Professor and caught his eyes fixed on mine. His face was sternly
set as he spoke, "There is no time to lose. His words may be worth
many lives. I have been thinking so, as I stood here. It may be
there is a soul at stake! We shall operate just above the ear."
Without another word he made the operation. For a few moments
the breathing continued to be stertorous. Then there came a breath
so prolonged that it seemed as though it would tear open his chest.
Suddenly his eyes opened, and became fixed in a wild, helpless
stare. This was continued for a few moments, then it was softened
into a glad surprise, and from his lips came a sigh of relief. He
moved convulsively, and as he did so, said, "I'll be quiet, Doctor.
Tell them to take off the strait waistcoat. I have had a terrible
dream, and it has left me so weak that I cannot move. What's wrong
with my face? It feels all swollen, and it smarts dreadfully."
He tried to turn his head, but even with the effort his eyes
seemed to grow glassy again so I gently put it back. Then Van
Helsing said in a quiet grave tone, "Tell us your dream, Mr.
Renfield."
As he heard the voice his face brightened, through its
mutilation, and he said, "That is Dr. Van Helsing. How good it is
of you to be here. Give me some water, my lips are dry, and I shall
try to tell you. I dreamed" …
He stopped and seemed fainting. I called quietly to Quincey,
"The brandy, it is in my study, quick!" He flew and returned with a
glass, the decanter of brandy and a carafe of water. We moistened
the parched lips, and the patient quickly revived.
It seemed, however, that his poor injured brain had been working
in the interval, for when he was quite conscious, he looked at me
piercingly with an agonized confusion which I shall never forget,
and said, "I must not deceive myself. It was no dream, but all a
grim reality." Then his eyes roved round the room. As they caught
sight of the two figures sitting patiently on the edge of the bed
he went on, "If I were not sure already, I would know from
them."he went on, "If I were not sure already, I would know from
them."
For an instant his eyes closed, not with pain or sleep but
voluntarily, as though he were bringing all his faculties to bear.
When he opened them he said, hurriedly, and with more energy than
he had yet displayed, "Quick, Doctor, quick, I am dying! I feel
that I have but a few minutes, and then I must go back to death, or
worse! Wet my lips with brandy again. I have something that I must
say before I die. Or before my poor crushed brain dies anyhow.
Thank you! It was that night after you left me, when I implored you
to let me go away. I couldn't speak then, for I felt my tongue was
tied. But I was as sane then, except in that way, as I am now. I
was in an agony of despair for a long time after you left me, it
seemed hours. Then there came a sudden peace to me. My brain seemed
to become cool again, and I realized where I was. I heard the dogs
bark behind our house, but not where He was!"
As he spoke, Van Helsing's eyes never blinked, but his hand came
out and met mine and gripped it hard. He did not, however, betray
himself. He nodded slightly and said, "Go on," in a low voice.
Renfield proceeded. "He came up to the window in the mist, as I
had seen him often before, but he was solid then, not a ghost, and
his eyes were fierce like a man's when angry. He was laughing with
his red mouth, the sharp white teeth glinted in the moonlight when
he turned to look back over the belt of trees, to where the dogs
were barking. I wouldn't ask him to come in at first, though I knew
he wanted to, just as he had wanted all along. Then he began
promising me things, not in words but by doing them."
He was interrupted by a word from the Professor, "How?"
"By making them happen. Just as he used to send in the flies
when the sun was shining. Great big fat ones with steel and
sapphire on their wings. And big moths, in the night, with skull
and cross-bones on their backs."
Van Helsing nodded to him as he whispered to me unconsciously,and cross-bones on their backs."
Van Helsing nodded to him as he whispered to me unconsciously,
"The Acherontia Atropos of the Sphinges, what you call the
`Death's-head Moth'?"
The patient went on without stopping, "Then he began to
whisper.`Rats, rats, rats! Hundreds, thousands, millions of them,
and every one a life. And dogs to eat them, and cats too. All
lives! All red blood, with years of life in it, and not merely
buzzing flies!' I laughed at him, for I wanted to see what he could
do. Then the dogs howled, away beyond the dark trees in His house.
He beckoned me to the window. I got up and looked out, and He
raised his hands,and seemed to call out without using any words. A
dark mass spread over the grass, coming on like the shape of a
flame of fire. And then He moved the mist to the right and left,
and I could see that there were thousands of rats with their eyes
blazing red, like His only smaller. He held up his hand, and they
all stopped, and I thought he seemed to be saying, `All these lives
will I give you, ay, and many more and greater, through countless
ages, if you will fall down and worship me!' And then a red cloud,
like the color of blood, seemed to close over my eyes, and before I
knew what I was doing, I found myself opening the sash and saying
to Him, `Come in, Lord and Master!' The rats were all gone, but He
slid into the room through the sash, though it was only open an
inch wide, just as the Moon herself has often come in through the
tiniest crack and has stood before me in all her size and
splendor."
His voice was weaker, so I moistened his lips with the brandy
again, and he continued, but it seemed as though his memory had
gone on working in the interval for his story was further advanced.
I was about to call him back to the point, but Van Helsing
whispered to me, "Let him go on. Do not interrupt him. He cannot go
back, and maybe could not proceed at all if once he lost the thread
of his thought."
He proceeded, "All day I waited to hear from him, but he did not