Atlas Nightshade

Day 75

"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 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

had 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 had 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:--