"Oh, Madam Mina," he said,"dear, dear, Madam Mina, alas! That I
of all who so reverence you should have said anything so forgetful.
These stupid old lips of mine and this stupid old head do not
deserve so, but you will forget it, will you not?" He bent low
beside her as he spoke.
She took his hand, and looking at him through her tears, said
hoarsely, "No, I shall not forget, for it is well that I remember.
And with it I have so much in memory of you that is sweet, that I
take it all together. Now, you must all be going soon. Breakfast is
ready, and we must all eat that we may be strong."
Breakfast was a strange meal to us all. We tried to be cheerful
and encourage each other, and Mina was the brightest and most
cheerful of us. When it was over, Van Helsing stood up and said,
"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 whitehot 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 thescream 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 Judgement
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.
"It may be that you may have to bear that mark till God himself
see fit, as He most surely shall, on the Judgement Day, to redress
all wrongs of the earth and of His children that He has placed
thereon. And oh, Madam Mina, my dear, my dear, may we who love you
be there to see, when that red scar, the sign of God's knowledge of
what has been, shall pass away, and leave your forehead as pure as
the heart we know. For so surely as we live, that scar shall pass
away when God sees right to lift the burden that is hard upon us.
Till then we bear our Cross, as His Son did in obedience to His
Will. It may be that we are chosen instruments of His good
pleasure, and that we ascend to His bidding as that other through
stripes and shame. Through tears and blood. Through doubts and
fear, and all that makes the difference between God and man."
There was hope in his words, and comfort. And they made for
resignation. Mina and I both felt so, and simultaneously we each
took one of the old man's hands and bent over and kissed it. Then
without a word we all knelt down together, and all holding hands,
swore to be true to each other. We men pledged ourselves to raise
the veil of sorrow from the head of her whom, each in his own way,the veil of sorrow from the head of her whom, each in his own way,
we loved. And we prayed for help and guidance in the terrible task
which lay before us. It was then time to start. So I said farewell
to Mina, a parting which neither of us shall forget to our dying
day, and we set out.
To one thing I have made up my mind. If we find out that Mina
must be a vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that
unknown and terrible land alone. I suppose it is thus that in old
times one vampire meant many. Just as their hideous bodies could
only rest in sacred earth, so the holiest love was the recruiting
sergeant for their ghastly ranks.
We entered Carfax without trouble and found all things the same
as on the first occasion. It was hard to believe that amongst so
prosaic surroundings of neglect and dust and decay there was any
ground for such fear as already we knew. Had not our minds been
made up, and had there not been terrible memories to spur us on, we
could hardly have proceeded with our task. We found no papers, or
any sign of use in the house. And in the old chapel the great boxes
looked just as we had seen them last.
Dr. Van Helsing said to us solemnly as we stood before him, "And
now, my friends, we have a duty here to do. We must sterilize this
earth, so sacred of holy memories, that he has brought from a far
distant land for such fell use. He has chosen this earth because it
has been holy. Thus we defeat him with his own weapon, for we make
it more holy still. It was sanctified to such use of man, now we
sanctify it to God."
As he spoke he took from his bag a screwdriver and a wrench, and
very soon the top of one of the cases was thrown open. The earth
smelled musty and close, but we did not somehow seem to mind, for
our attention was concentrated on the Professor. Taking from his
box a piece of the Scared Wafer he laid it reverently on the earth,
and then shutting down the lid began to screw it home, we aiding
him as he worked.
One by one we treated in the same way each of the great boxes,