hired. He go there and soon he come again, himself driving cart on
which a great box. This he himself lift down, though it take
several to put it on truck for the ship. He give much talk to
captain as to how and where his box is to be place. But the captain
like it not and swear at him in many tongues, and tell him that if
he like he can come and see where it shall be. But he say `no,'
that he come not yet, for that he have much to do. Whereupon the
captain tell him that he had better be quick, with blood, for that
his ship will leave the place, of blood, before the turn of the
tide, with blood. Then the thin man smile and say that of course he
must go when he think fit, but he will be surprise if he go quite
so soon. The captain swear again, polyglot, and the thin man make
him bow, and thank him, and say that he will so far intrude on his
kindness as to come aboard before the sailing. Final the captain,
more red than ever, and in more tongues, tell him that he doesn't
want no Frenchmen, with bloom upon them and also with blood, in his
ship, with blood on her also. And so, after asking where he might
purchase ship forms, he departed.
"No one knew where he went `or bloomin' well cared' as they
said, for they had something else to think of, well with blood
again. For it soon became apparent to all that the Czarina
Catherine would not sail as was expected. A thin mist began to
creep up from the river, and it grew, and grew. Till soon a dense
fog enveloped the ship and all around her. The captain swore
polyglot, very polyglot, polyglot with bloom and blood, but he
could do nothing. The water rose and rose, and he began to fear
that he would lose the tide altogether. He was in no friendly mood,
when just at full tide, the thin man came up the gangplank again
and asked to see where his box had been stowed. Then the captain
replied that he wished that he and his box, old and with much bloom
and blood, were in hell. But the thin man did not be offend, andand blood, were in hell. But the thin man did not be offend, and
went down with the mate and saw where it was place, and came up and
stood awhile on deck in fog. He must have come off by himself, for
none notice him. Indeed they thought not of him, for soon the fog
begin to melt away, and all was clear again. My friends of the
thirst and the language that was of bloom and blood laughed, as
they told how the captain's swears exceeded even his usual
polyglot, and was more than ever full of picturesque, when on
questioning other mariners who were on movement up and down the
river that hour, he found that few of them had seen any of fog at
all, except where it lay round the wharf. However, the ship went
out on the ebb tide, and was doubtless by morning far down the
river mouth. She was then, when they told us, well out to sea.
"And so, my dear Madam Mina, it is that we have to rest for a
time, for our enemy is on the sea, with the fog at his command, on
his way to the Danube mouth. To sail a ship takes time, go she
never so quick. And when we start to go on land more quick, and we
meet him there. Our best hope is to come on him when in the box
between sunrise and sunset. For then he can make no struggle, and
we may deal with him as we should. There are days for us, in which
we can make ready our plan. We know all about where he go. For we
have seen the owner of the ship, who have shown us invoices and all
papers that can be. The box we seek is to be landed in Varna, and
to be given to an agent, one Ristics who will there present his
credentials. And so our merchant friend will have done his part.
When he ask if there be any wrong, for that so, he can telegraph
and have inquiry made at Varna, we say `no,' for what is to be done
is not for police or of the customs. It must be done by us alone
and in our own way."
When Dr. Van Helsing had done speaking, I asked him if he were
certain that the Count had remained on board the ship. He replied,
"We have the best proof of that, your own evidence, when in the"We have the best proof of that, your own evidence, when in the
hypnotic trance this morning."
I asked him again if it were really necessary that they should
pursue the Count, for oh! I dread Jonathan leaving me, and I know
that he would surely go if the others went. He answered in growing
passion, at first quietly. As he went on, however, he grew more
angry and more forceful, till in the end we could not but see
wherein was at least some of that personal dominance which made him
so long a master amongst men.
"Yes, it is necessary, necessary, necessary! For your sake in
the first, and then for the sake of humanity. This monster has done
much harm already, in the narrow scope where he find himself, and
in the short time when as yet he was only as a body groping his so
small measure in darkness and not knowing. All this have I told
these others. You, my dear Madam Mina, will learn it in the
phonograph of my friend John, or in that of your husband. I have
told them how the measure of leaving his own barren land, barren of
peoples,and coming to a new land where life of man teems till they
are like the multitude of standing corn, was the work of centuries.
Were another of the Undead, like him, to try to do what he has
done, perhaps not all the centuries of the world that have been, or
that will be, could aid him. With this one, all the forces of
nature that are occult and deep and strong must have worked
together in some wonderous way. The very place, where he have been
alive, Undead for all these centuries, is full of strangeness of
the geologic and chemical world. There are deep caverns and
fissures that reach none know whither. There have been volcanoes,
some of whose openings still send out waters of strange properties,
and gases that kill or make to vivify. Doubtless, there is
something magnetic or electric in some of these combinations of
occult forces which work for physical life in strange way, and in
himself were from the first some great qualities. In a hard and