Atlas Nightshade

Day 56

Van Helsing stepped from the carriage with the eager nimbleness of a

boy. He saw me at once, and rushed up to me, saying:--

"Ah, friend John, how goes all? Well? So! I have been busy, for I come

here to stay if need be. All affairs are settled with me, and I have

much to tell. Madam Mina is with you? Yes. And her so fine husband? And

Arthur and my friend Quincey, they are with you, too? Good!"

As I drove to the house I told him of what had passed, and of how my own

diary had come to be of some use through Mrs. Harker's suggestion; at

which the Professor interrupted me:--

"Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina! She has man's brain--a brain that a man

should have were he much gifted--and a woman's heart. The good God

fashioned her for a purpose, believe me, when He made that so good

combination. Friend John, up to now fortune has made that woman of help

to us; after to-night she must not have to do with this so terrible

affair. It is not good that she run a risk so great. We men are

determined--nay, are we not pledged?--to destroy this monster; but it is

no part for a woman. Even if she be not harmed, her heart may fail her

in so much and so many horrors; and hereafter she may suffer--both in

waking, from her nerves, and in sleep, from her dreams. And, besides,

she is young woman and not so long married; there may be other things to

think of some time, if not now. You tell me she has wrote all, then she

must consult with us; but to-morrow she say good-bye to this work, and

we go alone." I agreed heartily with him, and then I told him what we

had found in his absence: that the house which Dracula had bought was

the very next one to my own. He was amazed, and a great concern seemed

to come on him. "Oh that we had known it before!" he said, "for then we

might have reached him in time to save poor Lucy. However, 'the milk

that is spilt cries not out afterwards,' as you say. We shall not think

of that, but go on our way to the end." Then he fell into a silence that

lasted till we entered my own gateway. Before we went to prepare for

dinner he said to Mrs. Harker:--

"I am told, Madam Mina, by my friend John that you and your husband have

put up in exact order all things that have been, up to this moment."

"Not up to this moment, Professor," she said impulsively, "but up to

this morning."

"But why not up to now? We have seen hitherto how good light all the

little things have made. We have told our secrets, and yet no one who

has told is the worse for it."

Mrs. Harker began to blush, and taking a paper from her pockets, she

said:--

"Dr. Van Helsing, will you read this, and tell me if it must go in. It

is my record of to-day. I too have seen the need of putting down at

present everything, however trivial; but there is little in this except

what is personal. Must it go in?" The Professor read it over gravely,

and handed it back, saying:--

"It need not go in if you do not wish it; but I pray that it may. It can

but make your husband love you the more, and all us, your friends, more

honour you--as well as more esteem and love." She took it back with

another blush and a bright smile.

And so now, up to this very hour, all the records we have are complete

and in order. The Professor took away one copy to study after dinner,

and before our meeting, which is fixed for nine o'clock. The rest of us

have already read everything; so when we meet in the study we shall all

be informed as to facts, and can arrange our plan of battle with this

terrible and mysterious enemy.

_Mina Harker's Journal._

_30 September._--When we met in Dr. Seward's study two hours after

dinner, which had been at six o'clock, we unconsciously formed a sort of

board or committee. Professor Van Helsing took the head of the table, to

which Dr. Seward motioned him as he came into the room. He made me sit

next to him on his right, and asked me to act as secretary; Jonathan sat

next to me. Opposite us were Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, and Mr.

Morris--Lord Godalming being next the Professor, and Dr. Seward in the

centre. The Professor said:--

"I may, I suppose, take it that we are all acquainted with the facts

that are in these papers." We all expressed assent, and he went on:--

"Then it were, I think good that I tell you something of the kind of

enemy with which we have to deal. I shall then make known to you

something of the history of this man, which has been ascertained for me.

So we then can discuss how we shall act, and can take our measure

according.

"There are such beings as vampires; some of us have evidence that they

exist. Even had we not the proof of our own unhappy experience, the

teachings and the records of the past give proof enough for sane

peoples. I admit that at the first I was sceptic. Were it not that

through long years I have train myself to keep an open mind, I could not

have believe until such time as that fact thunder on my ear. 'See! see!

I prove; I prove.' Alas! Had I known at the first what now I know--nay,

had I even guess at him--one so precious life had been spared to many of

us who did love her. But that is gone; and we must so work, that other

poor souls perish not, whilst we can save. The _nosferatu_ do not die

like the bee when he sting once. He is only stronger; and being

stronger, have yet more power to work evil. This vampire which is

amongst us is of himself so strong in person as twenty men; he is of

cunning more than mortal, for his cunning be the growth of ages; he have

still the aids of necromancy, which is, as his etymology imply, the

divination by the dead, and all the dead that he can come nigh to are

for him at command; he is brute, and more than brute; he is devil in

callous, and the heart of him is not; he can, within limitations, appear

at will when, and where, and in any of the forms that are to him; he

can, within his range, direct the elements; the storm, the fog, the

thunder; he can command all the meaner things: the rat, and the owl, and

the bat--the moth, and the fox, and the wolf; he can grow and become

small; and he can at times vanish and come unknown. How then are we to

begin our strike to destroy him? How shall we find his where; and having

found it, how can we destroy? My friends, this is much; it is a terrible

task that we undertake, and there may be consequence to make the brave

shudder. For if we fail in this our fight he must surely win; and then

where end we? Life is nothings; I heed him not. But to fail here, is not

mere life or death. It is that we become as him; that we henceforward

become foul things of the night like him--without heart or conscience,

preying on the bodies and the souls of those we love best. To us for

ever are the gates of heaven shut; for who shall open them to us again?

We go on for all time abhorred by all; a blot on the face of God's

sunshine; an arrow in the side of Him who died for man. But we are face

to face with duty; and in such case must we shrink? For me, I say, no;

but then I am old, and life, with his sunshine, his fair places, his

song of birds, his music and his love, lie far behind. You others are

young. Some have seen sorrow; but there are fair days yet in store. What

say you?"

Whilst he was speaking, Jonathan had taken my hand. I feared, oh so

much, that the appalling nature of our danger was overcoming him when I

saw his hand stretch out; but it was life to me to feel its touch--so

strong, so self-reliant, so resolute. A brave man's hand can speak for

itself; it does not even need a woman's love to hear its music.

When the Professor had done speaking my husband looked in my eyes, and I

in his; there was no need for speaking between us.

"I answer for Mina and myself," he said.

"Count me in, Professor," said Mr. Quincey Morris, laconically as usual.

"I am with you," said Lord Godalming, "for Lucy's sake, if for no other

reason."

Dr. Seward simply nodded. The Professor stood up and, after laying his

golden crucifix on the table, held out his hand on either side. I took

his right hand, and Lord Godalming his left; Jonathan held my right with

his left and stretched across to Mr. Morris. So as we all took hands our

solemn compact was made. I felt my heart icy cold, but it did not even

occur to me to draw back. We resumed our places, and Dr. Van Helsing

went on with a sort of cheerfulness which showed that the serious work

had begun. It was to be taken as gravely, and in as businesslike a way,

as any other transaction of life:--

"Well, you know what we have to contend against; but we, too, are not

without strength. We have on our side power of combination--a power

denied to the vampire kind; we have sources of science; we are free to

act and think; and the hours of the day and the night are ours equally.

In fact, so far as our powers extend, they are unfettered, and we are

free to use them. We have self-devotion in a cause, and an end to

achieve which is not a selfish one. These things are much.

"Now let us see how far the general powers arrayed against us are

restrict, and how the individual cannot. In fine, let us consider the

limitations of the vampire in general, and of this one in particular.

"All we have to go upon are traditions and superstitions. These do not

at the first appear much, when the matter is one of life and death--nay

of more than either life or death. Yet must we be satisfied; in the

first place because we have to be--no other means is at our control--and

secondly, because, after all, these things--tradition and

superstition--are everything. Does not the belief in vampires rest for

others--though not, alas! for us--on them? A year ago which of us would

have received such a possibility, in the midst of our scientific,

sceptical, matter-of-fact nineteenth century? We even scouted a belief

that we saw justified under our very eyes. Take it, then, that the

vampire, and the belief in his limitations and his cure, rest for the

moment on the same base. For, let me tell you, he is known everywhere

that men have been. In old Greece, in old Rome; he flourish in Germany

all over, in France, in India, even in the Chernosese; and in China, so

far from us in all ways, there even is he, and the peoples fear him at

this day. He have follow the wake of the berserker Icelander, the

devil-begotten Hun, the Slav, the Saxon, the Magyar. So far, then, we

have all we may act upon; and let me tell you that very much of the

beliefs are justified by what we have seen in our own so unhappy

experience. The vampire live on, and cannot die by mere passing of the

time; he can flourish when that he can fatten on the blood of the

living. Even more, we have seen amongst us that he can even grow

younger; that his vital faculties grow strenuous, and seem as though

they refresh themselves when his special pabulum is plenty. But he

cannot flourish without this diet; he eat not as others. Even friend

Jonathan, who lived with him for weeks, did never see him to eat, never!

He throws no shadow; he make in the mirror no reflect, as again

Jonathan observe. He has the strength of many of his hand--witness again

Jonathan when he shut the door against the wolfs, and when he help him

from the diligence too. He can transform himself to wolf, as we gather

from the ship arrival in Whitby, when he tear open the dog; he can be as

bat, as Madam Mina saw him on the window at Whitby, and as friend John

saw him fly from this so near house, and as my friend Quincey saw him at

the window of Miss Lucy. He can come in mist which he create--that noble

ship's captain proved him of this; but, from what we know, the distance

he can make this mist is limited, and it can only be round himself. He

come on moonlight rays as elemental dust--as again Jonathan saw those

sisters in the castle of Dracula. He become so small--we ourselves saw

Miss Lucy, ere she was at peace, slip through a hairbreadth space at the

tomb door. He can, when once he find his way, come out from anything or

into anything, no matter how close it be bound or even fused up with

fire--solder you call it. He can see in the dark--no small power this,

in a world which is one half shut from the light. Ah, but hear me

through. He can do all these things, yet he is not free. Nay; he is even

more prisoner than the slave of the galley, than the madman in his cell.

He cannot go where he lists; he who is not of nature has yet to obey

some of nature's laws--why we know not. He may not enter anywhere at the

first, unless there be some one of the household who bid him to come;

though afterwards he can come as he please. His power ceases, as does

that of all evil things, at the coming of the day. Only at certain times

can he have limited freedom. If he be not at the place whither he is

bound, he can only change himself at noon or at exact sunrise or sunset.

These things are we told, and in this record of ours we have proof by

inference. Thus, whereas he can do as he will within his limit, when he

have his earth-home, his coffin-home, his hell-home, the place

unhallowed, as we saw when he went to the grave of the suicide at

Whitby; still at other time he can only change when the time come. It is

said, too, that he can only pass running water at the slack or the flood

of the tide. Then there are things which so afflict him that he has no

power, as the garlic that we know of; and as for things sacred, as this

symbol, my crucifix, that was amongst us even now when we resolve, to

them he is nothing, but in their presence he take his place far off and

silent with respect. There are others, too, which I shall tell you of,

lest in our seeking we may need them. The branch of wild rose on his

coffin keep him that he move not from it; a sacred bullet fired into the

coffin kill him so that he be true dead; and as for the stake through

him, we know already of its peace; or the cut-off head that giveth rest.

We have seen it with our eyes.