Atlas Nightshade

Day 50

"Yes."

"That night we were just in time. One more so small child was missing,

and we find it, thank God, unharmed amongst the graves. Yesterday I came

here before sundown, for at sundown the Un-Dead can move. I waited here

all the night till the sun rose, but I saw nothing. It was most probable

that it was because I had laid over the clamps of those doors garlic,

which the Un-Dead cannot bear, and other things which they shun. Last

night there was no exodus, so to-night before the sundown I took away my

garlic and other things. And so it is we find this coffin empty. But

bear with me. So far there is much that is strange. Wait you with me

outside, unseen and unheard, and things much stranger are yet to be.

So"--here he shut the dark slide of his lantern--"now to the outside."

He opened the door, and we filed out, he coming last and locking the

door behind him.

Oh! but it seemed fresh and pure in the night air after the terror of

that vault. How sweet it was to see the clouds race by, and the passing

gleams of the moonlight between the scudding clouds crossing and

passing--like the gladness and sorrow of a man's life; how sweet it was

to breathe the fresh air, that had no taint of death and decay; how

humanising to see the red lighting of the sky beyond the hill, and to

hear far away the muffled roar that marks the life of a great city. Each

in his own way was solemn and overcome. Arthur was silent, and was, I

could see, striving to grasp the purpose and the inner meaning of the

mystery. I was myself tolerably patient, and half inclined again to

throw aside doubt and to accept Van Helsing's conclusions. Quincey

Morris was phlegmatic in the way of a man who accepts all things, and

accepts them in the spirit of cool bravery, with hazard of all he has to

stake. Not being able to smoke, he cut himself a good-sized plug of

tobacco and began to chew. As to Van Helsing, he was employed in a

definite way. First he took from his bag a mass of what looked like

thin, wafer-like biscuit, which was carefully rolled up in a white

napkin; next he took out a double-handful of some whitish stuff, like

dough or putty. He crumbled the wafer up fine and worked it into the

mass between his hands. This he then took, and rolling it into thin

strips, began to lay them into the crevices between the door and its

setting in the tomb. I was somewhat puzzled at this, and being close,

asked him what it was that he was doing. Arthur and Quincey drew near

also, as they too were curious. He answered:--

"I am closing the tomb, so that the Un-Dead may not enter."

"And is that stuff you have put there going to do it?" asked Quincey.

"Great Scott! Is this a game?"

"It is."

"What is that which you are using?" This time the question was by

Arthur. Van Helsing reverently lifted his hat as he answered:--

"The Host. I brought it from Amsterdam. I have an Indulgence." It was an

answer that appalled the most sceptical of us, and we felt individually

that in the presence of such earnest purpose as the Professor's, a

purpose which could thus use the to him most sacred of things, it was

impossible to distrust. In respectful silence we took the places

assigned to us close round the tomb, but hidden from the sight of any

one approaching. I pitied the others, especially Arthur. I had myself

been apprenticed by my former visits to this watching horror; and yet I,

who had up to an hour ago repudiated the proofs, felt my heart sink

within me. Never did tombs look so ghastly white; never did cypress, or

yew, or juniper so seem the embodiment of funereal gloom; never did tree

or grass wave or rustle so ominously; never did bough creak so

mysteriously; and never did the far-away howling of dogs send such a

woeful presage through the night.

There was a long spell of silence, a big, aching void, and then from the

Professor a keen "S-s-s-s!" He pointed; and far down the avenue of yews

we saw a white figure advance--a dim white figure, which held something

dark at its breast. The figure stopped, and at the moment a ray of

moonlight fell upon the masses of driving clouds and showed in startling

prominence a dark-haired woman, dressed in the cerements of the grave.

We could not see the face, for it was bent down over what we saw to be a

fair-haired child. There was a pause and a sharp little cry, such as a

child gives in sleep, or a dog as it lies before the fire and dreams. We

were starting forward, but the Professor's warning hand, seen by us as

he stood behind a yew-tree, kept us back; and then as we looked the

white figure moved forwards again. It was now near enough for us to see

clearly, and the moonlight still held. My own heart grew cold as ice,

and I could hear the gasp of Arthur, as we recognised the features of

Lucy Westenra. Lucy Westenra, but yet how changed. The sweetness was

turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous

wantonness. Van Helsing stepped out, and, obedient to his gesture, we

all advanced too; the four of us ranged in a line before the door of the

tomb. Van Helsing raised his lantern and drew the slide; by the

concentrated light that fell on Lucy's face we could see that the lips

were crimson with fresh blood, and that the stream had trickled over her

chin and stained the purity of her lawn death-robe.

We shuddered with horror. I could see by the tremulous light that even

Van Helsing's iron nerve had failed. Arthur was next to me, and if I had

not seized his arm and held him up, he would have fallen.

When Lucy--I call the thing that was before us Lucy because it bore her

shape--saw us she drew back with an angry snarl, such as a cat gives

when taken unawares; then her eyes ranged over us. Lucy's eyes in form

and colour; but Lucy's eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of

the pure, gentle orbs we knew. At that moment the remnant of my love

passed into hate and loathing; had she then to be killed, I could have

done it with savage delight. As she looked, her eyes blazed with unholy

light, and the face became wreathed with a voluptuous smile. Oh, God,

how it made me shudder to see it! With a careless motion, she flung to

the ground, callous as a devil, the child that up to now she had

clutched strenuously to her breast, growling over it as a dog growls

over a bone. The child gave a sharp cry, and lay there moaning. There

was a cold-bloodedness in the act which wrung a groan from Arthur; when

she advanced to him with outstretched arms and a wanton smile he fell

back and hid his face in his hands.

She still advanced, however, and with a languorous, voluptuous grace,

said:--

"Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are

hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!"

There was something diabolically sweet in her tones--something of the

tingling of glass when struck--which rang through the brains even of us

who heard the words addressed to another. As for Arthur, he seemed under

a spell; moving his hands from his face, he opened wide his arms. She

was leaping for them, when Van Helsing sprang forward and held between

them his little golden crucifix. She recoiled from it, and, with a

suddenly distorted face, full of rage, dashed past him as if to enter

the tomb.

When within a foot or two of the door, however, she stopped, as if

arrested by some irresistible force. Then she turned, and her face was

shown in the clear burst of moonlight and by the lamp, which had now no

quiver from Van Helsing's iron nerves. Never did I see such baffled

malice on a face; and never, I trust, shall such ever be seen again by

mortal eyes. The beautiful colour became livid, the eyes seemed to throw

out sparks of hell-fire, the brows were wrinkled as though the folds of

the flesh were the coils of Medusa's snakes, and the lovely,

blood-stained mouth grew to an open square, as in the passion masks of

the Greeks and Japanese. If ever a face meant death--if looks could

kill--we saw it at that moment.

And so for full half a minute, which seemed an eternity, she remained

between the lifted crucifix and the sacred closing of her means of

entry. Van Helsing broke the silence by asking Arthur:--

"Answer me, oh my friend! Am I to proceed in my work?"

Arthur threw himself on his knees, and hid his face in his hands, as he

answered:--

"Do as you will, friend; do as you will. There can be no horror like

this ever any more;" and he groaned in spirit. Quincey and I

simultaneously moved towards him, and took his arms. We could hear the

click of the closing lantern as Van Helsing held it down; coming close

to the tomb, he began to remove from the c****s some of the sacred

emblem which he had placed there. We all looked on in horrified

amazement as we saw, when he stood back, the woman, with a corporeal

body as real at that moment as our own, pass in through the interstice

where scarce a knife-blade could have gone. We all felt a glad sense of

relief when we saw the Professor calmly restoring the strings of putty

to the edges of the door.

When this was done, he lifted the child and said:

"Come now, my friends; we can do no more till to-morrow. There is a

funeral at noon, so here we shall all come before long after that. The

friends of the dead will all be gone by two, and when the sexton lock

the gate we shall remain. Then there is more to do; but not like this of

to-night. As for this little one, he is not much harm, and by to-morrow

night he shall be well. We shall leave him where the police will find

him, as on the other night; and then to home." Coming close to Arthur,

he said:--