posture, and clutched wildly at anything that would help her.
Amongst other things, she clutched the wreath of flowers that Dr.
Van Helsing insisted on my wearing round my neck, and tore it away
from me. For a second or two she sat up, pointing at the wolf, and
there was a strange and horrible gurgling in her throat. Then she
fell over, as if struck with lightning, and her head hit my
forehead and made me dizzy for a moment or two.
The room and all round seemed to spin round. I kept my eyes
fixed on the window, but the wolf drew his head back, and a whole
myriad of little specks seems to come blowing in through the broken
window, and wheeling and circling round like the pillar of dust
that travellers describe when there is a simoon in the desert. I
tried to stir, but there was some spell upon me, and dear Mother's
poor body, which seemed to grow cold already, for her dear heart
had ceased to beat, weighed me down, and I remembered no more for a
while.
The time did not seem long, but very, very awful, till I
recovered consciousness again. Somewhere near, a passing bell was
tolling. The dogs all round the neighborhood were howling, and in
our shrubbery, seemingly just outside, a nightingale was singing. I
was dazed and stupid with pain and terror and weakness, but the
sound of the nightingale seemed like the voice of my dead mother
come back to comfort me. The sounds seemed to have awakened the
maids, too, for I could hear their bare feet pattering outside my
door. I called to them, and they came in, and when they saw what
had happened, and what it was that lay over me on the bed, they
screamed out. The wind rushed in through the broken window, and the
door slammed to. They lifted off the body of my dear mother, and
laid her, covered up with a sheet, on the bed after I had got up.
They were all so frightened and nervous that I directed them to go
to the dining room and each have a glass of wine. The door flew
open for an instant and closed again. The maids shrieked, and thenopen for an instant and closed again. The maids shrieked, and then
went in a body to the dining room, and I laid what flowers I had on
my dear mother's breast. When they were there I remembered what Dr.
Van Helsing had told me, but I didn't like to remove them, and
besides, I would have some of the servants to sit up with me now. I
was surprised that the maids did not come back. I called them, but
got no answer, so I went to the dining room to look for them.
My heart sank when I saw what had happened. They all four lay
helpless on the floor, breathing heavily. The decanter of sherry
was on the table half full, but there was a queer, acrid smell
about. I was suspicious, and examined the decanter. It smelt of
laudanum, and looking on the sideboard, I found that the bottle
which Mother's doctor uses for her—oh! did use—was empty. What am I
to do? What am I to do? I am back in the room with Mother. I cannot
leave her, and I am alone, save for the sleeping servants, whom
some one has drugged. Alone with the dead! I dare not go out, for I
can hear the low howl of the wolf through the broken window.
The air seems full of specks, floating and circling in the
draught from the window, and the lights burn blue and dim. What am
I to do? God shield me from harm this night! I shall hide this
paper in my breast, where they shall find it when they come to lay
me out. My dear mother gone! It is time that I go too. Goodbye,
dear Arthur, if I should not survive this night. God keep you,
dear, and God help me!18 September.—I drove at once to Hillingham and arrived early.
Keeping my cab at the gate, I went up the avenue alone. I knocked
gently and rang as quietly as possible, for I feared to disturb
Lucy or her mother, and hoped to only bring a servant to the door.
After a while, finding no response, I knocked and rang again, still
no answer. I cursed the laziness of the servants that they should
lie abed at such an hour, for it was now ten o'clock, and so rang
and knocked again, but more impatiently, but still without
response. Hitherto I had blamed only the servants, but now a
terrible fear began to assail me. Was this desolation but another
link in the chain of doom which seemed drawing tight round us? Was
it indeed a house of death to which I had come, too late? I know
that minutes, even seconds of delay, might mean hours of danger to
Lucy, if she had had again one of those frightful relapses, and I
went round the house to try if I could find by chance an entry
anywhere. I could find no means of ingress. Every window and door
was fastened and locked, and I returned baffled to the porch. As I
did so, I heard the rapid pit-pat of a swiftly driven horse's feet.
They stopped at the gate, and a few seconds later I met Van Helsing
running up the avenue. When he saw me, he gasped out, "Then it was
you, and just arrived. How is she? Are we too late? Did you not get
my telegram?"
I answered as quickly and coherently as I could that I had only
got his telegram early in the morning, and had not a minute in
coming here, and that I could not make any one in the house hear
me. He paused and raised his hat as he said solemnly, "Then I fear
we are too late. God's will be done!"
With his usual recuperative energy, he went on, "Come. If there
be no way open to get in, we must make one. Time is all in all to
us now."
We went round to the back of the house, where there was a
kitchen window. The Professor took a small surgical saw from his
case, and handing it to me, pointed to the iron bars which guarded