No More Learning

"

"We must," said Van Helsing grimly. "If the door be locked, I shall
break it in. "

"May it not frighten her terribly? It is unusual to break into a lady's
room! " Van Helsing said solemnly:--

"You are always right; but this is life and death. All chambers are
alike to the doctor; and even were they not they are all as one to me
to-night. Friend John, when I turn the handle, if the door does not
open, do you put your shoulder down and shove; and you too, my friends.
Now! "

He turned the handle as he spoke, but the door did not yield. We threw
ourselves against it; with a crash it burst open, and we almost fell
headlong into the room. The Professor did actually fall, and I saw
across him as he gathered himself up from hands and knees. What I saw
appalled me. I felt my hair rise like bristles on the back of my neck,
and my heart seemed to stand still.

The moonlight was so bright that through the thick yellow blind the
room was light enough to see. On the bed beside the window lay Jonathan
Harker, his face flushed, and breathing heavily as though in a stupor.
Kneeling on the near edge of the bed facing outwards was the white-clad
figure of his wife. By her side stood a tall, thin man, clad in black.
His face was turned from us, but the instant we saw it we all recognised
the Count--in every way, even to the scar on his forehead. With his left
hand he held both Mrs. Harker's hands, keeping them away with her arms
at full tension; his right hand gripped her by the back of the neck,
forcing her face down on his bosom. Her white nightdress was smeared
with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man's bare breast which
was shown by his torn-open dress. The attitude of the two had a terrible
resemblance to a child forcing a kitten's nose into a saucer of milk
to compel it to drink. As we burst into the room, the Count turned his
face, and the hellish look that I had heard described seemed to leap
into it. His eyes flamed red with devilish passion; the great nostrils
of the white aquiline nose opened wide and quivered at the edge; and the
white sharp teeth, behind the full lips of the blood-dripping mouth,
champed together like those of a wild beast. With a wrench, which threw
his victim back upon the bed as though hurled from a height, he turned
and sprang at us. But by this time the Professor had gained his feet,
and was holding towards him the envelope which contained the Sacred
Wafer. The Count suddenly stopped, just as poor Lucy had done outside
the tomb, and cowered back. Further and further back he cowered, as we,
lifting our crucifixes, advanced. The moonlight suddenly failed, as a
great black cloud sailed across the sky; and when the gaslight sprang up
under Quincey's match, we saw nothing but a faint vapour. This, as we
looked, trailed under the door, which with the recoil from its bursting
open had swung back to its old position. Van Helsing, Art and I moved
forward to Mrs. Harker, who by this time had drawn her breath and with
it had given a scream so wild, so ear-piercing, so despairing that it
seems to me now that it will ring in my ears till my dying day. For a
few seconds she lay in her helpless attitude and disarray. Her face was
ghastly, with a pallor which was accentuated by the blood which smeared
her lips and cheeks and chin; from her throat trickled a thin stream of
blood. Her eyes were mad with terror. Then she put before her face her
poor crushed hands, which bore on their whiteness the red mark of the
Count's terrible grip, and from behind them came a low desolate wail
which made the terrible scream seem only the quick expression of an
endless grief. Van Helsing stepped forward and drew the coverlet gently
over her body, whilst Art, after looking at her face for an instant
despairingly, ran out of the room. Van Helsing whispered to me:--

"Jonathan is in a stupor such as we know the Vampire can produce.
We can do nothing with poor Madam Mina for a few moments till she
recovers herself; I must wake him! " He dipped the end of a towel in
cold water and with it began to flick him on the face, his wife all
the while holding her face between her hands and sobbing in a way that
was heart-breaking to hear. I raised the blind, and looked out of the
window. There was much moonshine; and as I looked I could see Quincey
Morris run across the lawn and hide himself in the shadow of a great yew
tree. It puzzled me to think why he was doing this; but at the instant
I heard Harker's quick exclamation as he woke to partial consciousness,
and turned to the bed. On his face, as there might well be, was a look
of wild amazement. He seemed dazed for a few seconds, and then full
consciousness seemed to burst upon him all at once, and he started up.
His wife was aroused by the quick movement, and turned to him with her
arms stretched out, as though to embrace him; instantly, however, she
drew them in again, and putting her elbows together, held her hands
before her face, and shuddered till the bed beneath her shook.

"In God's name what does this mean? " Harker cried out. "Dr. Seward, Dr.
Van Helsing, what is it? What has happened? What is wrong? Mina, dear,
what is it? What does that blood mean? My God, my God! has it come to
this! " and, raising himself to his knees, he beat his hands wildly
together. "Good God help us! help her! oh, help her! " With a quick
movement he jumped from the bed, and began to pull on his clothes--all
the man in him awake at the need for instant exertion. "What has
happened? Tell me all about it! " he cried without pausing. "Dr. Van
Helsing, you love Mina, I know. Oh, do something to save her. It cannot
have gone too far yet. Guard her while I look for _him_! " His wife,
through her terror and horror and distress, saw some sure danger to him;
instantly forgetting her own grief, she seized hold of him and cried
out:--

"No! no! Jonathan, you must not leave me. I have suffered enough
to-night, God knows, without the dread of his harming you. You must
stay with me. Stay with these friends who will watch over you! " Her
expression became frantic as she spoke; and, he yielding to her, she
pulled him down sitting on the bedside, and clung to him fiercely.

Van Helsing and I tried to calm them both. The Professor held up his
little golden crucifix, and said with wonderful calmness:--

"Do not fear, my dear. We are here; and whilst this is close to you
no foul thing can approach. You are safe for to-night; and we must be
calm and take counsel together. " She shuddered and was silent, holding
down her head on her husband's breast. When she raised it, his white
night-robe was stained with blood where her lips had touched, and where
the thin open wound in her neck had sent forth drops. The instant she
saw it she drew back, with a low wail, and whispered, amidst choking
sobs:--

"Unclean, unclean! I must touch him or kiss him no more. Oh, that it
should be that it is I who am now his worst enemy, and whom he may have
most cause to fear. " To this he spoke out resolutely:--

"Nonsense, Mina. It is a shame to me to hear such a word. I would not
hear it of you; and I shall not hear it from you. May God judge me by my
deserts, and punish me with more bitter suffering than even this hour,
if by any act or will of mine anything ever come between us! " He put out
his arms and folded her to his breast; and for a while she lay there
sobbing. He looked at us over her bowed head, with eyes that blinked
damply above his quivering nostrils; his mouth was set as steel. After
a while her sobs became less frequent and more faint, and then he said
to me, speaking with a studied calmness which I felt tried his nervous
power to the utmost:--

"And now, Dr. Seward, tell me all about it. Too well I know the broad
fact; tell me all that has been. " I told him exactly what had happened,
and he listened with seeming impassiveness; but his nostrils twitched
and his eyes blazed as I told how the ruthless hands of the Count had
held his wife in that terrible and horrid position, with her mouth to
the open wound in his breast. It interested me, even at that moment, to
see that whilst the face of white set passion worked convulsively over
the bowed head, the hands tenderly and lovingly stroked the ruffled
hair. Just as I had finished, Quincey and Godalming knocked at the
door. They entered in obedience to our summons. Van Helsing looked at
me questioningly. I understood him to mean if we were to take advantage
of their coming to divert if possible the thoughts of the unhappy
husband and wife from each other and from themselves; so on my nodding
acquiescence to him he asked them what they had seen or done. To which
Lord Godalming answered:--

"I could not see him anywhere in the passage, or in any of our rooms. I
looked in the study, but, though he had been there, he had gone. He had,
however----" He stopped suddenly, looking at the poor drooping figure on
the bed. Van Helsing said gravely:--

"Go on friend Arthur. We want no more concealments. Our hope now is in
knowing all. Tell freely! " So Art went on:--

"He had been there, and though it could only have been for a few
seconds, he made rare hay of the place. All the manuscript had been
burned, and the blue flames were flickering amongst the white ashes;
the cylinders of your phonograph too were thrown on the fire, and the
wax had helped the flames. " Here I interrupted. "Thank God there is the
other copy in the safe! " His face lit for a moment, but fell again as he
went on: "I ran downstairs then, but could see no sign of him. I looked
into Renfield's room; but there was no trace there except----! " Again
he paused. "Go on," said Harker hoarsely; so he bowed his head, and
moistening his lips with his tongue, added: "except that the poor fellow
is dead. " Mrs. Harker raised her head, looking from one to the other of
us as she said solemnly:--

"God's will be done! " I could not but feel that Art was keeping back
something; but, as I took it that it was with a purpose, I said nothing.
Van Helsing turned to Morris and asked:--

"And you, friend Quincey, have you any to tell? "

"A little," he answered. "It may be much eventually, but at present I
can't say. I thought it well to know if possible where the Count would
go when he left the house. I did not see him; but I saw a bat rise from
Renfield's window, and flap westward. I expected to see him in some
shape go back to Carfax; but he evidently sought some other lair. He
will not be back to-night; for the sky is reddening in the east, and the
dawn is close. We must work to-morrow! "

He said the latter words through his shut teeth. For a space of perhaps
a couple of minutes there was silence, and I could fancy that I could
hear the sound of our hearts beating; then Van Helsing said, placing his
hand very tenderly on Mrs. Harker's head:--

"And now, Madam Mina--poor, dear, dear Madam Mina--tell us exactly what
happened. God knows that I do not want that you be pained; but it is
need that we know all. For now more than ever has all work to be done
quick and sharp, and in deadly earnest. The day is close to us that must
end all, if it may so be; and now is the chance that we may live and
learn. "

The poor, dear lady shivered, and I could see the tension of her nerves
as she clasped her husband closer to her and bent her head lower and
lower still on his breast. Then she raised her head proudly, and held
out one hand to Van Helsing, who took it in his, and, after stooping and
kissing it reverently, held it fast. The other hand was locked in that
of her husband, who held his other arm thrown round her protectingly.
After a pause in which she was evidently ordering her thoughts, she
began:--

"I took the sleeping draught which you had so kindly given me, but
for a long time it did not act. I seemed to become more wakeful, and
myriads of horrible fancies began to crowd in upon my mind--all of them
connected with death, and vampires; with blood, and pain, and trouble. "
Her husband involuntarily groaned as she turned to him and said
lovingly: "Do not fret, dear. You must be brave and strong, and help me
through the horrible task. If you only knew what an effort it is to me
to tell of this fearful thing at all, you would understand how much I
need your help. Well, I saw I must try to help the medicine do its work
with my will, if it was to do me any good, so I resolutely set myself to
sleep. Sure enough sleep must soon have come to me, for I remembered no
more. Jonathan coming in had not waked me, for he lay by my side when
next I remember. There was in the room the same thin white mist that
I had before noticed. But I forget now if you know of this; you will
find it in my diary which I shall show you later. I felt the same vague
terror which had come to me before, and the same sense of some presence.
I turned to wake Jonathan, but found that he slept so soundly that it
seemed as if it was he who had taken the sleeping draught and not I. I
tried, but could not wake him. This caused me a great fear, and I looked
around terrified. Then indeed, my heart sank within me: beside the bed,
as if he had stepped out of the mist--or rather as if the mist had
turned into his figure, for it had entirely disappeared--stood a tall,
thin man, all in black. I knew him at once from the descriptions of the
others. The waxen face; the high aquiline nose, on which the light fell
in a thin white line; the parted red lips, with the sharp white teeth
showing between; and the red eyes that I had seemed to see in the sunset
on the windows of St. Mary's Church at Whitby. I knew, too, the red scar
on his forehead where Jonathan had struck him. For an instant my heart
stood still, and I would have screamed out, only that I was paralysed.
In the pause he spoke in a sort of keen, cutting whisper, pointing as he
spoke to Jonathan:--

"'Silence! If you make a sound I shall take him and dash his brains out
before your very eyes. ' I was appalled and was too bewildered to do or
say anything. With a mocking smile, he placed one hand upon my shoulder
and, holding me tight, bared my throat with the other, saying as he did
so: 'First, a little refreshment to reward my exertions. You may as well
be quiet; it is not the first time, or the second, that your veins have
appeased my thirst! ' I was bewildered, and, strangely enough, I did not
want to hinder him. I suppose it is a part of the horrible curse that
such is, when his touch is on his victim. And oh, my God, my God, pity
me! He placed his reeking lips upon my throat! " Her husband groaned
again. She clasped his hand harder, and looked at him pityingly, as if
he were the injured one, and went on:--

"I felt my strength fading away, and I was in a half swoon. How long
this horrible thing lasted I know not; but it seemed that a long time
must have passed before he took his foul, awful sneering mouth away. I
saw it drip with the fresh blood! " The remembrance seemed for a while
to overpower her, and she drooped and would have sunk down but for her
husband's sustaining arm. With a great effort she recovered herself and
went on:--

"Then he spoke to me mockingly: 'And so you, like the others, would
play your brains against mine. You would help these men to hunt me
and frustrate me in my designs! You know now, and they know in part
already, and will know in full before long, what it is to cross my path.
They should have kept their energies for use closer to home. Whilst
they played wits against me--against me who commanded nations, and
intrigued for them, and fought for them, hundreds of years before they
were born--I was countermining them. And you, their best beloved one,
are now to me flesh of my flesh; blood of my blood; kin of my kin; my
bountiful wine-press for a while; and shall be later on my companion and
my helper. You shall be avenged in turn; for not one of them but shall
minister to your needs. But as yet you are to be punished for what you
have done. You have aided in thwarting me; now you shall come to my
call. When my brain says "Come! " to you, you shall cross land or sea
to do my bidding; and to that end this! ' With that he pulled open his
shirt, and with his long sharp nails opened a vein in his breast. When
the blood began to spurt out, he took my hands in one of his, holding
them tight, and with the other seized my neck and pressed my mouth to
the wound, so that I must either suffocate or swallow some of the--Oh,
my God! my God! what have I done? What have I done to deserve such a
fate, I who have tried to walk in meekness and righteousness all my
days? God pity me! Look down on a poor soul in worse than mortal peril;
and in mercy pity those to whom she is dear! " Then she began to rub her
lips as though to cleanse them from pollution.

As she was telling her terrible story, the eastern sky began to quicken,
and everything became more and more clear. Harker was still and quiet;
but over his face, as the awful narrative went on, came a grey look
which deepened and deepened in the morning light, till when the first
red streak of the coming dawn shot up, the flesh stood darkly out
against the whitening hair.

We have arranged that one of us is to stay within call of the unhappy
pair till we can meet together and arrange about taking action.

Of this I am sure: the sun rises to-day on no more miserable house in
all the great round of its daily course.




CHAPTER XXII.

/Jonathan Harker's Journal. /


_3 October. _--As I must do something or go mad, I write this diary. It
is now six o'clock, and we are to meet in the study in half an hour and
take something to eat; for Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward are agreed
that if we do not eat we cannot work our best.
Our best will be, God
knows, required to-day. I must keep writing at every chance, for I dare
not stop to think. All, big and little, must go down; perhaps at the end
the little things may teach us most. The teaching, big or little, could
not have landed Mina or me anywhere worse than we are to-day. However,
we must trust and hope. Poor Mina told me just now, with the tears
running down her dear cheeks, that it is in trouble and trial that our
faith is tested--that we must keep on trusting; and that God will aid us
up to the end. The end! oh, my God! what end? . . . To work! To work!

When Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward had come back from seeing poor
Renfield, we went gravely into what was to be done. First, Dr. Seward
told us that when he and Dr. Van Helsing had gone down to the room below
they had found Renfield lying on the floor, all in a heap. His face was
all bruised and crushed in, and the bones of the neck were broken.

Dr. Seward asked the attendant who was on duty in the passage if he had
heard anything. He said that he had been sitting down--he confessed to
half dozing--when he heard loud voices in the room, and then Renfield
had called out loudly several times, "God! God! God! " After that there
was a sound of falling, and when he entered the room he found him lying
on the floor, face down, just as the doctors had seen him. Van Helsing
asked if he had heard "voices" or "a voice," and he said he could not
say; that at first it had seemed to him as if there were two, but as
there was no one in the room it could have been only one. He could swear
to it, if required, that the word "God" was spoken by the patient. Dr.
Seward said to us, when we were alone, that he did not wish to go into
the matter; the question of an inquest had to be considered, and it
would never do to put forward the truth, as no one would believe it.
As it was, he thought that on the attendant's evidence he could give a
certificate of death by misadventure in falling from bed. In case the
coroner should demand it, there would be a formal inquest, necessarily
to the same result.

When the question began to be discussed as to what should be our next
step, the very first thing we decided was that Mina should be in full
confidence; that nothing of any sort--no matter how painful--should be
kept from her. She herself agreed as to its wisdom, and it was pitiful
to see her so brave and yet so sorrowful, and in such a depth of
despair. "There must be no more concealment," she said. "Alas! we have
had too much already. And besides there is nothing in all the world that
can give me more pain than I have already endured--than I suffer now!
Whatever may happen, it must be of new hope or of new courage to me! "
Van Helsing was looking at her fixedly as she spoke, and said, suddenly
but quietly:--

"But, dear Madam Mina are you not afraid; not for yourself, but for
others from yourself, after what has happened? " Her face grew set in
its lines, but her eyes shone with the devotion of a martyr as she
answered:--

"Ah no! for my mind is made up! "

"To what? " he asked gently, whilst we were all very still; for each in
our own way we had a sort of vague idea of what she meant. Her answer
came with direct simplicity, as though she were simply stating a fact:--

"Because if I find in myself--and I shall watch keenly for it--a sign of
harm to any that I love, I shall die! "

"You would not kill yourself? " he asked hoarsely.

"I would; if there were no friend who loved me, who would save me such
a pain, and so desperate an effort! " She looked at him meaningly as she
spoke. He was sitting down; but now he rose and came close to her and
put his hand on her head as he said solemnly:--

"My child, there is such an one if it were for your good. For myself
I could hold it in my account with God to find such an euthanasia for
you, even at this moment, if it were best. Nay, were it safe! But, my
child----" for a moment he seemed choked, and a great sob rose in his
throat; he gulped it down and went on:--

"There are here some who would stand between you and death. You must
not die. You must not die by any hand; but least of all by your own.
Until the other, who has fouled your sweet life, is true dead you must
not die; for if he is still with the quick Un-Dead, your death would
make you even as he is. No, you must live! You must struggle and strive
to live, though death would seem a boon unspeakable. You must fight
Death himself, though he come to you in pain or in joy; by the day,
or the night; in safety or in peril! On your living soul I charge you
that you do not die--nay, nor think of death--till this great evil be
past. " The poor dear grew white as death, and shook and shivered, as I
have seen a quicksand shake and shiver at the incoming of the tide. We
were all silent; we could do nothing. At length she grew more calm, and
turning to him said, sweetly, but oh! so sorrowfully, as she held out
her hand:--

"I promise you, my dear friend, that if God will let me live, I shall
strive to do so; till, if it may be in His good time, this horror
may have passed away from me. " She was so good and brave that we all
felt that our hearts were strengthened to work and endure for her,
and we began to discuss what we were to do. I told her that she was
to have all the papers in the safe, and all the papers or diaries and
phonographs we might hereafter use; and was to keep the record as she
had done before. She was pleased with the prospect of anything to
do--if "pleased" could be used in connection with so grim an interest.

As usual Van Helsing had thought ahead of everyone else, and was
prepared with an exact ordering of our work.

"It is perhaps well" he said, "that at our meeting after our visit
to Carfax we decided not to do anything with the earth-boxes that
lay there. Had we done so, the Count must have guessed our purpose,
and would doubtless have taken measures in advance to frustrate such
an effort with regard to the others; but now he does not know our
intentions. Nay more, in all probability he does not know that such a
power exists to us as can sterilize his lairs, so that he cannot use
them as of old. We are now so much further advanced in our knowledge
as to their disposition, that, when we have examined the house in
Piccadilly, we may track the very last of them. To-day, then, is ours;
and in it rests our hope. The sun that rose on our sorrow this morning
guards us in its course. Until it sets to-night, that monster must
retain whatever form he now has. He is confined within the limitations
of his earthly envelope. He cannot melt into thin air nor disappear
through cracks or chinks or crannies. If he go through a door-way, he
must open the door like a mortal. And so we have this day to hunt out
all his lairs and sterilize them. So we shall, if we have not yet catch
him and destroy him, drive him to bay in some place where the catching
and the destroying shall be, in time, sure. " Here I started up for I
could not contain myself at the thought that the minutes and seconds so
preciously laden with Mina's life and happiness were flying from us,
since whilst we talked action was possible. But Van Helsing held up his
hand warningly. "Nay, friend Jonathan," he said, "in this, the quickest
way home is the longest way, so your proverb say. We shall all act, and
act with desperate quick, when the time has come. But think, in all
probable the key of the situation is in that house in Piccadilly. The
Count may have many houses which he has bought. Of them he will have
deeds of purchase, keys and other things. He will have paper that he
write on; he will have his book of cheques. There are many belongings
that he must have somewhere; why not in this place so central, so quiet,
where he come and go by the front or the back at all hour, when in the
very vast of the traffic there is none to notice. We shall go there and
search that house; and when we learn what it holds, then we do what our
friend Arthur call, in his phrases of hunt, 'stop the earths' and so we
run down our old fox--so? is it not? "

"Then let us come at once," I cried, "we are wasting the precious,
precious time! " The Professor did not move, but simply said:--

"And how are we to get into that house in Piccadilly? "

"Any way! " I cried. "We shall break in if need be. "

"And your police; where will they be, and what will they say? "

I was staggered; but I knew that if he wished to delay he had a good
reason for it. So I said, as quietly as I could:--

"Don't wait more than need be; you know, I am sure, what torture I am
in. "

"Ah, my child, that I do; and indeed there is no wish of me to add to
your anguish. But just think, what can we do, until all the world be at
movement? Then will come our time. I have thought and thought, and it
seems to me that the simplest way is the best of all. Now we wish to get
into the house, but we have no key; is it not so? " I nodded.

"Now suppose that you were, in truth, the owner of that house, and
could not still get it; and think there was to you no conscience of the
housebreaker, what would you do? "

"I should get a respectable locksmith, and set him to work to pick the
lock for me. "

"And your police, they would interfere, would they not? "

"Oh, no! not if they knew the man was properly employed. "

"Then," he looked at me keenly as he spoke, "all that is in doubt is
the conscience of the employer, and the belief of your policemen as
to whether or no that employer has a good conscience or a bad one.
Your police must indeed be zealous men and clever--oh, so clever! --in
reading the heart, that they trouble themselves in such matter. No, no,
my friend Jonathan, you go take the lock off a hundred empty houses
in this your London, or of any city in the world; and if you do it as
such things are rightly done, and at the time such things are rightly
done, no one will interfere. I have read of a gentleman who owned a so
fine house in your London, and when he went for months of summer to
Zwitzerland and lock up his house, some burglar came and broke window at
back and got in. Then he went and made open the shutters in front and
walk out and in through the door, before the very eyes of the police.
Then he have an auction in that house, and advertise it, and put up big
notice; and when the day come he sell off by a great auctioneer all the
goods of that other man who own them. Then he go to a builder, and he
sell him that house, making an agreement that he pull it down and take
all away within a certain time. And your police and other authority help
him all they can. And when that owner come back from his holiday in
Zwitzerland he find only an empty hole where his house had been. This
was all done _en regle_; and in our work we shall be _en regle_ too. We
shall not go so early that the policeman who have then little to think
of, shall deem it strange; but we shall go after ten o'clock when there
are many about, and when such things would be done were we indeed owners
of the house. "

I could not but see how right he was, and the terrible despair of Mina's
face became relaxed a thought; there was hope in such good counsel. Van
Helsing went on:--

"When once within that house we may find more clues; at any rate some of
us can remain there whilst the rest find the other places where there be
more earth-boxes--at Bermondsey and Mile End. "

Lord Godalming stood up. "I can be of some use here," he said. "I shall
wire to my people to have horses and carriages where they will be most
convenient. "

"Look here, old fellow," said Morris, "it is a capital idea to have all
ready in case we want to go horsebacking; but don't you think that one
of your snappy carriages with its heraldic adornments in a byeway at
Walworth or Mile End would attract too much attention for our purposes?
It seems to me that we ought to take cabs when we go south or east; and
even leave them somewhere near the neighbourhood we are going to. "

"Friend Quincey is right! " said the Professor. "His head is what you
call in plane with the horizon. It is a difficult thing that we go to
do, and we do not want no peoples to watch us if so it may. "

Mina took a growing interest in everything, and I was rejoiced to see
that the exigency of affairs was helping her to forget for a time the
terrible experience of the night. She was very, very pale--almost
ghastly, and so thin that her lips were drawn away, showing her teeth in
somewhat of prominence. I did not mention this last, lest it should give
her needless pain; but it made my blood run cold in my veins to think of
what had occurred with poor Lucy when the Count had sucked her blood. As
yet there was no sign of the teeth growing sharper; but the time as yet
was short, and there was time for fear.

When we came to the discussion of the sequence of our efforts and of
the disposition of our forces, there were new sources of doubt. It was
finally agreed that before starting for Piccadilly we should destroy the
Count's lair close at hand. In case he should find it out too soon, we
should thus be still ahead of him in our work of destruction; and his
presence in his purely material shape, and at his weakest, might give us
some new clue.

As to the disposal of forces, it was suggested by the Professor that,
after our visit to Carfax, we should all enter the house in Piccadilly;
that the two doctors and I should remain there, whilst Lord Godalming
and Quincey found the lairs at Walworth and Mile End and destroyed
them. It was possible, if not likely, the Professor urged, that the
Count might appear in Piccadilly during the day, and that if so we
might be able to cope with him then and there. At any rate we might be
able to follow him in force. To this plan I strenuously objected, in
so far as my going was concerned, for I said that I intended to stay
and protect Mina. I thought that my mind was made up on the subject;
but Mina would not listen to my objection. She said that there might be
some law matter in which I could be useful; that amongst the Count's
papers might be some clue which I could understand out of my experience
in Transylvania; and that, as it was, all the strength we could muster
was required to cope with the Count's extraordinary power. I had to
give in, for Mina's resolution was fixed; she said that it was the last
hope for _her_ that we should all work together. "As for me," she said,
"I have no fear. Things have been as bad as they can be; and whatever
may happen must have in it some element of hope or comfort. Go, my
husband! God can, if He wishes it, guard me as well alone as with any
one present. " So I started up crying out: "Then in God's name let us
come at once, for we are losing time. The Count may come to Piccadilly
earlier than we think. "

"Not so! " said Van Helsing, holding up his hand.

"But why? " I asked.

"Do you forget," he said, with actually a smile, "that last night he
banqueted heavily, and will sleep late? "

Did I forget! shall I ever--can I ever! Can any of us ever forget that
terrible scene! Mina struggled hard to keep her brave countenance; but
the pain overmastered her and she put her hands before her face, and
shuddered whilst she moaned. Van Helsing had not intended to recall
her frightful experience. He had simply lost sight of her and her part
in the affair in his intellectual effort. When it struck him what he
had said, he was horrified at his thoughtlessness and tried to comfort
her. "Oh Madam Mina," he said, "dear, dear Madam Mina, alas! that I,
of all who so reverence you, should have said anything so forgetful.
These stupid old lips of mine and this stupid old head do not deserve
so; but you will forget it, will you not? " He bent low beside her as he
spoke; she took his hand, and looking at him through her tears, said
hoarsely:--

"No, I shall not forget, for it is well that I remember; and with it
I have so much in memory of you that is sweet, that I take it all
together. Now, you must all be going soon. Breakfast is ready, and we
must all eat that we may be strong. "

Breakfast was a strange meal to us all. We tried to be cheerful and
encourage each other, and Mina was the brightest and most cheerful of
us. When it was over, Van Helsing stood up and said:--

"Now, my dear friends, we go forth to our terrible enterprise. Are we
all armed, as we were on that night when first we visited our enemy's
lair; armed against ghostly as well as carnal attack? " We all assured
him. "Then it is well. Now, Madam Mina, you are in any case _quite_ safe
here until the sunset; and before then we shall return--if--we shall
return! But before we go let me see you armed against personal attack. I
have myself, since you came down, prepared your chamber by the placing
of the things of which we know, so that He may not enter. Now let me
guard yourself. On your forehead I touch this piece of Sacred Wafer in
the name of the Father, the Son, and----"

There was a fearful scream which almost froze our hearts to hear. As he
placed the Wafer on Mina's forehead, it had seared it--had burned into
the flesh as though it had been a piece of white-hot metal. My poor
darling's brain told her the significance of the fact as quickly as her
nerves received the pain of it; and the two so overwhelmed her that her
overwrought nature had its voice in that dreadful scream. But the words
to her thought came quickly; the echo of the scream had not ceased to
ring on the air when there came the reaction, and she sank on her knees
on the floor in an agony of abasement. Pulling her beautiful hair over
her face, as the leper of old his mantle, she wailed out:--

"Unclean! Unclean! Even the Almighty shuns my polluted flesh! I must
bear this mark of shame upon my forehead until the Judgment Day. " They
all paused. I had thrown myself beside her in an agony of helpless
grief, and putting my arms around held her tight. For a few minutes our
sorrowful hearts beat together, whilst the friends around us turned away
their eyes that ran tears silently. Then Van Helsing turned and said
gravely; so gravely that I could not help feeling that he was in some
way inspired and was stating things outside himself:--

"It may be that you may have to bear that mark till God Himself see fit,
as He most surely shall, on the Judgment Day to redress all wrongs of
the earth and of His children that He has placed thereon. And oh, Madam
Mina, my dear, my dear, may we who love you be there to see, when that
red scar, the sign of God's knowledge of what has been, shall pass away
and leave your forehead as pure as the heart we know. For so surely as
we live, that scar shall pass away when God see right to lift the burden
that is hard upon us. Till then we bear our Cross, as His Son did in
obedience to His will. It may be that we are chosen instruments of His
good pleasure, and that we ascend to His bidding as that other through
stripes and shame; through tears and blood; through doubts and fears,
and all that makes the difference between God and man. "

There was hope in his words, and comfort; and they made for resignation.
Mina and I both felt so, and simultaneously we each took one of the old
man's hands and bent over and kissed it. Then without a word we all
knelt down together, and, all holding hands, swore to be true to each
other.