Atlas Nightshade

Day 47

"Yes, it is a child, but who brought it here? And is it wounded?" I

asked.

"We shall see," said the Professor, and with one impulse we took our way

out of the churchyard, he carrying the sleeping child.

When we had got some little distance away, we went into a clump of

trees, and struck a match, and looked at the child's throat. It was

without a scratch or scar of any kind.

"Was I right?" I asked triumphantly.

"We were just in time," said the Professor thankfully.

We had now to decide what we were to do with the child, and so consulted

about it. If we were to take it to a police-station we should have to

give some account of our movements during the night; at least, we should

have had to make some statement as to how we had come to find the child.

So finally we decided that we would take it to the Heath, and when we

heard a policeman coming, would leave it where he could not fail to find

it; we would then seek our way home as quickly as we could. All fell out

well. At the edge of Hampstead Heath we heard a policeman's heavy

tramp, and laying the child on the pathway, we waited and watched until

he saw it as he flashed his lantern to and fro. We heard his exclamation

of astonishment, and then we went away silently. By good chance we got a

cab near the "Spaniards," and drove to town.

I cannot sleep, so I make this entry. But I must try to get a few hours'

sleep, as Van Helsing is to call for me at noon. He insists that I shall

go with him on another expedition.

* * * * *

_27 September._--It was two o'clock before we found a suitable

opportunity for our attempt. The funeral held at noon was all completed,

and the last stragglers of the mourners had taken themselves lazily

away, when, looking carefully from behind a clump of alder-trees, we saw

the sexton lock the gate after him. We knew then that we were safe till

morning did we desire it; but the Professor told me that we should not

want more than an hour at most. Again I felt that horrid sense of the

reality of things, in which any effort of imagination seemed out of

place; and I realised distinctly the perils of the law which we were

incurring in our unhallowed work. Besides, I felt it was all so useless.

Outrageous as it was to open a leaden coffin, to see if a woman dead

nearly a week were really dead, it now seemed the height of folly to

open the tomb again, when we knew, from the evidence of our own

eyesight, that the coffin was empty. I shrugged my shoulders, however,

and rested silent, for Van Helsing had a way of going on his own road,

no matter who remonstrated. He took the key, opened the vault, and again

courteously motioned me to precede. The place was not so gruesome as

last night, but oh, how unutterably mean-looking when the sunshine

streamed in. Van Helsing walked over to Lucy's coffin, and I followed.

He bent over and again forced back the leaden flange; and then a shock

of surprise and dismay shot through me.

There lay Lucy, seemingly just as we had seen her the night before her

funeral. She was, if possible, more radiantly beautiful than ever; and I

could not believe that she was dead. The lips were red, nay redder than

before; and on the cheeks was a delicate bloom.

"Is this a juggle?" I said to him.

"Are you convinced now?" said the Professor in response, and as he spoke

he put over his hand, and in a way that made me shudder, pulled back the

dead lips and showed the white teeth.

"See," he went on, "see, they are even sharper than before. With this

and this"--and he touched one of the canine teeth and that below

it--"the little children can be bitten. Are you of belief now, friend

John?" Once more, argumentative hostility woke within me. I _could_ not

accept such an overwhelming idea as he suggested; so, with an attempt to

argue of which I was even at the moment ashamed, I said:--

"She may have been placed here since last night."

"Indeed? That is so, and by whom?"

"I do not know. Some one has done it."

"And yet she has been dead one week. Most peoples in that time would not

look so." I had no answer for this, so was silent. Van Helsing did not

seem to notice my silence; at any rate, he showed neither chagrin nor

triumph. He was looking intently at the face of the dead woman, raising

the eyelids and looking at the eyes, and once more opening the lips and

examining the teeth. Then he turned to me and said:--

"Here, there is one thing which is different from all recorded; here is

some dual life that is not as the common. She was bitten by the vampire

when she was in a trance, sleep-walking--oh, you start; you do not know

that, friend John, but you shall know it all later--and in trance could

he best come to take more blood. In trance she died, and in trance she

is Un-Dead, too. So it is that she differ from all other. Usually when

the Un-Dead sleep at home"--as he spoke he made a comprehensive sweep of

his arm to designate what to a vampire was "home"--"their face show what

they are, but this so sweet that was when she not Un-Dead she go back to

the nothings of the common dead. There is no malign there, see, and so

it make hard that I must kill her in her sleep." This turned my blood

cold, and it began to dawn upon me that I was accepting Van Helsing's

theories; but if she were really dead, what was there of terror in the

idea of killing her? He looked up at me, and evidently saw the change in

my face, for he said almost joyously:--

"Ah, you believe now?"

I answered: "Do not press me too hard all at once. I am willing to

accept. How will you do this bloody work?"

"I shall cut off her head and fill her mouth with garlic, and I shall

drive a stake through her body." It made me shudder to think of so

mutilating the body of the woman whom I had loved. And yet the feeling

was not so strong as I had expected. I was, in fact, beginning to

shudder at the presence of this being, this Un-Dead, as Van Helsing

called it, and to loathe it. Is it possible that love is all subjective,

or all objective?

I waited a considerable time for Van Helsing to begin, but he stood as

if wrapped in thought. Presently he closed the catch of his bag with a

snap, and said:--

"I have been thinking, and have made up my mind as to what is best. If I

did simply follow my inclining I would do now, at this moment, what is

to be done; but there are other things to follow, and things that are

thousand times more difficult in that them we do not know. This is

simple. She have yet no life taken, though that is of time; and to act

now would be to take danger from her for ever. But then we may have to

want Arthur, and how shall we tell him of this? If you, who saw the

wounds on Lucy's throat, and saw the wounds so similar on the child's at

the hospital; if you, who saw the coffin empty last night and full

to-day with a woman who have not change only to be more rose and more

beautiful in a whole week, after she die--if you know of this and know

of the white figure last night that brought the child to the churchyard,

and yet of your own senses you did not believe, how, then, can I expect

Arthur, who know none of those things, to believe? He doubted me when I

took him from her kiss when she was dying. I know he has forgiven me

because in some mistaken idea I have done things that prevent him say

good-bye as he ought; and he may think that in some more mistaken idea

this woman was buried alive; and that in most mistake of all we have

killed her. He will then argue back that it is we, mistaken ones, that

have killed her by our ideas; and so he will be much unhappy always. Yet

he never can be sure; and that is the worst of all. And he will

sometimes think that she he loved was buried alive, and that will paint

his dreams with horrors of what she must have suffered; and again, he

will think that we may be right, and that his so beloved was, after all,

an Un-Dead. No! I told him once, and since then I learn much. Now, since

I know it is all true, a hundred thousand times more do I know that he

must pass through the bitter waters to reach the sweet. He, poor fellow,

must have one hour that will make the very face of heaven grow black to

him; then we can act for good all round and send him peace. My mind is

made up. Let us go. You return home for to-night to your asylum, and see

that all be well. As for me, I shall spend the night here in this

churchyard in my own way. To-morrow night you will come to me to the

Berkeley Hotel at ten of the clock. I shall send for Arthur to come too,

and also that so fine young man of America that gave his blood. Later we

shall all have work to do. I come with you so far as Piccadilly and

there dine, for I must be back here before the sun set."

So we locked the tomb and came away, and got over the wall of the

churchyard, which was not much of a task, and drove back to Piccadilly.

_Note left by Van Helsing in his portmanteau, Berkeley Hotel directed to

John Seward, M. D._

(Not delivered.)

"_27 September._

"Friend John,--