sprang up under Quincey's match, we saw nothing but a faint vapor.
This, as we looked, trailed under the door, which with the recoil
from its bursting open, had swung back to its old position. Van
Helsing, Art, and I moved forward to Mrs. Harker, who by this time
had drawn her breath and with it had given a scream so wild, so
ear-piercing, so despairing that it seems to me now that it will
ring in my ears till my dying day. For a few seconds she lay in her
helpless attitude and disarray. Her face was ghastly, with a pallor
which was accentuated by the blood which smeared her lips and
cheeks and chin. From her throat trickled a thin stream of blood.
Her eyes were mad with terror. Then she put before her face her
poor crushed hands, which bore on their whiteness the red mark of
the Count's terrible grip, and from behind them came a low desolate
wail which made the terrible scream seem only the quick expression
of an endless grief. Van Helsing stepped forward and drew the
coverlet gently over her body, whilst Art, after looking at her
face for an instant despairingly, ran out of the room.
Van Helsing whispered to me, "Jonathan is in a stupor such as we
know the Vampire can produce. We can do nothing with poor Madam
Mina for a few moments till she recovers herself. I must wake
him!"
He dipped the end of a towel in cold water and with it began to
flick him on the face, his wife all the while holding her face
between her hands and sobbing in a way that was heart breaking to
hear. I raised the blind, and looked out of the window. There was
much moonshine, and as I looked I could see Quincey Morris run
across the lawn and hide himself in the shadow of a great yew tree.
It puzzled me to think why he was doing this. But at the instant I
heard Harker's quick exclamation as he woke to partial
consciousness, and turned to the bed. On his face, as there might
well be, was a look of wild amazement. He seemed dazed for a few
seconds, and then full consciousness seemed to burst upon him all
at once, and he started up.seconds, and then full consciousness seemed to burst upon him all
at once, and he started up.
His wife was aroused by the quick movement, and turned to him
with her arms stretched out, as though to embrace him. Instantly,
however, she drew them in again, and putting her elbows together,
held her hands before her face,and shuddered till the bed beneath
her shook.
"In God's name what does this mean?" Harker cried out. "Dr.
Seward, Dr. Van Helsing, what is it? What has happened? What is
wrong? Mina, dear what is it? What does that blood mean? My God, my
God! Has it come to this!" And, raising himself to his knees, he
beat his hands wildly together."Good God help us! Help her! Oh,
help her!"
With a quick movement he jumped from bed, and began to pull on
his clothes, all the man in him awake at the need for instant
exertion. "What has happened? Tell me all about it!" he cried
without pausing. "Dr. Van Helsing you love Mina, I know. Oh, do
something to save her. It cannot have gone too far yet. Guard her
while I look for him!"
His wife, through her terror and horror and distress, saw some
sure danger to him. Instantly forgetting her own grief, she seized
hold of him and cried out.
"No! No! Jonathan, you must not leave me. I have suffered enough
tonight, God knows, without the dread of his harming you. You must
stay with me. Stay with these friends who will watch over you!" Her
expression became frantic as she spoke. And, he yielding to her,
she pulled him down sitting on the bedside, and clung to him
fiercely.
Van Helsing and I tried to calm them both. The Professor held up
his golden crucifix, and said with wonderful calmness, "Do not
fear, my dear. We are here, and whilst this is close to you no foul
thing can approach. You are safe for tonight, and we must be calm
and take counsel together."
She shuddered and was silent, holding down her head on her
husband's breast. When she raised it, his white nightrobe was
stained with blood where her lips had touched, and where the thinstained with blood where her lips had touched, and where the thin
open wound in the neck had sent forth drops. The instant she saw it
she drew back, with a low wail, and whispered, amidst choking
sobs.
"Unclean, unclean! I must touch him or kiss him no more. Oh,
that it should be that it is I who am now his worst enemy, and whom
he may have most cause to fear."
To this he spoke out resolutely, "Nonsense, Mina. It is a shame
to me to hear such a word. I would not hear it of you. And I shall
not hear it from you. May God judge me by my deserts, and punish me
with more bitter suffering than even this hour, if by any act or
will of mine anything ever come between us!"
He put out his arms and folded her to his breast. And for a
while she lay there sobbing. He looked at us over her bowed head,
with eyes that blinked damply above his quivering nostrils. His
mouth was set as steel.
After a while her sobs became less frequent and more faint, and
then he said to me, speaking with a studied calmness which I felt
tried his nervous power to the utmost.
"And now, Dr. Seward, tell me all about it. Too well I know the
broad fact. Tell me all that has been."
I told him exactly what had happened and he listened with
seeming impassiveness, but his nostrils twitched and his eyes
blazed as I told how the ruthless hands of the Count had held his
wife in that terrible and horrid position, with her mouth to the
open wound in his breast. It interested me, even at that moment, to
see that whilst the face of white set passion worked convulsively
over the bowed head, the hands tenderly and lovingly stroked the
ruffled hair. Just as I had finished, Quincey and Godalming knocked
at the door. They entered in obedience to our summons. Van Helsing
looked at me questioningly. I understood him to mean if we were to
take advantage of their coming to divert if possible the thoughts
of the unhappy husband and wife from each other and from
themselves. So on nodding acquiescence to him he asked them what