Coming close to Arthur, he said, "My friend Arthur, you have had
a sore trial, but after, when you look back, you will see how it
was necessary. You are now in the bitter waters, my child. By this
time tomorrow you will, please God, have passed them, and have
drunk of the sweet waters. So do not mourn over-much. Till then I
shall not ask you to forgive me."
Arthur and Quincey came home with me, and we tried to cheer each
other on the way. We had left behind the child in safety, and were
tired. So we all slept with more or less reality of sleep.
29 September, night.—A little before twelve o'clock we three,
Arthur, Quincey Morris, and myself, called for the Professor. It
was odd to notice that by common consent we had all put on black
clothes. Of course, Arthur wore black, for he was in deep mourning,
but the rest of us wore it by instinct. We got to the graveyard by
half-past one, and strolled about, keeping out of official
observation, so that when the gravediggers had completed their task
and the sexton under the belief that every one had gone, had locked
the gate, we had the place all to ourselves. Van Helsing, instead
of his little black bag, had with him a long leather one,something
like a cricketing bag. It was manifestly of fair weight.
When we were alone and had heard the last of the footsteps die
out up the road, we silently, and as if by ordered intention,
followed the Professor to the tomb. He unlocked the door, and we
entered, closing it behind us. Then he took from his bag the
lantern, which he lit, and also two wax candles, which, when
lighted, he stuck by melting their own ends, on other coffins, so
that they might give light sufficient to work by. When he again
lifted the lid off Lucy's coffin we all looked, Arthur trembling
like an aspen, and saw that the corpse lay there in all its death
beauty. But there was no love in my own heart, nothing but loathing
for the foul Thing which had taken Lucy's shape without her soul. I
could see even Arthur's face grow hard as he looked. Presently hecould see even Arthur's face grow hard as he looked. Presently he
said to Van Helsing, "Is this really Lucy's body, or only a demon
in her shape?"
"It is her body, and yet not it. But wait a while, and you shall
see her as she was, and is."
She seemed like a nightmare of Lucy as she lay there, the
pointed teeth, the blood stained, voluptuous mouth, which made one
shudder to see, the whole carnal and unspirited appearance, seeming
like a devilish mockery of Lucy's sweet purity. Van Helsing, with
his usual methodicalness, began taking the various contents from
his bag and placing them ready for use. First he took out a
soldering iron and some plumbing solder, and then small oil lamp,
which gave out, when lit in a corner of the tomb, gas which burned
at a fierce heat with a blue flame, then his operating knives,
which he placed to hand, and last a round wooden stake, some two
and a half or three inches thick and about three feet long. One end
of it was hardened by charring in the fire, and was sharpened to a
fine point. With this stake came a heavy hammer, such as in
households is used in the coal cellar for breaking the lumps. To
me, a doctor's preperations for work of any kind are stimulating
and bracing, but the effect of these things on both Arthur and
Quincey was to cause them a sort of consternation. They both,
however, kept their courage, and remained silent and quiet.
When all was ready, Van Helsing said,"Before we do anything, let
me tell you this. It is out of the lore and experience of the
ancients and of all those who have studied the powers of the
Un-Dead. When they become such, there comes with the change the
curse of immortality. They cannot die, but must go on age after age
adding new victims and multiplying the evils of the world. For all
that die from the preying of the Un-dead become themselves Un-dead,
and prey on their kind. And so the circle goes on ever widening,
like as the ripples from a stone thrown in the water. Friend
Arthur, if you had met that kiss which you know of before poor LucyArthur, if you had met that kiss which you know of before poor Lucy
die, or again, last night when you open your arms to her, you would
in time, when you had died, have become nosferatu, as they call it
in Eastern europe, and would for all time make more of those
Un-Deads that so have filled us with horror. The career of this so
unhappy dear lady is but just begun. Those children whose blood she
sucked are not as yet so much the worse, but if she lives on,
Un-Dead, more and more they lose their blood and by her power over
them they come to her, and so she draw their blood with that so
wicked mouth. But if she die in truth, then all cease. The tiny
wounds of the throats disappear, and they go back to their play
unknowing ever of what has been. But of the most blessed of all,
when this now Un-Dead be made to rest as true dead, then the soul
of the poor lady whom we love shall again be free. Instead of
working wickedness by night and growing more debased in the
assimilating of it by day, she shall take her place with the other
Angels. So that, my friend, it will be a blessed hand for her that
shall strike the blow that sets her free. To this I am willing, but
is there none amongst us who has a better right? Will it be no joy
to think of hereafter in the silence of the night when sleep is
not, `It was my hand that sent her to the stars. It was the hand of
him that loved her best, the hand that of all she would herself
have chosen, had it been to her to choose?' Tell me if there be
such a one amongst us?"
We all looked at Arthur. He saw too, what we all did, the
infinite kindness which suggested that his should be the hand which
would restore Lucy to us as a holy, and not an unholy, memory. He
stepped forward and said bravely, though his hand trembled, and his
face was as pale as snow, "My true friend, from the bottom of my
broken heart I thank you. Tell me what I am to do, and I shall not
falter!"
Van Helsing laid a hand on his shoulder, and said,"Brave lad! A