down again. We had a lovely view, and saw
the procession nearly all the way. The poor
fellow was laid to rest near our seat so that
we stood on it, when the time came and
saw everything.

Poor Lucy seemed much upset. She was

without effect, to comfort it.

Lucy was full of pity, too, but she did not
attempt to touch the dog, but looked at it in
an agonised sort of way. I greatly fear that
she is of too super sensitive a nature to go
through the world without trouble. She will
be dreaming of this tonight, I am sure. The
whole agglomeration of things, the ship
steered into port by a dead man, his
attitude, tied to the wheel with a crucifix and
beads, the touching funeral, the dog, now
furious and now in terror, will all afford
material for her dreams.

I think it will be best for her to go to bed tired
out physically, so I shall take her for a long
walk by the cliffs to Robin Hood's Bay and
back. She ought not to have much
inclination for sleep-walking then.

Chapter 8

MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL

Same day, 11 o'clock p. m..--Oh, but I am
tired! If it were not that I had made my diary
a duty I should not open it tonight. We had a
lovely walk. Lucy, after a while, was in gay
spirits, owing, I think, to some dear cows
who came nosing towards us in a field
close to the lighthouse, and frightened the
wits out of us. I believe we forgot everything,
except of course, personal fear, and it
seemed to wipe the slate clean and give us
a fresh start. We had a capital `severe tea'
at Robin Hood's Bay in a sweet little
oldfashioned inn, with a bow window right
over the seaweedcovered rocks of the
strand. I believe we should have shocked
the `New Woman' with our appetites. Men
are more tolerant, bless them! Then we
walked home with some, or rather many,
stoppages to rest, and with our hearts full of
a constant dread of wild bulls.

her mother, who has been more than usually
ill lately, so threw on some clothes and got
ready to look for her. As I was leaving the
room it struck me that the clothes she wore
might give me some clue to her dreaming
intention. Dressing-gown would mean
house, dress outside. Dressing-gown and
dress were both in their places. "Thank
God," I said to myself, "she cannot be far,
as she is only in her nightdress."

I ran downstairs and looked in the sitting
room. Not there! Then I looked in all the
other rooms of the house, with an ever-
growing fear chilling my heart. Finally, I
came to the hall door and found it open. It
was not wide open, but the catch of the lock
had not caught. The people of the house are
careful to lock the door every night, so I
feared that Lucy must have gone out as she
was. There was no time to think of what
might happen. A vague over-mastering fear
obscured all details.

I took a big, heavy shawl and ran out. The
clock was striking one as I was in the
Crescent, and there was not a soul in sight. I
ran along the North Terrace, but could see
no sign of the white figure which I expected.
At the edge of the West Cliff above the pier I
looked across the harbour to the East Cliff,
in the hope or fear, I don't know which, of
seeing Lucy in our favorite seat.

There was a bright full moon, with heavy
black, driving clouds, which threw the whole
scene into a fleeting diorama of light and
shade as they sailed across. For a moment
or two I could see nothing, as the shadow of
a cloud obscured St. Mary's Church and all
around it. Then as the cloud passed I could
see the ruins of the abbey coming into view,
and as the edge of a narrow band of light as
sharp as a sword-cut moved along, the
church and churchyard became gradually
visible. Whatever my expectation was, it

living thing about.

When I bent over her I could see that she was
still asleep. Her lips were parted, and she
was breathing, not softly as usual with her,
but in long, heavy gasps, as though striving
to get her lungs full at every breath. As I
came close, she put up her hand in her
sleep and pulled the collar of her nightdress
close around her, as though she felt the
cold. I flung the warm shawl over her, and
drew the edges tight around her neck, for I
dreaded lest she should get some deadly
chill from the night air, unclad as she was. I
feared to wake her all at once, so, in order
to have my hands free to help her, I fastened
the shawl at her throat with a big safety pin.
But I must have been clumsy in my anxiety
and pinched or pricked her with it, for by-
and-by, when her breathing became
quieter, she put her hand to her throat again
and moaned. When I had her carefully
wrapped up I put my shoes on her feet, and
then began very gently to wake her.

At first she did not respond, but gradually
she became more and more uneasy in her
sleep, moaning and sighing occasionally.
At last, as time was passing fast, and for
many other reasons, I wished to get her
home at once, I shook her forcibly, till finally
she opened her eyes and awoke. She did
not seem surprised to see me, as, of
course, she did not realize all at once where
she was.

Lucy always wakes prettily, and even at
such a time,when her body must have been
chilled with cold, and her mind somewhat
appalled at waking unclad in a churchyard
at night, she did not lose her grace. She
trembled a little, and clung to me. When I told
her to come at once with me home, she
rose without a word, with the obedience of
a child. As we passed along, the gravel hurt
my feet, and Lucy noticed me wince. She

the contrary, it has benefited her, for she
looks better this morning than she has done
for weeks. I was sorry to notice that my
clumsiness with the safety-pin hurt her.
Indeed, it might have been serious, for the
skin of her throat was pierced. I must have
pinched up a piece of loose skin and have
transfixed it, for there are two little red
points like pin-pricks, and on the band of
her nightdress was a drop of blood. When I
apologised and was concerned about it,
she laughed and petted me, and said she
did not even feel it. Fortunately it cannot
leave a scar, as it is so tiny.

Same day, night.--We passed a happy day.
The air was clear, and the sun bright, and
there was a cool breeze. We took our lunch
to Mulgrave Woods, Mrs. Westenra driving
by the road and Lucy and I walking by the
cliff-path and joining her at the gate. I felt a
little sad myself, for I could not but feel how
absolutely happy it would have been had
Jonathan been with me. But there! I must
only be patient. In the evening we strolled in
the Casino Terrace, and heard some good
music by Spohr and Mackenzie, and went
to bed early. Lucy seems more restful than
she has been for some time, and fell asleep
at once. I shall lock the door and secure the
key the same as before, though I do not
expect any trouble tonight.

12 August.--My expectations were wrong,
for twice during the night I was wakened by
Lucy trying to get out. She seemed, even in
her sleep, to be a little impatient at finding
the door shut, and went back to bed under a
sort of protest. I woke with the dawn, and
heard the birds chirping outside of the
window. Lucy woke, too, and I was glad to
see, was even better than on the previous
morning. All her old gaiety of manner
seemed to have come back, and she came
and snuggled in beside me and told me all
about Arthur. I told her how anxious I was

her, and saw that she was in a half dreamy
state, with an odd look on her face that I
could not quite make out, so I said nothing,
but followed her eyes. She appeared to be
looking over at our own seat, whereon was
a dark figure seated alone. I was quite a
little startled myself, for it seemed for an
instant as if the stranger had great eyes like
burning flames, but a second look dispelled
the illusion. The red sunlight was shining on
the windows of St. Mary's Church behind
our seat, and as the sun dipped there was
just sufficient change in the refraction and
reflection to make it appear as if the light
moved. I called Lucy's attention to the
peculiar effect, and she became herself
with a start, but she looked sad all the same.
It may have been that she was thinking of
that terrible night up there. We never refer to
it, so I said nothing, and we went home to
dinner. Lucy had a headache and went early
to bed. I saw her asleep, and went out for a
little stroll myself.

I walked along the cliffs to the westward,
and was full of sweet sadness, for I was
thinking of Jonathan. When coming home, it
was then bright moonlight, so bright that,
though the front of our part of the Crescent
was in shadow, everything could be well
seen, I threw a glance up at our window,
and saw Lucy's head leaning out. I opened
my handkerchief and waved it. She did not
notice or make any movement whatever.
Just then, the moonlight crept round an
angle of the building, and the light fell on the
window. There distinctly was Lucy with her
head lying up against the side of the
window sill and her eyes shut. She was fast
asleep, and by her, seated on the window
sill, was something that looked like a good-
sized bird. I was afraid she might get a chill,
so I ran upstairs, but as I came into the room
she was moving back to her bed, fast
asleep, and breathing heavily. She was
holding her hand to her throat, as though to

I keep the key of our door always fastened
to my wrist at night, but she gets up and
walks about the room, and sits at the open
window. Last night I found her leaning out
when I woke up, and when I tried to wake
her I could not.

She was in a faint. When I managed to
restore her, she was weak as water, and
cried silently between long, painful
struggles for breath. When I asked her how
she came to be at the window she shook
her head and turned away.

I trust her feeling ill may not be from that
unlucky prick of the safety-pin. I looked at
her throat just now as she lay asleep, and
the tiny wounds seem not to have healed.
They are still open, and, if anything, larger
than before, and the edges of them are
faintly white. They are like little white dots
with red centres. Unless they heal within a
day or two, I shall insist on the doctor seeing
about them.

LETTER, SAMUEL F. BILLINGTON & SON,
SOLICITORS WHITBY, TO MESSRS.
CARTER, PATERSON & CO., LONDON.

17 August

"Dear Sirs,

"Herewith please receive invoice of goods
sent by Great Northern Railway. Same are
to be delivered at Carfax, near Purfleet,
immediately on receipt at goods station
King's Cross. The house is at present
empty, but enclosed please find keys, all of
which are labelled.

"You will please deposit the boxes, fifty in
number, which form the consignment, in the
partially ruined building forming part of the
house and marked `A' on rough diagrams
enclosed. Your agent will easily recognize

18 August.--I am happy today, and write
sitting on the seat in the churchyard. Lucy is
ever so much better. Last night she slept
well all night, and did not disturb me once.

The roses seem coming back already to her
cheeks, though she is still sadly pale and
wan-looking. If she were in any way anemic
I could understand it, but she is not. She is in
gay spirits and full of life and cheerfulness.
All the morbid reticence seems to have
passed from her, and she has just
reminded me, as if I needed any reminding,
of that night, and that it was here, on this
very seat, I found her asleep.

As she told me she tapped playfully with the
heel of her boot on the stone slab and said,

"My poor little feet didn't make much noise
then! I daresay poor old Mr. Swales would
have told me that it was because I didn't
want to wake up Geordie."

As she was in such a communicative
humour, I asked her if she had dreamed at
all that night.

Before she answered, that sweet,
puckered look came into her forehead,
which Arthur, I call him Arthur from her habit,
says he loves, and indeed, I don't wonder
that he does. Then she went on in a half-
dreaming kind of way, as if trying to recall it
to herself.

"I didn't quite dream, but it all seemed to be
real. I only wanted to be here in this spot. I
don't know why, for I was afraid of
something, I don't know what. I remember,
though I suppose I was asleep, passing
through the streets and over the bridge. A
fish leaped as I went by, and I leaned over to
look at it, and I heard a lot of dogs howling.
The whole town seemed as if it must be full
of dogs all howling at once, as I went up the

bring my trunk to London and keep it till I
send for it, for it may be that . . . I must write
no more. I must keep it to say to Jonathan,
my husband. The letter that he has seen and
touched must comfort me till we meet.

LETTER, SISTER AGATHA, HOSPITAL
OF ST. JOSEPH AND STE. MARY BUDA-
PESTH, TO MISS WILLHELMINA MURRAY

12 August,

"Dear Madam.

"I write by desire of Mr. Jonathan Harker,
who is himself not strong enough to write,
though progressing well, thanks to God and
St. Joseph and Ste. Mary. He has been
under our care for nearly six weeks,
suffering from a violent brain fever. He
wishes me to convey his love, and to say
that by this post I write for him to Mr. Peter
Hawkins, Exeter, to say, with his dutiful
respects, that he is sorry for his delay, and
that all of his work is completed. He will
require some few weeks' rest in our
sanatorium in the hills, but will then return.
He wishes me to say that he has not
sufficient money with him, and that he would
like to pay for his staying here, so that
others who need shall not be wanting for
belp.

Believe me,

Yours, with sympathy

and all blessings. Sister Agatha"

"P. S.--My patient being asleep, I open this
to let you know something more. He has told
me all about you, and that you are shortly to
be his wife. All blessings to you both! He
has had some fearful shock, so says our
doctor, and in his delirium his ravings have
been dreadful, of wolves and poison and

man with homicidal and religious mania at
once might be dangerous. The combination
is a dreadful one.

At Nine o'clock I visited him myself. His
attitude to me was the same as that to the
attendant. In his sublime selffeeling the
difference between myself and the
attendant seemed to him as nothing. It looks
like religious mania, and he will soon think
that he himself is God.

These infinitesimal distinctions between
man and man are too paltry for an
Omnipotent Being. How these madmen
give themselves away! The real God taketh
heed lest a sparrow fall. But the God
created from human vanity sees no
difference between an eagle and a
sparrow. Oh, if men only knew!

For half an hour or more Renfield kept
getting excited in greater and greater
degree. I did not pretend to be watching
him, but I kept strict observation all the
same. All at once that shifty look came into
his eyes which we always see when a
madman has seized an idea, and with it the
shifty movement of the head and back
which asylum attendants come to know so
well. He became quite quiet, and went and
sat on the edge of his bed resignedly, and
looked into space with lack-luster eyes.

I thought I would find out if his apathy were
real or only assumed, and tried to lead him
to talk of his pets, a theme which had never
failed to excite his attention.

At first he made no reply, but at length said
testily, "Bother them all! I don't care a pin
about them."

"What" I said. "You don't mean to tell me you
don't care about spiders?" (Spiders at
present are his hobby and the notebook is

follow him, as he might lose sight of him
whilst getting out of the building by the door.
He is a bulky man, and couldn't get through
the window.

I am thin, so, with his aid, I got out, but feet
foremost, and as we were only a few feet
above ground landed unhurt.

The attendant told me the patient had gone
to the left, and had taken a straight line, so I
ran as quickly as I could. As I got through the
belt of trees I saw a white figure scale the
high wall which separates our grounds from
those of the deserted house.

I ran back at once, told the watchman to get
three or four men immediately and follow
me into the grounds of Carfax, in case our
friend might be dangerous. I got a ladder
myself, and crossing the wall, dropped
down on the other side. I could see
Renfield's figure just disappearing behind
the angle of the house, so I ran after him. On
the far side of the house I found him
pressed close against the old ironbound
oak door of the chapel.

He was talking, apparently to some one, but
I was afraid to go near enough to hear what
he was saying, les t I might frighten him, and
he should run off.

Chasing an errant swarm of bees is nothing
to following a naked lunatic, when the fit of
escaping is upon him! After a few minutes,
however, I could see that he did not take
note of anything around him, and so
ventured to draw nearer to him, the more so
as my men had now crossed the wall and
were closing him in. I heard him say . . .

"I am here to do your bidding, Master. I am
your slave, and you will reward me, for I
shall be faithful. I have worshipped you long
and afar off. Now that you are near, I await

has happened since we parted at the
railway station at Whitby.

"Well, my dear, I got to Hull all right, and
caught the boat to Hamburg, and then the
train on here. I feel that I can hardly recall
anything of the journey, except that I knew I
was coming to Jonathan, and that as I
should have to do some nursing, I had better
get all the sleep I could. I found my dear one,
oh, so thin and pale and weaklooking. All
the resolution has gone out of his dear eyes,
and that quiet dignity which I told you was in
his face has vanished. He is only a wreck of
himself, and he does not remember
anything that has happened to him for a long
time past. At least, he wants me to believe
so, and I shall never ask.

"He has had some terrible shock, and I fear
it might tax his poor brain if he were to try to
recall it. Sister Agatha, who is a good
creature and a born nurse, tells me that he
wanted her to tell me what they were, but
she would only cross herself, and say she
would never tell. That the ravings of the sick
were the secrets of God, and that if a nurse
through her vocation should hear them, she
should respect her trust..

"She is a sweet, good soul, and the next
day, when she saw I was troubled, she
opened up the subject my poor dear raved
about, added, `I can tell you this much, my
dear. That it was not about anything which
he has done wrong himself, and you, as his
wife to be, have no cause to be concerned.
He has not forgotten you or what he owes to
you. His fear was of great and terrible
things, which no mortal can treat of.'

"I do believe the dear soul thought I might be
jealous lest my poor dear should have fallen
in love with any other girl. The idea of my
being jealous about Jonathan! And yet, my
dear, let me whisper, I felt a thrill of joy

Chaplain of the English mission church has
been sent for. We are to be married in an
hour, or as soon after as Jonathan awakes."

"Lucy, the time has come and gone. I feel
very solemn, but very, very happy. Jonathan
woke a little after the hour, and all was
ready, and he sat up in bed, propped up
with pillows. He answered his `I will' firmly
and strong. I could hardly speak. My heart
was so full that even those words seemed
to choke me.

"The dear sisters were so kind. Please,
God, I shall never, never forget them, nor the
grave and sweet responsibilities I have
taken upon me. I must tell you of my
wedding present. When the chaplain and the
sisters had left me alone with my husband--
oh, Lucy, it is the first time I have written the
words `my husband'--left me alone with my
husband, I took the book from under his
pillow, and wrapped it up in white paper,
and tied it with a little bit of pale blue ribbon
which was round my neck, and sealed it
over the knot with sealing wax, and for my
seal I used my wedding ring. Then I kissed it
and showed it to my husband, and told him
that I would keep it so, and then it would be
an outward and visible sign for us all our
lives that we trusted each other, that I would
never open it unless it were for his own dear
sake or for the sake of some stern duty.
Then he took my hand in his, and oh, Lucy, it
was the first time he took his wifes' hand,
and said that it was the dearest thing in all
the wide world, and that he would go
through all the past again to win it, if need
be. The poor dear meant to have said a part
of the past, but he cannot think of time yet,
and I shall not wonder if at first he mixes up
not only the month, but the year.

"Well, my dear, could I say? I could only tell
him that I was the happiest woman in all the
wide world, and that I had nothing to give

says I am getting fat. By the way, I forgot to
tell you that Arthur is here. We have such
walks and drives, and rides, and rowing,
and tennis, and fishing together, and I love
him more than ever. He tells me that he
loves me more, but I doubt that, for at first he
told me that he couldn't love me more than
he did then. But this is nonsense. There he
is, calling to me. So no more just at present
from your loving, "Lucy.

"P. S.--Mother sends her love. She seems
better, poor dear.

"P. P.S.--We are to be married on 28
September."

DR. SEWARDS DIARY

20 August.--The case of Renfield grows
even more interesting. He has now so far
quieted that there are spells of cessation
from his passion. For the first week after his
attack he was perpetually violent. Then one
night, just as the moon rose, he grew quiet,
and kept murmuring to himself. "Now I can
wait. Now I can wait."

The attendant came to tell me, so I ran down
at once to have a look at him. He was still in
the strait waistcoat and in the padded room,
but the suffused look had gone from his
face, and his eyes had something of their
old pleading. I might almost say, cringing,
softness. I was satisfied with his present
condition, and directed him to be relieved.
The attendants hesitated, but finally carried
out my wishes without protest.

It was a strange thing that the patient had
humour enough to see their distrust, for,
coming close to me, he said in a whisper,
all the while looking furtively at them, "They
think I could hurt you! Fancy me hurting you!
The fools!"

when once he is quiet, until the hour before
sunrise. The poor soul's body will enjoy the
relief even if his mind cannot appreciate it.
Hark! The unexpected again! I am called.
The patient has once more escaped.

Later.--Another night adventure. Renfield
artfully waited until the attendant was
entering the room to inspect. Then he
dashed out past him and flew down the
passage. I sent word for the attendants to
follow. Again he went into the grounds of the
deserted house, and we found him in the
same place, pressed against the old chapel
door. When he saw me he became furious,
and had not the attendants seized him in
time, he would have tried to kill me. As we
sere holding him a strange thing happened.
He suddenly redoubled his efforts, and then
as suddenly grew calm. I looked round
instinctively, but could see nothing. Then I
caught the patient's eye and followed it, but
could trace nothing as it looked into the
moonlight sky, except a big bat, which was
flapping its silent and ghostly way to the
west. Bats usually wheel about, but this one
seemed to go straight on, as if it knew
where it was bound for or had some
intention of its own.

The patient grew calmer every instant, and
presently said, "You needn't tie me. I shall
go quietly!" Without trouble, we came back
to the house. I feel there is something
ominous in his calm, and shall not forget this
night.

LUCY WESTENRA'S DIARY

Hillingham, 24 August.--I must imitate Mina,
and keep writing things down. Then we can
have long talks when we do meet. I wonder
when it will be. I wish she were with me
again, for I feel so unhappy. Last night I
seemed to be dreaming again just as I was
at Whitby. Perhaps it is the change of air, or

demurred at first, I know why, old fellow,
she finally consented. It will be a painful task
for you, I know, old friend, but it is for her
sake, and I must not hesitate to ask, or you
to act. You are to come to lunch at
Hillingham tomorrow, two o'clock, so as not
to arouse any suspicion in Mrs. Westenra,
and after lunch Lucy will take an opportunity
of being alone with you. I am filled with
anxiety, and want to consult with you alone
as soon as I can after you have seen her. Do
not fail! "Arthur." TELEGRAM, ARTHUR
HOLMWOOD TO SEWARD

1 September

"Am summoned to see my father, who is
worse. Am writing. Write me fully by
tonight's post to Ring. Wire me if
necessary."

LETTER FROM DR. SEWARD TO
ARTHUR HOLMWOOD

2 September

"My dear old fellow,

"With regard to Miss Westenra's health I
hasten to let you know at once that in my
opinion there is not any functal disturbance
or any malady that I know of. At the same
time, I am not by any means satisfied with
her appearance. She is woefully different
from what she was when I saw her last. Of
course you must bear in mind that I did not
have full opportunity of examination such as
I should wish. Our very friendship makes a
little difficulty which not even medical
science or custom can bridge over. I had
better tell you exactly what happened,
leaving you to draw, in a measure, your own
conclusions. I shall then say what I have
done and propose doing.

"I found Miss Westenra in seemingly gay

condition, and shows, I should infer, in itself
a vigorous state of health. In other physical
matters I was quite satisfied that there is no
need for anxiety, but as there must be a
cause somewhere, I have come to the
conclusion that it must be something mental.

"She complains of difficulty breathing
satisfactorily at times, and of heavy,
lethargic sleep, with dreams that frighten
her, but regarding which she can remember
nothing. She says that as a child, she used
to walk in her sleep, and that when in Whitby
the habit came back, and that once she
walked out in the night and went to East
Cliff, where Miss Murray found her. But she
assures me that of late the habit has not
returned.

"I am in doubt, and so have done the best
thing I know of. I have written to my old friend
and master, Professor Van Helsing, of
Amsterdam, who knows as much about
obscure diseases as any one in the world. I
have asked him to come over, and as you
told me that all things were to be at your
charge, I have mentioned to him who you
are and your relations to Miss Westenra.
This, my dear fellow, is in obedience to your
wishes, for I am only too proud and happy to
do anything I can for her.

"Van Helsing would, I know, do anything for
me for a personal reason, so no matter on
what ground he comes, we must accept his
wishes. He is a seemingly arbitrary man,
this is because he knows what he is talking
about better than any one else. He is a
philosopher and a metaphysician, and one
of the most advanced scientists of his day,
and he has, I believe, an absolutely open
mind. This, with an iron nerve, a temper of
the ice-brook, and indomitable resolution,
self-command, and toleration exalted from
virtues to blessings, and the kindliest and
truest heart that beats, these form his

LETTER, DR. SEWARD TO HON. ARTHUR
HOLMWOOD

3 September

"My dear Art,

"Van Helsing has come and gone. He came
on with me to Hillingham, and found that, by
Lucy's discretion, her mother was lunching
out, so that we were alone with her.

"Van Helsing made a very careful
examination of the patient. He is to report to
me, and I shall advise you, for of course I
was not present all the time. He is, I fear,
much concerned, but says he must think.
When I told him of our friendship and how
you trust to me in the matter, he said, `You
must tell him all you think. Tell him him what I
think, if you can guess it, if you will. Nay, I
am not jesting. This is no jest, but life and
death, perhaps more.' I asked what he
meant by that, for he was very serious. This
was when we had come back to town, and
he was having a cup of tea before starting
on his return to Amsterdam. He would not
give me any further clue. You must not be
angry with me, Art, because his very
reticence means that all his brains are
working for her good. He will speak plainly
enough when the time comes, be sure. So I
told him I would simply write an account of
our visit, just as if I were doing a descriptive
special article for THE DAILY
TELEGRAPH. He seemed not to notice, but
remarked that the smuts of London were not
quite so bad as they used to be when he
was a student here. I am to get his report
tomorrow if he can possibly make it. In any
case I am to have a letter.

"Well, as to the visit, Lucy was more cheerful
than on the day I first saw her, and certainly
looked better. She had lost something of the
ghastly look that so upset you, and her

is no functional cause. With you I agree that
there has been much blood lost, it has been
but is not. But the conditions of her are in no
way anemic. I have asked her to send me
her maid, that I may ask just one or two
questions, that so I may not chance to miss
nothing. I know well what she will say. And
yet there is cause. There is always cause
for everything. I must go back home and
think. You must send me the telegram every
day, and if there be cause I shall come
again. The disease, for not to be well is a
disease, interest me, and the sweet, young
dear, she interest me too. She charm me,
and for her, if not for you or disease, I
come.'

"As I tell you, he would not say a word more,
even when we were alone. And so now, Art,
you know all I know. I shall keep stern watch.
I trust your poor father is rallying. It must be a
terrible thing to you, my dear old fellow, to
be placed in such a position between two
people who are both so dear to you. I know
your idea of duty to your father, and you are
right to stick to it. But if need be, I shall send
you word to come at once to Lucy, so do not
be over-anxious unless you hear from me."

DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

4 September.--Zoophagous patient still
keeps up our interest in him. He had only
one outburst and that was yesterday at an
unusual time. Just before the stroke of noon
he began to grow restless. The attendant
knew the symptoms, and at once
summoned aid. Fortunately the men came
at a run, and were just in time, for at the
stroke of noon he became so violent that it
took all their strength to hold him. In about
five minutes, however, he began to get
more quiet,and finally sank into a sort of
melancholy, in which state he has remained
up to now. The attendant tells me that his
screams whilst in the paroxysm were really

"Yes! The flies like it, too, and I like the flies,
therefore I like it."And there are people who
know so little as to think that madmen do not
argue. I procured him a double supply, and
left him as happy a man as, I suppose, any
in the world. I wish I could fathom his mind.

Midnight.--Another change in him. I had
been to see Miss Westenra, whom I found
much better, and had just returned, and
was standing at our own gate looking at the
sunset, when once more I heard him yelling.
As his room is on this side of the house, I
could hear it better than in the morning. It
was a shock to me to turn from the
wonderful smoky beauty of a sunset over
London, with its lurid lights and inky
shadows and all the marvellous tints that
come on foul clouds even as on foul water,
and to realize all the grim sternness of my
own cold stone building, with its wealth of
breathing misery, and my own desolate
heart to endure it all. I reached him just as
the sun was going down, and from his
window saw the red disc sink. As it sank he
became less and less frenzied, and just as
it dipped he slid from the hands that held
him, an inert mass, on the floor. It is
wonderful, however, what intellectual
recuperative power lunatics have, for within
a few minutes he stood up quite calmly and
looked around him. I signalled to the
attendants not to hold him, for I was anxious
to see what he would do. He went straight
over to the window and brushed out the
crumbs of sugar. Then he took his fly box,
and emptied it outside, and threw away the
box. Then he shut the window, and crossing
over, sat down on his bed. All this surprised
me, so I asked him,"Are you going to keep
flies any more?"

"No," said he. "I am sick of all that rubbish!"
He certainly is a wonderfully interesting
study. I wish I could get some glimpse of his
mind or of the cause of his sudden passion.

myself. So now we can come and go
without alarming her unduly, for a shock to
her would mean sudden death, and this, in
Lucy's weak condition, might be disastrous
to her. We are hedged in with difficulties, all
of us, my poor fellow, but, please God, we
shall come through them all right. If any need
I shall write, so that, if you do not hear from
me, take it for granted that I am simply
waiting for news, In haste,

"Yours ever,"

John Seward

DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

7 September.--The first thing Van Helsing
said to me when we met at Liverpool Street
was, "Have you said anything to our young
friend, to lover of her?"

"No," I said. "I waited till I had seen you, as I
said in my telegram. I wrote him a letter
simply telling him that you were coming, as
Miss Westenra was not so well, and that I
should let him know if need be."

"Right, my friend," he said. "Quite right!
Better he not know as yet. Perhaps he will
never know. I pray so, but if it be needed,
then he shall know all. And, my good friend
John, let me caution you. You deal with the
madmen. All men are mad in some way or
the other, and inasmuch as you deal
discreetly with your madmen, so deal with
God's madmen too, the rest of the world.
You tell not your madmen what you do nor
why you do it. You tell them not what you
think. So you shall keep knowledge in its
place, where it may rest, where it may
gather its kind around it and breed. You and
I shall keep as yet what we know here, and
here." He touched me on the heart and on
the forehead, and then touched himself the
same way. "I have for myself thoughts at the