wave or rustle so ominously. Never did bough creak so mysteriously,
and never did the far-away howling of dogs send such a woeful
presage through the night.
There was a long spell of silence, big, aching, void, and then
from the Professor a keen "S-s-s-s!" He pointed, and far down the
avenue of yews we saw a white figure advance, a dim white figure,
which held something dark at its breast. The figure stopped, and at
the moment a ray of moonlight fell upon the masses of driving
clouds, and showed in startling prominence a dark-haired woman,
dressed in the cerements of the grave. We could not see the face,
for it was bent down over what we saw to be a fair-haired child.
There was a pause and a sharp little cry, such as a child gives in
sleep, or a dog as it lies before the fire and dreams. We were
starting forward, but the Professor's warning hand, seen by us as
he stood behind a yew tree, kept us back. And then as we looked the
white figure moved forwards again. It was now near enough for us to
see clearly, and the moonlight still held. My own heart grew cold
as ice, and I could hear the gasp of Arthur, as we recognized the
features of Lucy Westenra. Lucy Westenra, but yet how changed. The
sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the
purity to voluptuous wantonness.
Van Helsing stepped out, and obedient to his gesture, we all
advanced too. The four of us ranged in a line before the door of
the tomb. Van Helsing raised his lantern and drew the slide. By the
concentrated light that fell on Lucy's face we could see that the
lips were crimson with fresh blood, and that the stream had
trickled over her chin and stained the purity of her lawn death
robe.
We shuddered with horror. I could see by the tremulous light
that even Van Helsing's iron nerve had failed. Arthur was next to
me, and if I had not seized his arm and held him up, he would have
fallen.
When Lucy, I call the thing that was before us Lucy because it
bore her shape, saw us she drew back with an angry snarl, such as abore her shape, saw us she drew back with an angry snarl, such as a
cat gives when taken unawares, then her eyes ranged over us. Lucy's
eyes in form and color, but Lucy's eyes unclean and full of hell
fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew. At that moment the
remnant of my love passed into hate and loathing. Had she then to
be killed, I could have done it with savage delight. As she looked,
her eyes blazed with unholy light, and the face became wreathed
with a voluptuous smile. Oh, God, how it made me shudder to see it!
With a careless motion, she flung to the ground, callous as a
devil, the child that up to now she had clutched strenuously to her
breast, growling over it as a dog growls over a bone. The child
gave a sharp cry, and lay there moaning. There was a
cold-bloodedness in the act which wrung a groan from Arthur. When
she advanced to him with outstretched arms and a wanton smile he
fell back and hid his face in his hands.
She still advanced, however, and with a languorous, voluptuous
grace, said, "Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to
me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together.
Come, my husband, come!"
There was something diabolically sweet in her tones, something
of the tinkling of glass when struck, which rang through the brains
even of us who heard the words addressed to another.
As for Arthur, he seemed under a spell, moving his hands from
his face, he opened wide his arms. She was leaping for them, when
Van Helsing sprang forward and held between them his little golden
crucifix. She recoiled from it, and, with a suddenly distorted
face, full of rage, dashed past him as if to enter the tomb.
When within a foot or two of the door, however,she stopped, as
if arrested by some irresistible force. Then she turned, and her
face was shown in the clear burst of moonlight and by the lamp,
which had now no quiver from Van Helsing's nerves. Never did I see
such baffled malice on a face, and never, I trust, shall such eversuch baffled malice on a face, and never, I trust, shall such ever
be seen again by mortal eyes. The beautiful color became livid, the
eyes seemed to throw out sparks of hell fire, the brows were
wrinkled as though the folds of flesh were the coils of Medusa's
snakes, and the lovely, blood-stained mouth grew to an open square,
as in the passion masks of the Greeks and Japanese. If ever a face
meant death, if looks could kill, we saw it at that moment.
And so for full half a minute, which seemed an eternity, se
remained between the lifted crucifix and the sacred closing of her
means of entry.
Van Helsing broke the silence by asking Arthur, "Answer me, oh
my friend! Am I to proceed in my work?"
"Do as you will, friend. Do as you will. There can be no horror
like this ever any more." And he groaned in spirit.
Quincey and I simultaneously moved towards him, and took his
arms. We could hear the click of the closing lantern as Van Helsing
held it down. Coming close to the tomb, he began to remove from the
chinks some of the sacred emblem which he had placed there. We all
looked on with horrified amazement as we saw, when he stood back,
the woman, with a corporeal body as real at that moment as our own,
pass through the interstice where scarce a knife blade could have
gone. We all felt a glad sense of relief when we saw the Professor
calmly restoring the strings of putty to the edges of the door.
When this was done, he lifted the child and said, "Come now, my
friends. We can do no more till tomorrow. There is a funeral at
noon, so here we shall all come before long after that. The friends
of the dead will all be gone by two, and when the sexton locks the
gate we shall remain. Then there is more to do, but not like this
of tonight. As for this little one, he is not much harmed, and by
tomorrow night he shall be well. We shall leave him where the
police will find him, as on the other night, and then to home."
Coming close to Arthur, he said, "My friend Arthur, you have had