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                            DRACULA

                            c 1897

                              by

                          Bram Stoker



CHAPTER 1


   Jonathan Harker's Journal


3 May. Bistritz.__Left Munich at 8:35 P.M, on 1st May, arriving at
Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an
hour late. Buda-Pesth seems a won- derful place, from the glimpse which
I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the
streets. I feared to go very far from the station, as we had arrived
late and would start as near the correct time as possible.

The impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the
East; the most western of splendid bridges over the Danube, which is
here of noble width and depth, took us among the traditions of Turkish
rule.

We left in pretty good time, and came after nightfall to Klausenburgh.
Here I stopped for the night at the Hotel Royale. I had for dinner, or
rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was
very good but thirsty. (Mem. get recipe for Mina.) I asked the waiter,
and he said it was called "paprika hendl," and that, as it was a nation-
al dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along the Car- pathians.

I found my smattering of German very useful here,in- deed, I don't know
how I should be able to get on without it.

Having had some time at my disposal when in London, I had visited the
British Museum, and made search among the books and maps in the library
regarding Transylvania; it had struck me that some foreknowledge of the
country could hardly fail to have some importance in dealing with a
nobleman of that country.

I find that the district he named is in the extreme east of the country,
just on the borders of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia, and
Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathian mountains; one of the wildest
and least known portions of Europe.

I was not able to light on any map or work giving the exact locality of
the Castle Dracula, as there are no maps of this country as yet to
compare with our own Ordance Survey Maps; but I found that Bistritz, the
post town named by Count Dracula, is a fairly well-known place. I shall
enter here some of my notes, as they may refresh my memory when I talk
over my travels with Mina.

In the population of Transylvania there are four dis- tinct
nationalities: Saxons in the South, and mixed with them the Wallachs,
who are the descendants of the Dacians; Magyars in the West, and
Szekelys in the East and North. I am going among the latter, who claim
to be descended from Attila and the Huns. This may be so, for when the
Magyars conquered the country in the eleventh century they found the
Huns settled in it.

I read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the
horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of
imaginative whirlpool; if so my stay may be very interesting. (Mem., I
must ask the Count all about them.)

I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough, for I had
all sorts of queer dreams. There was a dog howling all night under my
window, which may have had something to do with it; or it may have been
the paprika, for I had to drink up all the water in my car- afe, and was
still thirsty. Towards morning I slept and was wakened by the continuous
knocking at my door, so I guess I must have been sleeping soundly then.

I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize flour
which they said was "mamaliga", and egg-plant stuffed with forcemeat, a
very excellent dish, which they call "impletata". (Mem.,get recipe for
this also.)

I had to hurry breakfast, for the train started a little before eight,
or rather it ought to have done so, for after rushing to the station at
7:30 I had to sit in the carriage for more than an hour before we began
to move.

It seems to me that the further east you go the more unpunctual are the
trains. What ought they to be in China?

All day long we seemed to dawdle through a country which was full of
beauty of every kind. Sometimes we saw little towns or castles on the
top of steep hills such as we see in old missals; sometimes we ran by
rivers and streams which seemed from the wide stony margin on each side
of them to be subject ot great floods. It takes a lot of water, and
running strong, to sweep the outside edge of a river clear.

At every station there were groups of people, sometimes crowds, and in
all sorts of attire. Some of them were just like the peasants at home or
those I saw coming through France and Germany, with short jackets, and
round hats, and home-made trousers; but others were very picturesque.

The women looked pretty, except when you got near them, but they were
very clumsy about the waist. They had all full white sleeves of some
kind or other, and most of them had big belts with a lot of strips of
something fluttering from them like the dresses in a ballet, but of
course there were petticoats under them.

The strangest figures we saw were the Slovaks, who were more barbarian
than the rest, with their big cow-boy hats, great baggy dirty-white
trousers, white linen shirts, and enormous heavy leather belts, nearly a
foot wide, all studded over with brass nails. They wore high boots, with
their trousers tucked into them, and had long black hair and heavy black
moustaches. They are very picturesque, but do not look prepossessing. On
the stage they would be set down at once as some old Oriental band of
brigands. They are, however, I am told, very harmless and rather wanting
in natural self-assertion.

It was on the dark side of twilight when we got to Bistritz, which is a
very interesting old place. Being practically on the frontier--for the
Borgo Pass leads from it into Bukovina--it has had a very stormy
existence, and it certainly shows marks of it. Fifty years ago a series
of great fires took place, which made terrible havoc on five separate
occasions. At the very beginning of the seventeenth century it underwent
a siege of three weeks and lost 13,000 people, the casualties of war
proper be- ing assisted by famine and disease.

Count Dracula had directed me to go to the Golden Krone Hotel, which I
found, to my great delight, to be thoroughly old-fashioned, for of
course I wanted to see all I could of the ways of the country.

I was evidently expected, for when I got near the door I faced a
cheery-looking elderly woman in the usual peasant dress--white
undergarment with a long double apron, front, and back, of coloured
stuff fitting almost too tight for modesty. When I came close she bowed
and said, "The Herr Englishman?"

"Yes," I said, "Jonathan Harker."

She smiled, and gave some message to an elderly man in white
shirt-sleeves, who had followed her to the door.

He went, but immediately returned with a letter:


"My friend.--Welcome to the Carpathians. I am anxious- ly expecting you.
Sleep well tonight. At three tomorrow the diligence will start for
Bukovina; a place on it is kept for you. At the Borgo Pass my carriage
will await you and will bring you to me. I trust that your journey from
London has been a happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my
beautiful land.--Your friend, Dracula."


4 May--I found that my landlord had got a letter from the Count,
directing him to secure the best place on the coach for me; but on
making inquiries as to details he seem- ed somewhat reticent, and
pretended that he could not under- stand my German.

This could not be true,because up to then he had under- stood it
perfectly; at least, he answered my questions exactly as if he did.

He and his wife, the old lady who had received me,look- ed at each other
in a frightened sort of way. He mumbled out that the money had been sent
in a letter,and that was all he knew. When I asked him if he knew Count
Dracula, and could tell me anything of his castle, both he and his wife
crossed themselves, and, saying that they knew nothing at all,simply
refused to speak further. It was so near the time of start- ing that I
had no time to ask anyone else, for it was all very mysterious and not
by any means comforting.

Just before I was leaving, the old lady came up to my room and said in a
hysterical way: "Must you go? Oh! Young Herr, must you go?" She was in
such an excited state that she seemed to have lost her grip of what
German she knew, and mixed it all up with some other language which I
did not know at all. I was just able to follow her by asking many
questions. When I told her that I must go at once, and that I was
engaged on important business, she asked again:

"Do you know what day it is?" I answered that it was the fourth of May.
She shook her head as she said again:

"Oh, yes! I know that! I know that, but do you know what day it is?"

On my saying that I did not understand, she went on:

"It is the eve of St. George's Day. Do you not know that to-night, when
the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have
full sway? Do you know where you are going, and what you are going to?"
She was in such evident distress that I tried to comfort her, but
without effect. Finally, she went down on her knees and implored me not
to go; at least to wait a day or two be- fore starting.

It was all very ridiculous but I did not feel com- fortable. However,
there was business to be done, and I could allow nothing to interfere
with it.

I tried to raise her up, and said, as gravely as I could, that I thanked
her, but my duty was imperative, and that I must go.

She then rose and dried her eyes, and taking a cruci- fix from her neck
offered it to me.

I did not know what to do, for, as an English Church- man, I have been
taught to regard such things as in some measure idolatrous, and yet it
seemed so ungracious to re- fuse an old lady meaning so well and in such
a state of mind.

She saw, I suppose, the doubt in my face, for she put the rosary round
my neck and said, "For your mother's sake," and went out of the room.

I am writing up this part of the diary whilst I am waiting for the
coach, which is, of course, late; and the crucifix is still round my
neck.

Whether it is the old lady's fear, or the many ghostly traditions of
this place, or the crucifix itself, I do not know, but I am not feeling
nearly as easy in my mind as usual.

If this book should ever reach Mina before I do, let it bring my
good-bye. Here comes the coach!


5 May. The Castle.--The gray of the morning has passed, and the sun is
high over the distant horizon, which seems jagged, whether with trees or
hills I know not, for it is so far off that big things and little are
mixed.

I am not sleepy, and, as I am not to be called till I awake, naturally I
write till sleep comes.

There are many odd things to put down, and, lest who reads them may
fancy that I dined too well before I left Bistritz, let me put down my
dinner exactly.

I dined on what they called "robber steak"--bits of bacon, onion, and
beef, seasoned with red pepper, and strung on sticks, and roasted over
the fire, in simple style of the London cat's meat!

The wine was Golden Mediasch, which produces a queer sting on the
tongue, which is, however, not disagreeable.

I had only a couple of glasses of this, and nothing else.

When I got on the coach, the driver had not taken his seat, and I saw
him talking to the landlady.

They were evidently talking of me, for every now and then they looked at
me, and some of the people who were sitting on the bench outside the
door--came and listened, and then looked at me, most of them pityingly.
I could hear a lot of words often repeated, queer words, for there were
many nationalities in the crowd,so I quietly got my polyglot dictionary
from my bag and looked them out.

I must say they were not cheering to me, for amongst them were
"Ordog"--Satan, "Pokol"--hell, "stregoica"--witch, "vrolok" and
"vlkoslak"--both mean the same thing, one being Slovak and the other
Servian for something that is either werewolf or vampire. (Mem.,I must
ask the Count about these superstitions.)

When we started, the crowd round the inn door, which had by this time
swelled to a considerable size, all made the sign of the cross and
pointed two fingers towards me.

With some difficulty, I got a fellow passenger to tell me what they
meant. He would not answer at first, but on learning that I was English,
he explained that it was a charm or guard against the evil eye.

This was not very pleasant for me, just starting for an unknown place to
meet an unknown man. But everyone seemed so kind-hearted, and so
sorrowful, and so sympathetic that I could not but be touched.

I shall never forget the last glimpse which I had of the inn yard and
its crowd of picturesque figures,all cross- ing themselves, as they
stood round the wide archway, with its background of rich foliage of
oleander and orange trees in green tubs clustered in the centre of the
yard.

Then our driver, whose wide linen drawers covered the whole front of the
boxseat,--"gotza" they call them--cracked his big whip over his four
small horses, which ran abreast, and we set off on our journey.

I soon lost sight and recollection of ghostly fears in the beauty of the
scene as we drove along, although had I known the language, or rather
languages, which my fellow- passengers were speaking, I might not have
been able to throw them off so easily. Before us lay a green sloping
land full of forests and woods, with here and there steep hills, crowned
with clumps of trees or with farmhouses, the blank gable end to the
road. There was everywhere a bewild- ering mass of fruit blossom--apple,
plum, pear, cherry. And as we drove by I could see the green grass under
the trees spangled with the fallen petals. In and out amongst these
green hills of what they call here the "Mittel Land" ran the road,
losing itself as it swept round the grassy curve, or was shut out by the
straggling ends of pine woods, which here and there ran down the
hillsides like tongues of flame. The road was rugged, but still we
seemed to fly over it with a feverish haste. I could not understand then
what the haste meant, but the driver was evidently bent on losing no
time in reaching Borgo Prund. I was told that this road is in summertime
excellent, but that it had not yet been put in order after the winter
snows. In this respect it is differ- ent from the general run of roads
in the Carpathians, for it is an old tradition that they are not to be
kept in too good order. Of old the Hospadars would not repair them, lest
the Turk should think that they were preparing to bring in for- eign
troops, and so hasten the war which was always really at loading point.

Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty slopes of
forest up to the lofty steeps of the Car- pathians themselves. Right and
left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon them
and bringing out all the glorious colours of this beautiful range, deep
blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks,green and brown where grass
and rock mingled, and an endless perspective of jagged rock and pointed
crags, till these were themselves lost in the distance, where the snowy
peaks rose grandly. Here and there seemed mighty rifts in the mountains,
through which, as the sun began to sink, we saw now and again the white
gleam of falling water. One of my companions touched my arm as we swept
round the base of a hill and opened up the lofty, snow-covered peak of a
mountain,which seemed, as we wound on our serpentine way, to be right
before us.

"Look! Isten szek!"--"God's seat!"--and he crossed him- self reverently.

As we wound on our endless way, and the sun sank lower and lower behind
us, the shadows of the evening began to creep round us. This was
emphasized by the fact that the snowy mountain-top still held the
sunset, and seemed to glow out with a delicate cool pink. Here and there
we passed Cszeks and slovaks, all in picturesque attire, but I noticed
that goitre was painfully prevalent. By the roadside were many crosses,
and as we swept by, my companions all crossed themselves. Here and there
was a peasant man or woman kneel- ing before a shrine, who did not even
turn round as we approached, but seemed in the self-surrender of
devotion to have neither eyes nor ears for the outer world. There were
many things new to me. For instance, hay-ricks in the trees, and here
and there very beautiful masses of weeping birch, their white stems
shining like silver through the delicate green of the leaves.

Now and again we passed a leiter-wagon--the ordinary peasants's
cart--with its long, snakelike vertebra, calcu- lated to suit the
inequalities of the road. On this were sure to be seated quite a group
of homecoming peasants, the Cszeks with their white, and the Slovaks
with their coloured sheepskins, the latter carrying lance-fashion their
long staves, with axe at end. As the evening fell it began to get very
cold, and the growing twilight seemed to merge into one dark mistiness
the gloom of the trees, oak, beech, and pine, though in the valleys
which ran deep between the spurs of the hills, as we ascended through
the Pass, the dark firs stood out here and there against the background
of late- lying snow. Sometimes, as the road was cut through the pine
woods that seemed in the darkness to be closing down upon us, great
masses of greyness which here and there bestrewed the trees, produced a
peculiarly weird and solemn effect, which carried on the thoughts and
grim fancies engendered earlier in the evening, when the falling sunset
threw into strange relief the ghost-like clouds which amongst the
Carpathians seem to wind ceaselessly through the valleys. Sometimes the
hills were so steep that, despite our driver's haste, the horses could
only go slowly. I wished to get down and walk up them, as we do at home,
but the driver would not hear of it. "No, no," he said. "You must not
walk here. The dogs are too fierce." And then he added, with what he
evi- dently meant for grim pleasantry--for he looked round to catch the
approving smile of the rest--"And you may have enough of such matters
before you go to sleep." The only stop he would make was a moment's
pause to light his lamps.

When it grew dark there seemed to be some excitement amongst the
passengers, and they kept speaking to him, one after the other, as
though urging him to further speed. He lashed the horses unmercifully
with his long whip, and with wild cries of encouragement urged them on
to further exertions. Then through the darkness I could see a sort of
patch of grey light ahead of us,as though there were a cleft in the
hills. The excitement of the passengers grew greater. The crazy coach
rocked on its great leather springs, and swayed like a boat tossed on a
stormy sea. I had to hold on. The road grew more level, and we appeared
to fly along. Then the mountains seemed to come nearer to us on each
side and to frown down upon us. We were entering on the Borgo Pass. One
by one several of the passengers offered me gifts, which they pressed
upon me with an earnestness which would take no denial. These were
certainly of an odd and varied kind, but each was given in simple good
faith, with a kindly word, and a blessing, and that same strange mixture
of fear-meaning movements which I had seen outside the hotel at
Bistritz-- the sign of the cross and the guard against the evil eye.
Then, as we flew along, the driver leaned forward, and on each side the
passengers, craning over the edge of the coach, peered eagerly into the
darkness. It was evident that some- thing very exciting was either
happening or expected, but though I asked each passenger, no one would
give me the slightest explanation. This state of excitement kept on for
some little time. And at last we saw before us the Pass opening out on
the eastern side. There were dark, rolling clouds overhead, and in the
air the heavy, oppressive sense of thunder. It seemed as though the
mountain range had sepa- rated two atmospheres, and that now we had got
into the thunderous one. I was now myself looking out for the convey-
ance which was to take me to the Count. Each moment I expected to see
the glare of lamps through the blackness,but all was dark. The only
light was the flickering rays of our own lamps, in which the steam from
our hard-driven horses rose in a white cloud. We could see now the sandy
road lying white before us, but there was on it no sign of a vehicle.
The passengers drew back with a sigh of gladness, which seemed to mock
my own disappointment. I was already thinking what I had best do, when
the driver, looking at his watch, said to the others something which I
could hardly hear, it was spoken so quietly and in so low a tone, I
thought it was "An hour less than the time." Then turning to me, he
spoke in German worse than my own.

"There is no carriage here. The Herr is not expected after all. He will
now come on to Bukovina, and return tomor- row or the next day, better
the next day." Whilst he was speaking the horses began to neigh and
snort and plunge wildly, so that the driver had to hold them up.Then,
amongst a chorus of screams from the peasants and a universal cross- ing
of themselves, a caleche, with four horses, drove up be- hind us,
overtook us, and drew up beside the coach. I could see from the flash of
our lamps as the rays fell on them, that the horses were coal-black and
splendid animals. They were driven by a tall man, with a long brown
beard and a great black hat, which seemed to hide his face from us. I
could only see the gleam of a pair of very bright eyes,which seemed red
in the lamplight, as he turned to us.

He said to the driver, "You are early tonight, my friend."

The man stammered in reply, "The English Herr was in a hurry."

To which the stranger replied, "That is why, I suppose, you wished him
to go on to Bukovina. You cannot deceive me, my friend. I know too much,
and my horses are swift."

As he spoke he smiled,and the lamplight fell on a hard- looking mouth,
with very red lips and sharp-looking teeth, as white as ivory. One of my
companions whispered to another the line from Burger's "Lenore".

"Denn die Todten reiten Schnell." ("For the dead travel fast.")


The strange driver evidently heard the words, for he looked up with a
gleaming smile. The passenger turned his face away, at the same time
putting out his two fingers and crossing himself. "Give me the Herr's
luggage," said the driver, and with exceeding alacrity my bags were
handed out and put in the caleche. Then I descended from the side of the
coach, as the caleche was close alongside, the driver helping me with a
hand which caught my arm in a grip of steel. His strength must have been
prodigious.

Without a word he shook his reins, the horses turned, and we swept into
the darkness of the pass. As I looked back I saw the steam from the
horses of the coach by the light of the lamps,and projected against it
the figures of my late companions crossing themselves. Then the driver
cracked his whip and called to his horses, and off they swept on their
way to Bukovina. As they sank into the darkness I felt a strange chill,
and a lonely feeling come over me. But a cloak was thrown over my
shoulders, and a rug across my knees, and the driver said in excellent
German--

"The night is chill, mein Herr, and my master the Count bade me take all
care of you. There is a flask of slivovitz (the plum brandy of the
country) underneath the seat, if you should require it."

I did not take any, but it was a comfort to know it was there all the
same. I felt a little strangely, and not a little frightened. I think
had there been any alternative I should have taken it, instead of
prosecuting that unknown night journey. The carriage went at a hard pace
straight along, then we made a complete turn and went along another
straight road. It seemed to me that we were simply going over and over
the same ground again, and so I took note of some salient point, and
found that this was so. I would have liked to have asked the driver what
this all meant, but I really feared to do so, for I thought that, placed
as I was, any protest would have had no effect in case there had been an
intention to delay.

By-and-by, however, as I was curious to know how time was passing, I
struck a match, and by its flame looked at my watch. It was within a few
minutes of midnight. This gave me a sort of shock, for I suppose the
general superstition about midnight was increased by my recent
experiences. I waited with a sick feeling of suspense.

Then a dog began to howl somewhere in a farmhouse far down the road, a
long, agonized wailing, as if from fear. The sound was taken up by
another dog, and then another and another, till, borne on the wind which
now sighed softly through the Pass, a wild howling began, which seemed
to come from all over the country, as far as the imagination could grasp
it through the gloom of the night.

At the first howl the horses began to strain and rear, but the driver
spoke to them soothingly, and they quieted down, but shivered and
sweated as though after a runaway from sudden fright. Then, far off in
the distance, from the mountains on each side of us began a louder and a
sharper howling, that of wolves, which affected both the horses and
myself in the same way. For I was minded to jump from the caleche and
run, whilst they reared again and plunged madly, so that the driver had
to use all his great strength to keep them from bolting. In a few
minutes, however, my own ears got accustomed to the sound, and the
horses so far became quiet that the driver was able to descend and to
stand be- fore them.

He petted and soothed them, and whispered something in their ears, as I
have heard of horse-tamers doing, and with extraordinary effect, for
under his caresses they became quite manageable again, though they still
trembled. The driver again took his seat, and shaking his reins, started
off at a great pace. This time, after going to the far side or the Pass,
he suddenly turned down a narrow roadway which ran sharply to the right.

Soon we were hemmed in with trees, which in places arched right over the
roadway till we passed as through a tunnel. And again great frowning
rocks guarded us boldly on either side. Though we were in shelter, we
could hear the rising wind, for it moaned and whistled through the
rocks, and the branches of the trees crashed together as we swept along.
It grew colder and colder still, and fine, powdery snow began to fall,
so that soon we and all around us were covered with a white blanket. The
keen wind still carried the howling of the dogs, though this grew
fainter as we went on our way. The baying of the wolves sounded nearer
and near- er, as though they were closing round on us from every side. I
grew dreadfully afraid, and the horses shared my fear. The driver,
however, was not in the least disturbed.He kept turn- ing his head to
left and right, but I could not see anything through the darkness.

Suddenly, away on our left I saw a fain flickering blue flame. The
driver saw it at the same moment. He at once checked the horses, and,
jumping to the ground, disappeared into the darkness. I did not know
what to do, the less as the howling of the wolves grew closer. But while
I wondered, the driver suddenly appeared again, and without a word took
his seat, and we resumed our journey. I think I must have fallen asleep
and kept dreaming of the incident, for it seemed to be repeated
endlessly, and now looking back, it is like a sort of awful nightmare.
Once the flame appeared so near the road, that even in the darkness
around us I could watch the driver's motions. He went rapidly to where
the blue flame arose, it must have been very faint, for it did not seem
to illumine the place around it at all, and gather- ing a few stones,
formed them into some device.

Once there appeared a strange optical effect. When he stood between me
and the flame he did not obstruct it, for I could see its ghostly
flicker all the same.This startled me, but as the effect was only
momentary, I took it that my eyes deceived me straining through the
darkness. Then for a time there were no blue flames, and we sped onwards
through the gloom, with the howling of the wolves around us, as though
they were following in a moving circle.

At last there came a time when the driver went further afield than he
had yet gone, and during his absence, the horses began to tremble worse
than ever and to snort and scream with fright.I could not see any cause
for it, for the howling of the wolves had ceased altogether. But just
then the moon, sailing through the black clouds, appeared behind the
jagged crest of a beetling, pine-clad rock, and by its light I saw
around us a ring of wolves, with white teeth and lolling red tongues,
with long, sinewy limbs and shaggy hair. They were a hundred times more
terrible in the grim silence which held them than even when they howled.
For myself, I felt a sort of paralysis of fear.It is only when a man
feels himself face to face with such horrors that he can under- stand
their true import.

All at once the wolves began to howl as though the moon- light had had
some peculiar effect on them.The horses jumped about and reared, and
looked helplessly round with eyes that rolled in a way painful to
see.But the living ring of terror encompassed them on every side, and
they had perforce to remain within it. I called to the coachman to come,
for it seemed to me that our only chance was to try to break out through
the ring and to aid his approach, I shouted and beat the side of the
caleche, hoping by the noise to scare the wolves from the side, so as to
give him a chance of reaching the trap. How he came there, I know not,
but I heard his voice raised in a tone of imperious command, and looking
towards the sound, saw him stand in the roadway. As he swept his long
arms, as though brushing aside some impalpable obstacle, the wolves fell
back and back further still. Just then a heavy cloud passed across the
face of the moon, so that we were again in darkness.

When I could see again the driver was climbing into the caleche, and the
wolves disappeared. This was all so strange and uncanny that a dreadful
fear came upon me, and I was afraid to speak or move. The time seemed
interminable as we swept on our way, now in almost complete darkness,
for the rolling clouds obscured the moon.

We kept on ascending, with occasional periods of quick descent, but in
the main always ascending.Suddenly, I became conscious of the fact that
the driver was in the act of pull- ing up the horses in the courtyard of
a vast ruined castle, from whose tall black windows came no ray of
light,and whose broken battlements showed a jagged line against the sky.


CHAPTER 2


  Jonathan Harker's Journal Continued



5 May.--I must have been asleep, for certainly if I had been fully awake
I must have noticed the approach of such a remarkable place. In the
gloom the courtyard looked of con- siderable size, and as several dark
ways led from it under great round arches, it perhaps seemed bigger than
it really is. I have not yet been able to see it by daylight.

When the caleche stopped, the driver jumped down and held out his hand
to assist me to alight. Again I could not but notice his prodigious
strength. His hand actually seemed like a steel vice that could have
crushed mine if he had chosen. Then he took my traps, and placed them on
the ground beside me as I stood close to a great door, old and studded
with large iron nails, and set in a projecting doorway of massive stone.
I could see even in th e dim light that the stone was massively carved,
but that the carving had been much worn by time and weather. As I stood,
the driver jump- ed again into his seat and shook the reins.The horses
start- ed forward,and trap and all disappeared down one of the dark
openings.

I stood in silence where I was, for I did not know what to do. Of bell
or knocker there was no sign. Through these frowning walls and dark
window openings it was not likely that my voice could penetrate. The
time I waited seemed end- less, and I felt doubts and fears crowding
upon me. What sort of place had I come to, and among what kind of
people? What sort of grim adventure was it on which I had embarked? Was
this a customary incident in the life of a solicitor's clerk sent out to
explain the purchase of a London estate to a foreigner? Solicitor's
clerk! Mina would not like that. Solicitor, for just before leaving
London I got word that my examination was successful, and I am now a
full-blown solic- itor! I began to rub my eyes and pinch myself to see
if I were awake. It all seemed like a horrible nightmare to me, and I
expected that I should suddenly awake, and find myself at home, with the
dawn struggling in through the windows, as I had now and again felt in
the morning after a day of over- work. But my flesh answered the
pinching test, and my eyes were not to be deceived. I was indeed awake
and among the Carpathians. All I could do now was to be patient, and to
wait the coming of morning.

Just as I had come to this conclusion I heard a heavy step approaching
behind the great door, and saw through the chinks the gleam of a coming
light. Then there was the sound of rattling chains and the clanking of
massive bolts drawn back. A key was turned with the loud grating noise
of long disuse, and the great door swung back.

Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white
moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck
of colour about him anywhere. He held in his hand an antique silver
lamp, in which the flame burned without a chimney or globe of any kind,
throwing long quivering shadows as it flickered in the draught of the
open door. The old man motioned me in with his right hand with a courtly
gesture, saying in excellent English, but with a strange intonation.

"Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own free will!" He made
no motion of stepping to meet me, but stood like a statue,as though his
gesture of welcome had fixed him into stone.The instant, however, that I
had stepped over the threshold, he moved impulsively forward, and
holding out his hand grasped mine with a strength which made me wince,
an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it seemed cold as ice,
more like the hand of a dead than a living man. Again he said.

"Welcome to my house! Enter freely.Go safely, and leave something of the
happiness you bring!" The strength of the handshake was so much akin to
that which I had noticed in the driver, whose face I had not seen, that
for a moment I doubted if it were not the same person to whom I was
speak- ing. So to make sure, I said interrogatively, "Count Drac- ula?"

He bowed in a courtly was as he replied, "I am Dracula, and I bid you
welcome, Mr. Harker, to my house. Come in, the night air is chill, and
you must need to eat and rest."As he was speaking, he put the lamp on a
bracket on the wall, and stepping out, took my luggage. He had carried
it in before I could forestall him. I protested, but he insisted.

"Nay, sir, you are my guest. It is late, and my people are not
available. Let me see to your comfort myself."He in- sisted on carrying
my traps along the passage, and then up a great winding stair, and along
another great passage, on whose stone floor our steps rang heavily. At
the end of this he threw open a heavy door, and I rejoiced to see within
a well-lit room in which a table was spread for supper, and on whose
mighty hearth a great fire of logs,freshly replenished, flamed and
flared.

The Count halted, putting down my bags, closed the door, and crossing
the room, opened another door, which led into a small octagonal room lit
by a single lamp, and seemingly without a window of any sort. Passing
through this, he open- ed another door, and motioned me to enter. It was
a welcome sight. For here was a great bedroom well lighted and warmed
with another log fire, also added to but lately, for the top logs were
fresh, which sent a hollow roar up the wide chim- ney. The Count himself
left my luggage inside and withdrew, saying, before he closed the door.

"You will need, after your journey, to refresh yourself by making your
toilet. I trust you will find all you wish. When you are ready, come
into the other room, where you will find your supper prepared."

The light and warmth and the Count's courteous welcome seemed to have
dissipated all my doubts and fears. Having then reached my normal state,
I discovered that I was half famished with hunger. So making a hasty
toilet, I went into the other room.

I found supper already laid out. My host, who stood on one side of the
great fireplace, leaning against the stone- work, made a graceful wave
of his hand to the table, and said,

"I pray you, be seated and sup how you please. You will I trust, excuse
me that I do not join you, but I have dined already, and I do not sup."

I handed to him the sealed letter which Mr. Hawkins had entrusted to me.
He opened it and read it gravely. Then, with a charming smile, he handed
it to me to read. One pass- age of it, at least, gave me a thrill of
pleasure.

"I must regret that an attack of gout, from which mal- ady I am a
constant sufferer, forbids absolutely any travel- ling on my part for
some time to come. But I am happy to say I can send a sufficient
substitute, one in whom I have every possible confidence. He is a young
man, full of energy and talent in his own way, and of a very faithful
disposition. He is discreet and silent, and has grown into manhood in my
service. He shall be ready to attend on you when you will during his
stay, and shall take your instructions in all matters."

The count himself came forward and took off the cover of a dish, and I
fell to at once on an excellent roast chicken. This, with some cheese
and a salad and a bottle of old tokay, of which I had two glasses, was
my supper.During the time I was eating it the Count asked me many
question as to my journey, and I told him by degrees all I had
experienced.

By this time I had finished my supper,and by my host's desire had drawn
up a chair by the fire and begun to smoke a cigar which he offered me,
at the same time excusing him- self that he did not smoke. I had now an
opportunity of observing him, and found him of a very marked
physiognomy.

His face was a strong, a very strong, aquiline, with high bridge of the
thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils, with lofty domed forehead, and
hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His
eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy
hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I
could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather
cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth. These protruded over
the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a
man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops
extremely point- ed. The chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm
though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.

Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees
in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine. But seeing
them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather
coarse, broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in
the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp
point. As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not
repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a
horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could
not conceal.

The Count, evidently noticing it, drew back. And with a grim sort of
smile, which showed more than he had yet done his protruberant teeth,
sat himself down again on his own side of the fireplace. We were both
silent for a while, and as I looked towards the window I saw the first
dim streak of the coming dawn. There seemed a strange stillness over
everything. But as I listened, I heard as if from down below in the
valley the howling of many wolves. The Count's eyes gleamed, and he
said.

"Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!"
Seeing, I suppose, some expression in my face strange to him, he
added,"Ah, sir, you dwellers in the city cannot enter into the feelings
of the hunter." Then he rose and said.

"But you must be tired. Your bedroom is all ready, and tomorrow you
shall sleep as late as you will. I have to be away till the afternoon,
so sleep well and dream well!" With a courteous bow, he opened for me
himself the door to the octagonal room, and I entered my bedroom.

I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt. I fear. I think strange things,
which I dare not confess to my own soul. God keep me, if only for the
sake of those dear to me!


7 May.--It is again early morning, but I have rested and enjoyed the
last twenty-four hours. I slept till late in the day, and awoke of my
own accord. When I had dressed myself I went into the room where we had
supped, and found a cold breakfast laid out, with coffee kept hot by the
pot being placed on the hearth. There was a card on the table, on which
was written--

"I have to be absent for a while. Do not wait for me. D." I set to and
enjoyed a hearty meal. When I had done, I looked for a bell, so that I
might let the servants know I had finished, but I could not find one.
There are cer- tainly odd deficiencies in the house, considering the ex-
traordinary evidences of wealth which are round me. The table service is
of gold, and so beautifully wrought that it must be of immense value.
The curtains and upholstery of the chairs and sofas and the hangings of
my bed are of the costliest and most beautiful fabrics, and must have
been of fabulous value when they were made, for they are centuries old,
though in excellent order. I saw something like them in Hampton Court,
but they were worn and frayed and moth-eaten. But still in none of the
rooms is there a mirror. There is not even a toilet glass on my table,
and I had to get the little shaving glass from my bag before I could
either shave or brush my hair. I have not yet seen a servant anywhere,
or heard a sound near the castle except the howling of wolves. Some time
after I had finished my meal, I do not know whether to call it breakfast
of dinner, for it was between five and six o'clock when I had it, I
looked about for something to read, for I did not like to go about the
castle until I had asked the Count's permiss- ion. There was absolutely
nothing in the room, book, news- paper, or even writing materials, so I
opened another door in the room and found a sort of library. The door
opposite mine I tried, but found locked.

In the library I found, to my great delight, a vast number of English
books, whole shelves full of them, and bound volumes of magazines and
newspapers. A table in the center was littered with English magazines
and newspapers, though none of them were of very recent date. The books
were of the most varied kind, history, geography, politics, political
economy, botany, geology, law, all relating to England and English life
and customs and manners. There were even such books of reference as the
London Directory, the "Red" and "Blue" books, Whitaker's Almanac, the
Army and Navy Lists, and it somehow gladdened my heart to see it, the
Law List.

Whilst I was looking at the books, the door opened, and the Count
entered. He saluted me in a hearty way, and hoped that I had had a good
night's rest. Then he went on.

"I am glad you found your way in here, for I am sure there is much that
will interest you. These companions," and he laid his hand on some of
the books, "have been good friends to me, and for some years past, ever
since I had the idea of going to London, have given me many, many hours
of pleasure. Through them I have come to know your great England, and to
know her is to love her. I long to go through the crowded streets of
your mighty London, to be in the midst of the whirl and rush of
humanity, to share its life, its change, its death, and all that makes
it what it is. But alas! As yet I only know your tongue through books.
To you, my friend, I look that I know it to speak."

"But, Count," I said, "You know and speak English thoroughly!" He bowed
gravely.

"I thank you, my friend, for your all too-flattering estimate, but yet I
fear that I am but a little way on the road I would travel. True,I know
the grammar and the words, but yet I know not how to speak them.

 "Indeed," I said, "You speak excellently."

 "Not so," he answered. "Well, I know that, did I move and speak in your
London, none there are who would not know me for a stranger. That is not
enough for me. Here I am nob- le.I am a Boyar. The common people know
me, and I am master. But a stranger in a strange land, he is no one. Men
know him not, and to know not is to care not for. I am content if I am
like the rest, so that no man stops if he sees me, or pauses in his
speaking if he hears my words, `Ha, ha! A stranger!' I have been so long
master that I would be master still, or at least that none other should
be master of me. You come to me not alone as agent of my friend Peter
Hawkins, of Exeter, to tell me all about my new estate in London. You
shall, I trust, rest here with me a while, so that by our talking I may
learn the English intonation. And I would that you tell me when I make
error, even of the smallest, in my speaking. I am sorry that I had to be
away so long today, but you will, I know forgive one who has so many
important affairs in hand."
 Of course I said all I could about being willing, and asked if I might
come into that room when I chose. He ans- wered, "Yes, certainly," and
added.

"You may go anywhere you wish in the castle, except where the doors are
locked, where of course you will not wish to go. There is reason that
all things are as they are, and did you see with my eyes and know with
my knowledge, you would perhaps better understand." I said I was sure of
this, and then he went on.

"We are in Transylvania, and Transylvania is not Eng- land. Our ways are
not your ways, and there shall be to you many strange things. Nay, from
what you have told me of your experiences already, you know something of
what strange things there may be."

This led to much conversation, and as it was evident that he wanted to
talk, if only for talking's sake, I ask- ed him many questions regarding
things that had already happened to me or come within my notice.
Sometimes he sheered off the subject, or turned the conversation by
pretending not to understand, but generally he answered all I asked most
frankly. Then as time went on, and I had got somewhat bolder, I asked
him of some of the strange things of the preceding night, as for
instance, why the coachman went to the places where he had seen the blue
flames. He then explained to me that it was commonly believed that on a
certain night of the year, last night, in fact, when all evil spirits
are supposed to have un- checked sway, a blue flame is seen over any
place where treasure has been concealed.

"That treasure has been hidden," he went on, "in the region through
which you came last night, there can be but little doubt. For it was the
ground fought over for centur- ies by the Wallachian, the Saxon, and the
Turk. Why, there is hardly a foot of soil in all this region that has
not been enriched by the blood of men, patriots or invaders. In the old
days there were stirring times, when the Aust- rian and the Hungarian
came up in hordes, and the patriots went out to meet them, men and
women, the aged and the chil- dren too, and waited their coming on the
rocks above the passes, that they might sweep destruction on them with
their artificial avalanches. When the invader was trium- phant he found
but little, for whatever there was had been sheltered in the friendly
soil."

"But how," said I, "can it have remained so long un- discovered, when
there is a sure index to it if men will but take the trouble to look?
"The Count smiled, and as his lips ran back over his gums, the long,
sharp, canine teeth showed out strangely. He answered.

"Because your peasant is at heart a coward and a fool! Those flames only
appear on one night, and on that night no man of this land will, if he
can help it, stir without his doors. And,dear sir, even if he did he
would not know what to do. Why, even the peasant that you tell me of who
marked the place of the flame would not know where to look in day- light
even for his own work. Even you would not, I dare be sworn, be able to
find these places again?"

"There you are right," I said. "I know no more than the dead where even
to look for them." Then we drifted into other matters.

"Come," he said at last, "tell me of London and of the house which you
have procured for me." With an apology for my remissness, I went into my
own room to get the papers from my bag. Whilst I was placing them in
order I heard a rattling of china and silver in the next room, and as I
passed through, noticed that the table had been cleared and the lamp
lit, for it was by this time deep into the dark. The lamps were also lit
in the study or library, and I found the Count lying on the sofa,
reading, of all things in the world, and English Bradshaw's Guide. When
I came in he cleared the books and papers from the table, and with him I
went into plans and deeds and figures of all sorts. He was interested in
everything, and asked me a myriad questions about the place and its
surroundings. He clearly had studied beforehand all he could get on the
subject of the neighborhood, for he evidently at the end knew very much
more than I did. When I remarked this, he answered.

"Well, but, my friend, is it not needful that I should? When I go there
I shall be all alone, and my friend Harker Jonathan, nay, pardon me. I
fall into my country's habit of putting your patronymic first, my friend
Jonathan Harker will not be by my side to correct and aid me. He will be
in Exeter, miles away, probably working at papers of the law with my
other friend, Peter Hawkins. So!"

We went thoroughly into the business of the purchase of the estate at
Purfleet. When I had told him the facts and got his signature to the
necessary papers, and had written a letter with them ready to post to
Mr. Hawkins, he began to ask me how I had come across so suitable a
place. I read to him the notes which I had made at the time, and which I
inscribe here.

"At Purfleet, on a by-road, I came across just such a place as seemed to
be required, and where was displayed a dilapidated notice that the place
was for sale. It was sur- rounded by a high wall, of ancient structure,
built of heavy stones, and has not been repaired for a large number of
years. The closed gates are of heavy old oak and iron, all eaten with
rust.

"The estate is called Carfax, no doubt a corruption of the old Quatre
Face, as the house is four sided, agreeing with the cardinal points of
the compass. It contains in all some twenty acres, quite surrounded by
the solid stone wall above mentioned. There are many trees on it, which
make it in places gloomy, and there is a deep, dark-looking pond or
small lake, evidently fed by some springs, as the water is clear and
flows away in a fair-sized stream. The house is very large and of all
periods back, I should say, to mediaeval times, for one part is of stone
immensely thick, with only a few windows high up and heavily barred with
iron. It looks like part of a keep, and is close to an old chapel or
church. I could not enter it, as I had not the key of the door leading
to it from the house, but I have taken with my Kodak views of it from
various points. The house had been added to, but in a very straggling
way, and I can only guess at the amount of ground it covers, which must
be very great. There are but few houses close at hand, one being a very
large house only recently added to and formed into a private lunatic
asylum. It is not, how- ever, visible from the grounds."

When I had finished, he said, "I am glad that it is old and big. I
myself am of an old family, and to live in a new house would kill me. A
house cannot be made habitable in a day, and after all, how few days go
to make up a century. I rejoice also that there is a chapel of old
times. We Tran- sylvanian nobles love not to think that our bones may
lie amongst the common dead. I seek not gaiety nor mirth, not the bright
voluptuousness of much sunshine and sparkling waters which please the
young and gay. I am no longer young, and my heart, through weary years
of mourning over the dead, is attuned to mirth. Moreover, the walls of
my castle are broken. The shadows are many, and the wind breathes cold
through the broken battlements and casements. I love the shade and the
shadow, and would be alone with my thoughts when I may." Somehow his
words and his look did not seem to accord, or else it was that his cast
of face made his smile look malignant and saturnine.

Presently, with an excuse, he left me, asking me to pull my papers
together. He was some little time away, and I began to look at some of
the books around me. One was an atlas, which I found opened naturally to
England, as if that map had been much used. On looking at it I found in
certain places little rings marked, and on examining these I noticed
that one was near London on the east side, mani- festly where his new
estate was situated. The other two were Exeter, and Whitby on the
Yorkshire coast.

It was the better part of an hour when the Count re- turned. "Aha!" he
said. "Still at your books? Good! But you must not work always. Come! I
am informed that your supper is ready." He took my arm, and we went into
the next room, where I found an excellent supper ready on the table. The
Count again excused himself, as he had dined out on his being away from
home. But he sat as on the previous night, and chatted whilst I ate.
After supper I smoked, as on the last evening, and the Count stayed with
me, chat- ting and asking questions on every conceivable subject, hour
after hour. I felt that it was getting very late in- deed, but I did not
say anything, for I felt under obligation to meet my host's wishes in
every way. I was not sleepy, as the long sleep yesterday had fortified
me, but I could not help experiencing that chill which comes over one at
the coming of the dawn, which is like, in its way, the turn of the tide.
They say that people who are near death die generally at the change to
dawn or at the turn of the tide. Anyone who has when tired, and tied as
it were to his post, experienced this change in the atmosphere can well
believe it. All at once we heard the crow of the cock coming up with
preternatural shrillness through the clear morning air.

Count Dracula, jumping to his feet, said, "Why there is the morning
again! How remiss I am to let you stay up so long. You must make your
conversation regarding my dear new country of England less interesting,
so that I may not for- get how time flies by us," and with a courtly
bow, he quickly left me.

I went into my room and drew the curtains, but there was little to
notice. My window opened into the courtyard, all I could see was the
warm grey of quickening sky. So I pulled the curtains again, and have
written of this day.


8 May.--I began to fear as I wrote in this book that I was getting too
diffuse. But now I am glad that I went into detail from the first, for
there is something so strange about this place and all in it that I
cannot but feel uneasy. I wish I were safe out of it, or that I had
never come. It may be that this strange night existence is telling on
me, but would that that were all! If there were any one to talk to I
could bear it, but there is no one.I have only the Count to speak with,
and he-- I fear I am myself the only living soul within the place. Let
me be prosaiac so far as facts can be. It will help me to bear up, and
imagination must not run riot with me. If it does I am lost. Let me say
at once how I stand, or seem to.

I only slept a few hours when I went to bed,and feeling that I could not
sleep any more, got up. I had hung my shav- ing glass by the window, and
was just beginning to shave. Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder, and
heard the Count's voice saying to me, "Good morning." I started, for it
amazed me that I had not seen him,since the reflection of the glass
covered the whole room behind me. In starting I had cut my- self
slightly, but did not notice it at the moment. Having answered the
Count's salutation, I turned to the glass again to see how I had been
mistaken. This time there could be no error, for the man was close to
me, and I could see him over my shoulder. But there was no reflection of
him in the mirror! The whole room behind me was displayed, but there was
no sign of a man in it, except myself.

This was startling, and coming on the top of so many strange things, was
beginning to increase that vague feeling of uneasiness which I always
have when the Count is near. But at the instant I saw the the cut had
bled a little, and the blood was trickling over my chin. I laid down the
razor, turning as I did so half round to look for some sticking plaster.
When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac
fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat. I drew away and his hand
touched the string of beads which held the crucifix. It made an instant
change in him, for the fury passed so quickly that I could hardly
believe that it was ever there.

"Take care," he said, "take care how you cut yourself. It is more
dangerous that you think in this country." Then seizing the shaving
glass, he went on, "And this is the wretched thing that has done the
mischief. It is a foul bauble of man's vanity. Away with it!" And
opening the window with one wrench of his terrible hand, he flung out
the glass, which was shattered into a thousand pieces on the stones of
the courtyard far below. Then he withdrew without a word. It is very
annoying, for I do not see how I am to shave, unless in my watch-case or
the bottom of the shaving pot, which is fortunately of metal.

When I went into the dining room, breakfast was pre- pared, but I could
not find the Count anywhere. So I break- fasted alone. It is strange
that as yet I have not seen the Count eat or drink. He must be a very
peculiar man! After breakfast I did a little exploring in the castle. I
went out on the stairs, and found a room looking towards the South.

The view was magnificent, and from where I stood there was every
opportunity of seeing it. The castle is on the very edge of a terrific
precipice. A stone falling from the window would fall a thousand feet
without touching anything! As far as the eye can reach is a sea of green
tree tops,with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm. Here and
there are silver threads where the rivers wind in deep gorges through
the forests.

But I am not in heart to describe beauty,for when I had seen the view I
explored further. Doors, doors, doors every- where, and all locked and
bolted. In no place save from the windows in the castle walls is there
an available exit. The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a
prisoner!


CHAPTER 3


  Jonathan Harker's Journal Continued


When I found that I was a prisoner a sort of wild feel- ing came over
me. I rushed up and down the stairs, trying every door and peering out
of every window I could find, but after a little the conviction of my
helplessness overpowered all other feelings. When I look back after a
few hours I think I must have been mad for the time, for I behaved much
as a rat does in a trap. When, however, the conviction had come to me
that I was helpless I sat down quietly, as quiet- ly as I have ever done
anything in my life, and began to think over what was best to be done. I
am thinking still, and as yet have come to no definite conclusion. Of
one thing only am I certain. That it is no use making my ideas known to
the Count. He knows well that I am imprisoned, and as he has done it
himself, and has doubtless his own motives for it, he would only deceive
me if I trusted him fully with the facts. So far as I can see, my only
plan will be to keep my knowledge and my fears to myself, and my eyes
open. I am, I know, either being deceived, like a baby, by my own fears,
or else I am in desperate straits, and if the latter be so, I need, and
shall need, all my brains to get through.

I had hardly come to this conclusion when I heard the great door below
shut, and knew that the Count had returned. He did not come at once into
the library, so I went cau- tiously to my own room and found him making
the bed. This was odd, but only confirmed what I had all along thought,
that there are no servants in the house. When later I saw him through
the chink of the hinges of the door laying the table in the dining room,
I was assured of it. For if he does himself all these menial offices,
surely it is proof that there is no one else in the castle, it must have
been the Count himself who was the driver of the coach that brought me
here. This is a terrible thought, for if so, what does it mean that he
could control the wolves, as he did, by only holding up his hand for
silence? How was it that all the people at Bistritz and on the coach had
some terrible fear for me? What meant the giving of the crucifix, of the
garlic, of the wild rose, of the mountain ash?

Bless that good, good woman who hung the crucifix round my neck! For it
is a comfort and a strength to me whenever I touch it. It is odd that a
thing which I have been taught to regard with disfavour and as
idolatrous should in a time of loneliness and trouble be of help. Is it
that there is some- thing in the essence of the thing itself, or that it
is a medium, a tangible help, in conveying memories of sympathy and
comfort? Some time, if it may be, I must examine this matter and try to
make up my mind about it. In the meantime I must find out all I can
about Count Dracula,as it may help me to understand. Tonight he may talk
of himself, if I turn the conversation that way. I must be very careful,
however, not to awake his suspicion.


Midnight.--I have had a long talk with the Count. I asked him a few
questions on Transylvania history, and he warmed up to the subject
wonderfully. In his speaking of things and people, and especially of
battles, he spoke as if he had been present at them all.This he
afterwards explained by saying that to a Boyar the pride of his house
and name is his own pride,that their glory is his glory, that their fate
is his fate. Whenever he spoke of his house he always said "we", and
spoke almost in the plural, like a king speaking. I wish I could put
down all he said exactly as he said it, for to me it was most
fascinating. It seemed to have in it a whole history of the country. He
grew excited as he spoke, and walked about the room pulling his great
white moustache and grasping anything on which he laid his hands as
though he would crush it by main strength. One thing he said which I
shall put down as nearly as I can, for it tells in its way the story of
his race.

"We Szekelys have a right to be proud, for in our veins flows the blood
of many brave races who fought as the lion fights, for lordship. Here,
in the whirlpool of European races, the Ugric tribe bore down from
Iceland the fighting spirit which Thor and Wodin game them,which their
Berserkers displayed to such fell intent on the seaboards of Europe,
aye, and of Asia and Africa too, till the peoples thought that the
werewolves themselves had come. Here, too, when they came, they found
the Huns, whose warlike fury had swept the earth like a living flame,
till the dying peoples held that in their veins ran the blood of those
old witches, who, expelled from Scythia had mated with the devils in the
desert. Fools, fools! What devil or what witch was ever so great as
Attila, whose blood is in these veins?" He held up his arms. "Is it a
wonder that we were a conquering race, that we were proud, that when the
Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar, or the Turk poured his
thousands on our frontiers, we drove them back? Is it strange that when
Arpad and his legions swept through the Hungarian fatherland he found us
here when he reached the frontier, that the Honfog- lalas was completed
there?And when the Hungarian flood swept eastward,the Szekelys were
claimed as kindred by the victor- ious Magyars, and to us for centuries
was trusted the guard- ing of the frontier of Turkeyland. Aye, and more
than that, endless duty of the frontier guard, for as the Turks say,
`water sleeps, and the enemy is sleepless.' Who more gladly than we
throughout the Four Nations received the `bloody sword,' or at its
warlike call flocked quicker to the stand- ard of the King? When was
redeemed that great shame of my nation, the shame of Cassova, when the
flags of the Wallach and the Magyar went down beneath the Crescent?Who
was it but one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat
the Turk on his own ground? This was a Dracula indeed! Woe was it that
his own unworthy brother,when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk
and brought the shame of slavery on them! Was it not this Dracula,
indeed, who inspired that other of his race who in a later age again and
again brought his forces over the great river into Turkeyland,who, when
he was beaten back, came again, and again,though he had to come alone
from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he
knew that he alone could ultimately triumph! They said that he thought
only of himself.Bah! What good are peasants without a leader? Where ends
the war with- out a brain and heart to conduct it? Again, when, after
the battle of Mohacs, we threw off the Hungarian yoke, we of the Dracula
blood were amongst their leaders, for our spirit would not brook that we
were not free. Ah, young sir, the Szekelys, and the Dracula as their
heart's blood, their brains, and their swords, can boast a record that
mushroom growths like the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs can never reach.
The warlike days are over. Blood is too precious a thing in these days
of dishonourable peace, and the glories of the great races are as a tale
that is told."

It was by this time close on morning, and we went to bed. (Mem., this
diary seems horribly like the beginning of the "Arabian Nights," for
everything has to break off at cockcrow, or like the ghost of Hamlet's
father.)


12 May.--Let me begin with facts, bare, meager facts, verified by books
and figures, and of which there can be no doubt. I must not confuse them
with experiences which will have to rest on my own observation, or my
memory of them. Last evening when the Count came from his room he began
by asking me questions on legal matters and on the doing of certain
kinds of business. I had spent the day wearily over books, and, simply
to keep my mind occupied, went over some of the matters I had been
examined in at Lincoln's Inn.There was a certain method in the Count's
inquiries, so I shall try to put them down in sequence. The knowledge
may somehow or some time be useful to me.

First, he asked if a man in England might have two so- licitors or more.
I told him he might have a dozen if he wished, but that it would not be
wise to have more than one solicitor engaged in one transaction, as only
one could act at a time, and that to change would be certain to militate
against his interest. He seemed thoroughly to understand, and went on to
ask if there would be any practical difficul- ty in having one man to
attend, say, to banking, and another to look after shipping, in case
local help were needed in a place far from the home of the banking
solicitor. I asked to explain more fully, so that I might not by any
chance mislead him, so he said,

"I shall illustrate. Your friend and mine, Mr. Peter Hawkins, from under
the shadow of your beautiful cathedral at Exeter, which is far from
London, buys for me through your good self my place at London. Good! Now
here let me say frankly, lest you should think it strange that I have
sought the services of one so far off from London instead of some one
resident there, that my motive was that no local interest might be
served save my wish only, and as one of London residence might,
perhaps,have some purpose of himself or friend to serve, I went thus
afield to seek my agent, whose labours should be only to my interest.
Now, suppose I, who have much of affairs, wish to ship goods, say, to
New- castle, or Durham, or Harwich, or Dover,might it not be that it
could with more ease be done by consigning to one in these ports?"

I answered that certainly it would be most easy, but that we solicitors
had a system of agency one for the other, so that local work could be
done locally on instruction from any solicitor, so that the client,
simply placing himself in the hands of one man, could have his wishes
carried out by him without further trouble.

"But," said he,"I could be at liberty to direct myself. Is it not so?"

"Of course, " I replied, and "Such is often done by men of business,who
do not like the whole of their affairs to be known by any one person."

"Good!" he said,and then went on to ask about the means of making
consignments and the forms to be gone through, and of all sorts of
difficulties which might arise, but by fore- thought could be guarded
against. I explained all these things to him to the best of my ability,
and he certainly left me under the impression that he would have made a
wonderful solicitor, for there was nothing that he did not think of or
foresee. For a man who was never in the country, and who did not
evidently do much in the way of business,his knowledge and acumen were
wonderful. When he had satisfied himself on these points of which he had
spoken, and I had verified all as well as I could by the books
available, he suddenly stood up and said, "Have you written since your
first letter to our friend Mr. Peter Hawkins, or to any other?"

It was with some bitterness in my heart that I answered that I had not,
that as yet I had not seen any opportunity of sending letters to
anybody.

"Then write now, my young friend," he said, laying a heavy hand on my
shoulder, "write to our friend and to any other, and say, if it will
please you, that you shall stay with me until a month from now."

"Do you wish me to stay so long?" I asked, for my heart grew cold at the
thought.

"I desire it much, nay I will take no refusal.When your master,
employer, what you will, engaged that someone should come on his
behalf,it was understood that my needs only were to be consulted. I have
not stinted. Is it not so?"

What could I do but bow acceptance? It was Mr.Hawkins' interest, not
mine, and I had to think of him, not myself, and besides, while Count
Dracula was speaking, there was that in his eyes and in his bearing
which made me remember that I was a prisoner, and that if I wished it I
could have no choice. The Count saw his victory in my bow, and his mas-
tery in the trouble of my face, for he began at once to use them, but in
his own smooth, resistless way.

"I pray you, my good young friend, that you will not discourse of things
other than business in your letters. It will doubtless please your
friends to know that you are well, and that you look forward to getting
home to them. Is it not so?" As he spoke he handed me three sheets of
note paper and three envelopes. They were all of the thinnest foreign
post, and looking at them, then at him, and noticing his quiet smile,
with the sharp, canine teeth lying over the red underlip, I understood
as well as if he had spoken that I should be more careful what I wrote,
for he would be able to read it. So I determined to write only formal
notes now, but to write fully to Mr. Hawkins in secret, and also to
Mina, for to her I could write shorthand, which would puzzle the Count,
if he did see it. When I had written my two letters I sat quiet, reading
a book whilst the Count wrote several notes, referring as he wrote them
to some books on his table. Then he took up my two and placed them with
his own, and put by his writing materials, after which, the instant the
door had closed behind him, I leaned over and looked at the lett- ers,
which were face down on the table.I felt no compunction in doing so for
under the circumstances I felt that I should protect myself in every way
I could.

One of the letters was directed to Samuel F.Billington, No. 7, The
Crescent, Whitby, another to Herr Leutner, Varna. The third was to
Coutts & Co., London, and the fourth to Herren Klopstock & Billreuth,
bankers, Buda Pesth. The second and fourth were unsealed. I was just
about to look at them when I saw the door handle move.I sank back in my
seat, having just had time to resume my book before the Count, holding
still another letter in his hand, entered the room. He took up the
letters on the table and stamped them care- fully, and then turning to
me, said,

"I trust you will forgive me, but I have much work to do in private this
evening. You will,I hope, find all things as you wish." At the door he
turned, and after a moment's pause said, "Let me advise you, my dear
young friend. Nay, let me warn you with all seriousness, that should you
leave these rooms you will not by any chance go to sleep in any other
part of the castle. It is old, and has many memories, and there are bad
dreams for those who sleep unwisely. Be warned! Should sleep now or ever
overcome you, or be like to do, then haste to your own chamber or to
these rooms, for your rest will then be safe. But if you be not careful
in this respect, then," He finished his speech in a gruesome way, for he
motioned with his hands as if he were washing them. I quite understood.
My only doubt was as to whether any dream could be more terrible than
the unnatural,horrible net of gloom and mystery which seemed closing
around me.


Later.--I endorse the last words written, but this time there is no
doubt in question. I shall not fear to sleep in any place where he is
not. I have placed the crucifix over the head of my bed,I imagine that
my rest is thus freer from dreams, and there it shall remain.

When he left me I went to my room.After a little while, not hearing any
sound,I came out and went up the stone stair to where I could look out
towards the South. There was some sense of freedom in the vast expanse,
inaccessible though it was to me,as compared with the narrow darkness of
the court- yard. Looking out on this, I felt that I was indeed in pri-
son, and I seemed to want a breath of fresh air, though it were of the
night. I am beginning to feel this nocturnal ex- istence tell on me. It
is destroying my nerve. I start at my own shadow, and am full of all
sorts of horrible imagin- ings. God knows that there is ground for my
terrible fear in this accursed place!I looked out over the beautiful
expanse, bathed in soft yellow moonlight till it was almost as light as
day. In the soft light the distant hills became melted, and the shadows
in the valleys and gorges of velvety black- ness. The mere beauty seemed
to cheer me. There was peace and comfort in every breath I drew.As I
leaned from the win- dow my eye was caught by something moving a storey
below me, and somewhat to my left, where I imagined, from the order of
the rooms, that the windows of the Count's own room would look out. The
window at which I stood was tall and deep, stone-mullioned, and though
weatherworn, was still complete. But it was evidently many a day since
the case had been there.I drew back behind the stonework, and looked
carefully out.

What I saw was the Count's head coming out from the window. I did not
see the face, but I knew the man by the neck and the movement of his
back and arms. In any case I could not mistake the hands which I had had
some many oppor- tunities of studying. I was at first interested and
somewhat amused, for it is wonderful how small a matter will interest
and amuse a man when he is a prisoner. But my very feelings changed to
repulsion and terror when I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the
window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over the dreadful
abyss,face down with his cloak spreading out around him like great
wings. At first I could not believe my eyes.I thought it was some trick
of the moon- light, some weird effect of shadow, but I kept looking, and
it could be no delusion.I saw the fingers and toes grasp the corners of
the stones,worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years, and by thus
using every projection and inequality move downwards with considerable
speed, just as a lizard moves along a wall.

What manner of man is this, or what manner of creature, is it in the
semblance of man? I feel the dread of this hor- rible place overpowering
me.I am in fear, in awful fear, and there is no escape for me. I am
encompassed about with terrors that I dare not think of.


15 May.--Once more I have seen the count go out in his lizard fashion.
He moved downwards in a sidelong way, some hundred feet down, and a good
deal to the left. He vanished into some hole or window. When his head
had disappeared, I leaned out to try and see more, but without avail.
The dis- tance was too great to allow a proper angle of sight. I knew he
had left the castle now, and thought to use the opportun- ity to explore
more than I had dared to do as yet. I went back to the room, and taking
a lamp, tried all the doors. They were all locked, as I had expected,
and the locks were comparatively new. But I went down the stone stairs
to the hall where I had entered originally. I found I could pull back
the bolts easily enough and unhook the great chains. But the door was
locked, and the key was gone! That key must be in the Count's room. I
must watch should his door be un- locked, so that I may get it and
escape. I went on to make a thorough examination of the various stairs
and passages, and to try the doors that opened from them. One or two
small rooms near the hall were open, but there was nothing to see in
them except old furniture, dusty with age and moth-eaten. At last,
however, I found one door at the top of the stairway which, though it
seemed locked, gave a little under pressure. I tried it harder, and
found that it was not really locked, but that the resistance came from
the fact that the hinges had fallen somewhat,and the heavy door rest- ed
on the floor. Here was an opportunity which I might not have again, so I
exerted myself,and with many efforts forced it back so that I could
enter. I was now in a wing of the castle further to the right than the
rooms I knew and a storey lower down. From the windows I could see that
the suite of rooms lay along to the south of the castle,the win- dows of
the end room looking out both west and south. On the latter side, as
well as to the former, there was a great precipice. The castle was built
on the corner of a great rock, so that on three sides it was quite
impregnable, and great windows were placed here where sling, or bow, or
culv- erin could not reach, and consequently light and comfort,
impossible to a position which had to be guarded, were secu- red. To the
west was a great valley, and then, rising far away, great jagged
mountain fastnesses, rising peak on peak, the sheer rock studded with
mountain ash and thorn, whose roots clung in cracks and crevices and
crannies of the stone. This was evidently the portion of the castle
occupied by the ladies in bygone days, for the furniture had more an air
of comfort than any I had seen.

The windows were curtainless, and the yellow moonlight, flooding in
through the diamond panes, enabled one to see even colours,whilst it
softened the wealth of dust which lay over all and disguised in some
measure the ravages of time and moth.My lamp seemed to be of little
effect in the brill- iant moonlight, but I was glad to have it with me,
for there was a dread loneliness in the place which chilled my heart and
made my nerves tremble. Still, it was better than living alone in the
rooms which I had come to hate from the pre- sence of the Count, and
after trying a little to school my nerves, I found a soft quietude come
over me. Here I am, sitting at a little oak table where in old times
possibly some fair lady sat to pen,with much thought and many blushes,
her ill-spelt love letter, and writing in my diary in short- hand all
that has happened since I closed it last. It is the nineteenth century
up-to-date with a vengeance. And yet, un- less my senses deceive me, the
old centuries had, and have, powers of their own which mere "modernity"
cannot kill.


Later: The morning of 16 May.--God preserve my sanity, for to this I am
reduced. Safety and the assurance of safety are things of the past.
Whilst I live on here there is but one thing to hope for, that I may not
go mad, if, indeed, I be not mad already.If I be sane, then surely it is
maddening to think that of all the foul things that lurk in this hate-
ful place the Count is the least dreadful to me, that to him alone I can
look for safety, even though this be only whilst I can serve his
purpose. Great God! Merciful God, let me be calm, for out of that way
lies madness indeed. I begin to get new lights on certain things which
have puzzled me. Up to now I never quite knew what Shakespeare meant
when he made Hamlet say, "My tablets! Quick, my tablets! `tis meet that
I put it down," etc., For now, feeling as though my own brain were
unhinged or as if the shock had come which must end in its undoing, I
turn to my diary for repose. The habit of entering accurately must help
to soothe me.

The Count's mysterious warning frightened me at the time. It frightens
me more not when I think of it, for in the future he has a fearful hold
upon me. I shall fear to doubt what he may say!

When I had written in my diary and had fortunately re- placed the book
and pen in my pocket I felt sleepy. The Count's warning came into my
mind, but I took pleasure in disobeying it. The sense of sleep was upon
me, and with it the obstinacy which sleep brings as outrider. The soft
moon- light soothed, and the wide expanse without gave a sense of
freedom which refreshed me. I determined not to return to- night to the
gloom-haunted rooms, but to sleep here, where, of old, ladies had sat
and sung and lived sweet lives whilst their gentle breasts were sad for
their menfolk away in the midst of remorseless wars. I drew a great
couch out of its place near the corner, so that as I lay, I could look
at the lovely view to east and south,and unthinking of and uncaring for
the dust, composed myself for sleep. I suppose I must have fallen
asleep. I hope so, but I fear, for all that fol- lowed was startlingly
real, so real that now sitting here in the broad, full sunlight of the
morning, I cannot in the least believe that it was all sleep.

I was not alone.The room was the same, unchanged in any way since I came
into it.I could see along the floor, in the brilliant moonlight,my own
footsteps marked where I had dis- turbed the long accumulation of dust.
In the moonlight opp- osite me were three young women, ladies by their
dress and manner. I thought at the time that I must be dreaming when I
saw them, they threw no shadow on the floor. They came close to me, and
looked at me for some time, and then whispered together. Two were dark,
and had high aquiline noses, like the Count, and great dark, piercing
eyes, that seemed to be almost red when contrasted with the pale yellow
moon. The other was fair,as fair as can be, with great masses of gold-
en hair and eyes like pale sapphires. I seemed somehow to know her face,
and to know it in connection with some dreamy fear, but I could not
recollect at the moment how or where. All three had brilliant white
teeth that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips.
There was some- thing about them that made me uneasy,some longing and at
the same time some deadly fear.I felt in my heart a wicked,burn- ing
desire that they would kiss me with those red lips.It is not good to
note this down, lest some day it should meet Mina's eyes and cause her
pain, but it is the truth. They whispered together, and then they all
three laughed, such a silvery,musical laugh, but as hard as though the
sound never could have come through the softness of human lips. It was
like the intolerable,tingling sweetness of waterglasses when played on
by a cunning hand. The fair girl shook her head coquettishly, and the
other two urged her on.

One said, "Go on! You are first, and we shall follow. Yours' is the
right to begin."

The other added, "He is young and strong. There are kisses for us all."

I lay quiet, looking out from under my eyelashes in an agony of
delightful anticipation. The fair girl advanced and bent over me till I
could feel the movement of her breath upon me. Sweet it was in one
sense,honey-sweet, and sent the same tingling through the nerves as her
voice, but with a bitter underlying the sweet, a bitter offensiveness,
as one smells in blood.

I was afraid to raise my eyelids,but looked out and saw perfectly under
the lashes. The girl went on her knees, and bent over me, simply
gloating.There was a deliberate volupt- uousness which was both
thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked
her lips like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture
shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white
sharp teeth. Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the
range of my mouth and chin and seemed to fasten on my throat. Then she
paused, and I could hear the churning sound of her tongue as it licked
her teeth and lips, and I could feel the hot breath on my neck. Then the
skin of my throat began to tingle as one's flesh does when the hand that
is to tickle it approaches nearer, nearer. I could feel the soft,
shivering touch of the lips on the super sensitive skin of my throat,
and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there.
I closed my eyes in lang- uorous ecstasy and waited, waited with beating
heart.

But at that instant, another sensation swept through me as quick as
lightning.I was conscious of the presence of the Count, and of his being
as if lapped in a storm of fury. As my eyes opened involuntarily I saw
his strong hand grasp the slender neck of the fair woman and with
giant's power draw it back, the blue eyes transformed with fury, the
white teeth champing with rage, and the fair cheeks blazing red with
passion. But the Count! Never did I imagine such wrath and fury, even to
the demons of the pit. His eyes were pos- itively blazing. The red light
in them was lurid, as if the flames of hell fire blazed behind them. His
face was deathly pale, and the lines of it were hard like drawn wires.
The thick eyebrows that met over the nose now seemed like a heaving bar
of white-hot metal. With a fierce sweep of his arm, he hurled the woman
from him, and then motioned to the others, as though he were beating
them back. It was the same imperious gesture that I had seen used to the
wolves. In a voice which,though low and almost in a whisper seemed to
cut through the air and then ring in the room he said,

"How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you cast eyes on him when
I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all! This man belongs to me! Beware
how you meddle with him, or you'll have to deal with me."

The fair girl, with a laugh of ribald coquetry, turned to answer him.
"You yourself never loved.You never love!" On this the other women
joined,and such a mirthless,hard, soul- less laughter rang through the
room that it almost made me faint to hear. It seemed like the pleasure
of fiends.

Then the Count turned, after looking at my face atten- tively, and said
in a soft whisper, "Yes, I too can love.You yourselves can tell it from
the past. Is it not so? Well,now I promise you that when I am done with
him you shall kiss him at your will.Now go! Go! I must awaken him, for
there is work to be done."

"Are we to have nothing tonight?"said one of them, with a low laugh, as
she pointed to the bag which he had thrown upon the floor, and which
moved as though there were some living thing within it. For answer he
nodded his head. One of the women jumped forward and opened it.If my
ears did not deceive me there was a gasp and a low wail, as of a half
smothered child. The women closed round, whilst I was aghast with
horror. But as I looked,they disappeared, and with them the dreadful
bag.There was no door near them, and they could not have passed me
without my noticing.They simply seemed to fade into the rays of the
moonlight and pass out through the window, for I could see outside the
dim, shadowy forms for a moment before they entirely faded away.

Then the horror overcame me,and I sank down unconscious.


CHAPTER 4


 Jonathan Harker's Journal Continued


I awoke in my own bed. If it be that I had not dreamt, the Count must
have carried me here. I tried to satisfy myself on the subject, but
could not arrive at any un- questionable result. To be sure, there were
certain small evidences, such as that my clothes were folded and laid by
in a manner which was not my habit. My watch was still unwound, and I am
rigorously accustomed to wind it the last thing before going to bed, and
many such details. But these things are no proof, for they may have been
evidences that my mind was not as usual, and, for some cause or another,
I had certainly been much upset.I must watch for proof. Of one thing I
am glad.If it was that the Count carried me here and undressed me, he
must have been hurried in his task, for my pockets are intact. I am sure
this diary would have been a mystery to him which he would not have
brooked.He would have taken or destroyed it. As I look round this room,
although it has been to me so full of fear, it is now a sort of sanc-
tuary, for nothing can be more dreadful than those awful women, who
were, who are, waiting to suck my blood.


18 May.--I have been down to look at that room again in daylight, for I
must know the truth. When I got to the door- way at the top of the
stairs I found it closed. It had been so forcibly driven against the
jamb that part of the wood- work was splintered. I could see that the
bolt of the lock had not been shot, but the door is fastened from the
inside. I fear it was no dream, and must act on this surmise.


19 May.--I am surely in the toils. Last night the Count asked me in the
sauvest tones to write three letters, one saying that my work here was
nearly done, and that I should start for home within a few days,another
that I was starting on the next morning from the time of the letter, and
the third that I had left the castle and arrived at Bistritz. I would
fain have rebelled, but felt that in the present state of things it
would be madness to quarrel openly with the Count whilst I am so
absolutely in his power. And to refuse would be to excite his suspicion
and to arouse his anger. He knows that I know too much, and that I must
not live, lest I be dangerous to him. My only chance is to prolong my
oppor- tunities. Something may occur which will give ma a chance to
escape. I saw in his eyes something of that gathering wrath which was
manifest when he hurled that fair woman from him. He explained to me
that posts were few and uncertain, and that my writing now would ensure
ease of mind to my friends. And he assured me with so much
impressiveness that he would countermand the later letters, which would
be held over at Bistritz until due time in case chance would admit of my
prolonging my stay, that to oppose him would have been to create new
suspicion. I therefore pretended to fall in with his views, and asked
him what dates I should put on the letters.

He calculated a minute, and then said, "The first should be June 12,the
second June 19,and the third June 29."

I know now the span of my life. God help me!


28 May.--There is a chance of escape, or at any rate of being able to
send word home. A band of Szgany have come to the castle, and are
encamped in the courtyard. These are gipsies. I have notes of them in my
book. They are peculiar to this part of the world, though allied to the
ordinary gipsies all the world over. There are thousands of them in
Hungary and Transylvania, who are almost outside all law. They attach
themselves as a rule to some great noble or boyar, and call themselves
by his name. They are fearless and without religion, save superstition,
and they talk only their own varieties of the Romany tongue.

I shall write some letters home, and shall try to get them to have them
posted. I have already spoken to them through my window to begin
acquaintanceship. They took their hats off and made obeisance and many
signs, which however, I could not understand any more than I could their
spoken language . . .

I have written the letters. Mina's is in shorthand, and I simply ask Mr.
Hawkins to communicate with her. To her I have explained my situation,
but without the horrors which I may only surmise. It would shock and
frighten her to death were I to expose my heart to her. Should the
letters not carry, then the Count shall not yet know my secret or the
extent of my knowledge . . .


I have given the letters. I threw them through the bars of my window
with a gold piece, and made what signs I could to have them posted. The
man who took them pressed them to his heart and bowed, and then put them
in his cap. I could do no more. I stole back to the study, and began to
read. As the Count did not come in, I have written here . . .


The Count has come. He sat down beside me, and said in his smoothest
voice as he opened two letters, "The Szgany has given me these, of
which, though I know not whence they come, I shall, of course, take
care. See!"--He must have looked at it.--"One is from you, and to my
friend Peter Hawkins. The other,"--here he caught sight of the strange
symbols as he opened the envelope, and the dark look came into his face,
and his eyes blazed wickedly,--"The other is a vile thing, an outrage
upon friendship and hospitality! It is not signed. Well! So it cannot
matter to us."And he calm- ly held letter and envelope in the flame of
the lamp till they were consumed.

Then he went on, "The letter to Hawkins, that I shall, of course send
on, since it is yours.Your letters are sacred to me. Your pardon, my
friend, that unknowingly I did break the seal.Will you not cover it
again?"He held out the letter to me, and with a courteous bow handed me
a clean envelope.

I could only redirect it and hand it to him in silence. When he went out
of the room I could hear the key turn soft- ly. A minute later I went
over and tried it, and the door was locked.

When, an hour or two after, the Count came quietly into the room, his
coming awakened me, for I had gone to sleep on the sofa.He was very
courteous and very cheery in his manner, and seeing that I had been
sleeping, he said, "So, my friend, you are tired? Get to bed. There is
the surest rest. I may not have the pleasure of talk tonight, since
there are many labours to me, but you will sleep, I pray."

I passed to my room and went to bed, and, strange to say, slept without
dreaming. Despair has its own calms.

31 May.--This morning when I woke I thought I would provide myself with
some papers and envelopes from my bag and keep them in my pocket, so
that I might write in case I should get an opportunity, but again a
surprise, again a shock!

Every scrap of paper was gone, and with it all my notes, my memoranda,
relating to railways and travel, my letter of credit, in fact all that
might be useful to me were I once outside the castle. I sat and pondered
awhile, and then some thought occurred to me, and I made search of my
portmanteau and in the wardrobe where I had placed my clothes.

The suit in which I had travelled was gone, and also my overcoat and
rug. I could find no trace of them anywhere. This looked like some new
scheme of villainy . . .


17 June.--This morning, as I was sitting on the edge of my bed
cudgelling my brains, I heard without a crackling of whips and pounding
and scraping of horses' feet up the rocky path beyond the courtyard.
With joy I hurried to the window, and saw drive into the yard two great
leiter-wagons, each drawn by eight sturdy horses, and at the head of
each pair a Slovak, with his wide hat, great nail-studded belt, dirty
sheepskin, and high boots. They had also their long staves in hand. I
ran to the door, intending to descend and try and join them through the
main hall, as I thought that way might be opened for them. Again a
shock, my door was fastened on the outside.

Then I ran to the window and cried to them. They looked up at me
stupidly and pointed, but just then the "hetman" of the Szgany came out,
and seeing them pointing to my window, said something, at which they
laughed.

Henceforth no effort of mine,no piteous cry or agonized entreaty, would
make them even look at me. They resolutely turned away. The
leiter-wagons contained great,square boxes, with handles of thick rope.
These were evidently empty by the ease with which the Slovaks handled
them, and by their resonance as they were roughly moved.

When they were all unloaded and packed in a great heap in one corner of
the yard, the Slovaks were given some money by the Szgany, and spitting
on it for luck, lazily went each to his horse's head. Shortly
afterwards, I heard the crack- ling of their whips die away in the
distance.


24 June.--Last night the Count left me early, and lock- ed himself into
his own room.As soon as I dared I ran up the winding stair, and looked
out of the window, which opened South. I thought I would watch for the
Count, for there is something going on.The Szgany are quartered
somewhere in the castle and are doing work of some kind. I know it, for
now and then, I hear a far-away muffled sound as of mattock and spade,
and, whatever it is, it must be the end of some ruth- less villainy.

I had been at the window somewhat less than half an hour, when I saw
something coming out of the Count's window. I drew back and watched
carefully, and saw the whole man emerge. It was a new shock to me to
find that he had on the suit of clothes which I had worn whilst
travelling here, and slung over his shoulder the terrible bag which I
had seen the women take away. There could be no doubt as to his quest,
and in my garb, too! This, then, is his new scheme of evil, that he will
allow others to see me, as they think, so that he may both leave
evidence that I have been seen in the towns or villages posting my own
letters, and that any wickedness which he may do shall by the local
people be attributed to me.

It makes me rage to think that this can go on, and whilst I am shut up
here, a veritable prisoner, but without that protection of the law which
is even a criminal's right and consolation.

I thought I would watch for the Count's return, and for a long time sat
doggedly at the window. Then I began to not- ice that there were some
quaint little specks floating in the rays of the moonlight. They were
like the tiniest grains of dust,and they whirled round and gathered in
clusters in a nebulous sort of way.I watched them with a sense of
soothing, and a sort of calm stole over me.I leaned back in the embra-
sure in a more comfortable position, so that I could enjoy more fully
the aerial gambolling.

Something made me start up, a low, piteous howling of dogs somewhere far
below in the valley, which was hidden from my sight. Louder it seemed to
ring in my ears, and the floating moats of dust to take new shapes to
the sound as they danced in the moonlight. I felt myself struggling to
awake to some call of my instincts. Nay, my very soul was struggling,
and my half-remembered sensibilities were striv- ing to answer the call.
I was becoming hypnotised!

Quicker and quicker danced the dust.The moonbeams seem- ed to quiver as
they went by me into the mass of gloom beyond. More and more they
gathered till they seemed to take dim phantom shapes. And then I
started, broad awake and in full possession of my senses, and ran
screaming from the place.

The phantom shapes, which were becoming gradually mat- erialised from
the moonbeams, were those three ghostly women to whom I was doomed.

I fled, and felt somewhat safer in my own room, where there was no
moonlight, and where the lamp was burning brightly.

When a couple of hours had passed I heard something stirring in the
Count's room, something like a sharp wail quickly suppressed. And then
there was silence, deep, awful silence, which chilled me. With a beating
heart, I tried the door, but I was locked in my prison, and could do
nothing. I sat down and simply cried.

As I sat I heard a sound in the courtyard without, the agonised cry of a
woman. I rushed to the window, and throw- ing it up, peered between the
bars.

There, indeed, was a woman with dishevelled hair, hold- ing her hands
over her heart as one distressed with running. She was leaning against
the corner of the gateway. When she saw my face at the window she threw
herself forward, and shouted in a voice laden with menace, "Monster,
give me my child!"

She threw herself on her knees,and raising up her hands, cried the same
words in tones which wrung my heart. Then she tore her hair and beat her
breast, and abandoned herself to all the violences of extravagant
emotion. Finally, she threw herself forward, and though I could not see
her,I could hear the beating of her naked hands against the door.

Somewhere high overhead, probably on the tower, I heard the voice of the
Count calling in his harsh,metallic whisper. His call seemed to be
answered from far and wide by the howl- ing of wolves. Before many
minutes had passed a pack of them poured, like a pent-up dam when
liberated, through the wide entrance into the courtyard.

There was no cry from the woman, and the howling of the wolves was but
short. Before long they streamed away singly, licking their lips.

I could not pity her, for I knew now what had become of her child, and
she was better dead.

What shall I do? What can I do? How can I escape from this dreadful
thing of night, gloom, and fear?


25 June.--No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and
dear to his heart and eye the morning can be. When the sun grew so high
this morning that it struck the top of the great gateway opposite my
window, the high spot which it touched seemed to me as if the dove from
the ark had lighted there. My fear fell from me as if it had been a
vaporous garment which dissolved in the warmth.

I must take action of some sort whilst the courage of the day is upon
me. Last night one of my post-dated letters went to post, the first of
that fatal series which is to blot out the very traces of my existence
from the earth.

Let me not think of it. Action!

It has always been at night-time that I have been mo- lested or
threatened, or in some way in danger or in fear. I have not yet seen the
Count in the daylight. Can it be that he sleeps when others wake, that
he may be awake whilst they sleep? If I could only get into his room!
But there is no possible way. The door is always locked, no way for me.

Yes, there is a way, if one dares to take it. Where his body has gone
why may not another body go? I have seen him myself crawl from his
window. Why should not I imitate him, and go in by his window? The
chances are desperate, but my need is more desperate still. I shall risk
it. At the worst it can only be death, and a man's death is not a
calf's, and the dreaded Hereafter may still be open to me. God help me
in my task! Goodbye, Mina, if I fail. Goodbye, my faithful friend and
second father.Goodbye, all, and last of all Mina!


Same day, later.--I have made the effort, and God help- ing me, have
come safely back to this room. I must put down every detail in order. I
went whilst my courage was fresh straight to the window on the south
side, and at once got outside on this side.The stones are big and
roughly cut, and the mortar has by process of time been washed away
between them. I took off my boots, and ventured out on the desperate
way. I looked down once, so as to make sure that a sudden glimpse of the
awful depth would not overcome me, but after that kept my eyes away from
it.I know pretty well the direc- tion and distance of the Count's
window, and made for it as well as I could,having regard to the
opportunities available. I did not feel dizzy, I suppose I was too
excited, and the time seemed ridiculously short till I found myself
standing on the window sill and trying to raise up the sash. I was
filled with agitation, however, when I bent down and slid feet foremost
in through the window.Then I looked around for the Count, but with
surprise and gladness, made a discovery. The room was empty! It was
barely furnished with odd things, which seemed to have never been used.

The furniture was something the same style as that in the south rooms,
and was covered with dust. I looked for the key, but it was not in the
lock, and I could not find it any- where. The only thing I found was a
great heap of gold in one corner, gold of all kinds, Roman, and British,
and Aust- rian,and Hungarian,and Greek and Turkish money, covered with a
film of dust, as though it had lain long in the ground. None of it that
I noticed was less than three hundred years old.There were also chains
and ornaments, some jewelled, but all of them old and stained.

At one corner of the room was a heavy door. I tried it, for, since I
could not find the key of the room or the key of the outer door, which
was the main object of my search, I must make further examination, or
all my efforts would be in vain. It was open, and led through a stone
passage to a circular stairway, which went steeply down.

I descended, minding carefully where I went for the stairs were dark,
being only lit by loopholes in the heavy masonry. At the bottom there
was a dark, tunnel-like pass- age, through which came a deathly, sickly
odour, the odour of old earth newly turned. As I went through the
passage the smell grew closer and heavier. At last I pulled open a heavy
door which stood ajar, and found myself in an old ruined chapel, which
had evidently been used as a graveyard. The roof was broken, and in two
places were steps leading to vaults, but the ground had recently been
dug over, and the earth placed in great wooden boxes, manifestly those
which had been brought by the Slovaks.

There was nobody about, and I made a search over every inch of the
ground, so as not to lose a chance. I went down even into the vaults,
where the dim light struggled,although to do so was a dread to my very
soul. Into two of these I went, but saw nothing except fragments of old
coffins and piles of dust. In the third, however, I made a discovery.

There, in one of the great boxes, of which there were fifty in all, on a
pile of newly dug earth, lay the Count! He was either dead or asleep.I
could not say which, for eyes were open and stony, but without the
glassiness of death,and the cheeks had the warmth of life through all
their pallor. The lips were as red as ever. But there was no sign of
move- ment, no pulse, no breath, no beating of the heart.

I bent over him, and tried to find any sign of life, but in vain. He
could not have lain there long, for the earthy smell would have passed
away in a few hours. By the side of the box was its cover, pierced with
holes here and there. I thought he might have the keys on him, but when
I went to search I saw the dead eyes, and in them dead though they were,
such a look of hate, though unconscious of me or my presence, that I
fled from the place, and leaving the Count's room by the window, crawled
again up the castle wall. Regaining my room, I threw myself panting upon
the bed and tried to think.


29 June.--Today is the date of my last letter, and the Count has taken
steps to prove that it was genuine,for again I saw him leave the castle
by the same window, and in my clothes. As he went down the wall, lizard
fashion, I wished I had a gun or some lethal weapon, that I might
destroy him. But I fear that no weapon wrought along by man's hand would
have any effect on him. I dared not wait to see him return, for I feared
to see those weird sisters. I came back to the library, and read there
till I fell asleep.

I was awakened by the Count, who looked at me as grimly as a man could
look as he said,"Tomorrow, my friend, we must part. You return to your
beautiful England, I to some work which may have such an end that we may
never meet.Your lett- er home has been despatched. Tomorrow I shall not
be here, but all shall be ready for your journey. In the morning come
the Szgany, who have some labours of their own here, and al- so come
some Slovaks. When they have gone, my carriage shall come for you, and
shall bear you to the Borgo Pass to meet the diligence from Bukovina to
Bistritz. But I am in hopes that I shall see more of you at Castle
Dracula."

I suspected him, and determined to test his sincerity. Sincerity! It
seems like a profanation of the word to write it in connection with such
a monster, so I asked him point- blank, "Why may I not go tonight?"

"Because, dear sir, my coachman and horses are away on a mission."

"But I would walk with pleasure. I want to get away at once."

He smiled, such a soft, smooth, diabolical smile that I knew there was
some trick behind his smoothness. He said, "And your baggage?"

"I do not care about it. I can send for it some other time."

The Count stood up, and said, with a sweet courtesy which made me rub my
eyes, it seemed so real, "You English have a saying which is close to my
heart, for its spirit is that which rules our boyars, `Welcome the
coming, speed the parting guest.' Come with me, my dear young friend.
Not an hour shall you wait in my house against your will,though sad am I
at your going,and that you so suddenly desire it. Come!" With a stately
gravity, he, with the lamp, preceded me down the stairs and along the
hall. Suddenly he stopped. "Hark!"

Close at hand came the howling of many wolves. It was almost as if the
sound sprang up at the rising of his hand, just as the music of a great
orchestra seems to leap under the baton of the conductor. After a pause
of a moment, he proceeded, in his stately way, to the door, drew back
the ponderous bolts, unhooked the heavy chains, and began to draw it
open.

To my intense astonishment I saw that it was unlocked. Suspiciously, I
looked all round, but could see no key of any kind.

As the door began to open, the howling of the wolves without grew louder
and angrier. Their red jaws, with champ- ing teeth, and their
blunt-clawed feet as they leaped, came in through the opening door. I
knew than that to struggle at the moment against the Count was
useless.With such allies as these at his command, I could do nothing.

But still the door continued slowly to open, and only the Count's body
stood in the gap. Suddenly it struck me that this might be the moment
and means of my doom. I was to be given to the wolves, and at my own
instigation. There was a diabolical wickedness in the idea great enough
for the Count, and as the last chance I cried out, "Shut the door! I
shall wait till morning." And I covered my face with my hands to hide my
tears of bitter disappointment.

With one sweep of his powerful arm, the Count threw the door shut, and
the great bolts clanged and echoed through the hall as they shot back
into their places.

In silence we returned to the library, and after a min- ute or two I
went to my own room. The last I saw of Count Dracula was his kissing his
hand to me, with a red light of triumph in his eyes, and with a smile
that Judas in hell might be proud of.

When I was in my room and about to lie down,I thought I heard a
whispering at my door. I went to it softly and list- ened. Unless my
ears deceived me, I heard the voice of the Count.

"Back! Back to your own place! Your time is not yet come. Wait! Have
patience! Tonight is mine. Tomorrow night is yours!"

There was a low,sweet ripple of laughter, and in a rage I threw open the
door, and saw without the three terrible women licking their lips. As I
appeared, they all joined in a horrible laugh, and ran away.

I came back to my room and threw myself on my knees. It is then so near
the end? Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Lord, help me, and those to whom I am dear!


30 June.--These may be the last words I ever write in this diary. I
slept till just before the dawn, and when I woke threw myself on my
knees,for I determined that if Death came he should find me ready.

At last I felt that subtle change in the air, and knew that the morning
had come. Then came the welcome cock-crow, and I felt that I was safe.
With a glad heart, I opened the door and ran down the hall. I had seen
that the door was unlocked, and now escape was before me. With hands
that trembled with eagerness, I unhooked the chains and threw back the
massive bolts.

But the door would not move. Despair seized me. I pulled and pulled at
the door, and shook it till, massive as it was, it rattled in its
casement.I could see the bolt shot. It had been locked after I left the
Count.

Then a wild desire took me to obtain the key at any risk,and I
determined then and there to scale the wall again, and gain the Count's
room. He might kill me, but death now seemed the happier choice of
evils. Without a pause I rushed up to the east window, and scrambled
down the wall,as before, into the Count's room. It was empty, but that
was as I ex- pected. I could not see a key anywhere, but the heap of
gold remained. I went through the door in the corner and down the
winding stair and along the dark passage to the old chapel.I knew now
well enough where to find the monster I sought.

The great box was in the same place, close against the wall, but the lid
was laid on it, not fastened down, but with the nails ready in their
places to be hammered home.

I knew I must reach the body for the key, so I raised the lid, and laid
it back against the wall. And then I saw something which filled my very
soul with horror. There lay the Count,but looking as if his youth had
been half restored. For the white hair and moustache were changed to
dark iron- grey. The cheeks were fuller, and the white skin seemed
ruby-red underneath. The mouth was redder than ever, for on the lips
were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth
and ran down over the chin and neck. Even the deep,burning eyes seemed
set amongst swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches underneath were
bloated. It seemed as if the whole awful creature were simply gorged
with blood. He lay like a filthy leech, exhausted with his repletion.

I shuddered as I bent over to touch him,and every sense in me revolted
at the contact, but I had to search, or I was lost. The coming night
might see my own body a banquet in a similar war to those horrid three.
I felt all over the body, but no sign could I find of the key.Then I
stopped and look- ed at the Count. There was a mocking smile on the
bloated face which seemed to drive me mad. This was the being I was
helping to transfer to London, where, perhaps, for centuries to come he
might, amongst its teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood, and
create a new and ever-widening circle of semi-demons to batten on the
helpless.

The very thought drove me mad. A terrible desire came upon me to rid the
world of such a monster. There was no lethal weapon at hand, but I
seized a shovel which the work- men had been using to fill the cases,
and lifting it high, struck, with the edge downward, at the hateful
face. But as I did so the head turned, and the eyes fell upon me,with
all their blaze of basilisk horror. The sight seemed to paralyze me, and
the shovel turned in my hand and glanced from the face, merely making a
deep gash above the forehead. The sho- vel fell from my hand across the
box,and as I pulled it away the flange of the blade caught the edge of
the lid which fell over again, and hid the horrid thing from my sight.
The last glimpse I had was of the bloated face,blood-stained and fixed
with a grin of malice which would have held its own in the nethermost
hell.
 I thought and thought what should be my next move, but my brain seemed
on fire,and I waited with a despairing feel- ing growing over me. As I
waited I heard in the distance a gipsy song sung by merry voices coming
closer, and through their song the rolling of heavy wheels and the
cracking of whips. The Szgany and the Slovaks of whom the Count had
spoken were coming. With a last look around and at the box which
contained the vile body, I ran from the place and gained the Count's
room,determined to rush out at the moment the door should be opened.
With strained ears, I listened, and heard downstairs the grinding of the
key in the great lock and the falling back of the heavy door. There must
have been some other means of entry, or some one had a key for one of
the locked doors.

Then there came the sound of many feet tramping and dying away in some
passage which sent up a clanging echo. I turned to run down again
towards the vault, where I might find the new entrance, but at the
moment there seemed to come a violent puff of wind, and the door to the
winding stair blew to with a shock that set the dust from the lint- els
flying. When I ran to push it open, I found that it was hopelessly fast.
I was again a prisoner, and the net of doom was closing round me more
closely.

As I write there is in the passage below a sound of many tramping feet
and the crash of weights being set down heavily, doubtless the boxes,
with their freight of earth. There was a sound of hammering. It is the
box being nailed down. Now I can hear the heavy feet tramping again
along the hall, with with many other idle feet coming behind them.

The door is shut, the chains rattle. There is a grind- ing of the key in
the lock. I can hear the key withdrawn, then another door opens and
shuts. I hear the creaking of lock and bolt.

Hark! In the courtyard and down the rocky way the roll of heavy wheels,
the crack of whips, and the chorus of the Szgany as they pass into the
distance.

I am alone in the castle with those horrible women. Faugh! Mina is a
woman, and there is nought in common. They are devils of the Pit!

I shall not remain alone with them. I shall try to scale the castle wall
farther than I have yet attempted. I shall take some of the gold with
me, lest I want it later. I may find a way from this dreadful place.

And then away for home! Away to the quickest and near- est train! Away
from the cursed spot, from this cursed land, where the devil and his
children still walk with earthly feet!

At least God's mercy is better than that of those mon- sters, and the
precipice is steep and high. At its foot a man may sleep, as a man.
Goodbye, all. Mina!


CHAPTER 5


LETTER FROM MISS MINA MURRAY TO MISS LUCY WESTENRA

9 May.

My dearest Lucy,


Forgive my long delay in writing,but I have been simply overwhelmed with
work. The life of an assistant schoolmist- ress is sometimes trying. I
am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together
freely and build our castles in the air. I have been working very hard
lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan's studies, and I have
been practicing shorthand very assiduously. When we are married I shall
be able to be useful to Jonathan, and if I can stenograph well enough I
can take down what he wants to say in this way and write it out for him
on the typewriter, at which also I am practicing very hard.

He and I sometimes write letters in shorthand, and he is keeping a
stenographic journal of his travels abroad. When I am with you I shall
keep a diary in the same way. I don't mean one of those
two-pages-to-the-week-with-Sunday- squeezed-in-a-corner diaries, but a
sort of journal which I can write in whenever I feel inclined.

I do not suppose there will be much of interest to other people, but it
is not intended for them. I may show it to Jonathan some day if there is
in it anything worth sharing, but it is really an exercise book. I shall
try to do what I see lady journalists do, interviewing and writing
descriptions and trying to remember conversations. I am told that, with
a little practice, one can remember all that goes on or that one hears
said during a day.

However, we shall see. I will tell you of my little plans when we meet.
I have just had a few hurried lines from Jonathan from Transylvania. He
is well, and will be return- ing in about a week. I am longing to hear
all his news. It must be nice to see strange countries. I wonder if we,
I mean Jonathan and I, shall ever see them together. There is the ten
o'clock bell ringing. Goodbye.
 Your loving
 Mina


Tell me all the news when you write. You have not told me anything for a
long time. I hear rumours, and especially of a tall, handsome,
curly-haired man.???

 LETTER, LUCY WESTENRA TO MINA MURRAY



 17, Chatham Street

 Wednesday

My dearest Mina,


I must say you tax me very unfairly with being a bad correspondent. I
wrote you twice since we parted, and your last letter was only your
second. Besides, I have nothing to tell you. There is really nothing to
interest you.

Town is very pleasant just now, and we go a great deal to
picture-galleries and for walks and rides in the park. As to the tall,
curly-haired man, I suppose it was the one who was with me at the last
Pop. Someone has evidently been telling tales.

That was Mr. Holmwood. He often comes to see us, and he and Mamma get on
very well together, they have so many things to talk about in common.

We met some time ago a man that would just do for you, if you were not
already engaged to Jonathan. He is an excellant parti, being handsome,
well off, and of good birth. He is a doctor and really clever. Just
fancy! He is only nine-and twenty, and he has an immense lunatic asylum
all under his own care. Mr. Holmwood introduced him to me, and he called
here to see us, and often comes now. I think he is one of the most
resolute men I ever saw, and yet the most calm. He seems absolutely
imperturbable. I can fancy what a wonderful power he must have over his
patients. He has a curious habit of looking one straight in the face, as
if trying to read one's thoughts. He tries this on very much with me,but
I flatter myself he has got a tough nut to crack. I know that from my
glass.

Do you ever try to read your own face? I do, and I can tell you it is
not a bad study, and gives you more trouble than you can well fancy if
you have never tried it.

He say that I afford him a curious psychological study, and I humbly
think I do. I do not, as you know, take suff- icient interest in dress
to be able to describe the new fashions. Dress is a bore. That is slang
again, but never mind. Arthur says that every day.

There, it is all out,Mina, we have told all our secrets to each other
since we were children. We have slept together and eaten together, and
laughed and cried together, and now, though I have spoken, I would like
to speak more. Oh, Mina, couldn't you guess? I love him. I am blushing
as I write, for although I think he loves me, he has not told me so in
words. But, oh, Mina, I love him. I love him! There, that does me good.

I wish I were with you, dear, sitting by the fire un- dressing, as we
used to sit, and I would try to tell you what I feel. I do not know how
I am writing this even to you. I am afraid to stop, or I should tear up
the letter, and I don't want to stop, for I do so want to tell you all.
Let me hear from you at once, and tell me all that you think about it.
Mina, pray for my happiness.

 Lucy


P.S.--I need not tell you this is a secret. Goodnight again. L.

 LETTER, LUCY WESTENRA TO MINA MURRAY

24 May

My dearest Mina,


Thanks, and thanks, and thanks again for your sweet letter. It was so
nice to be able to tell you and to have your sympathy.
 My dear, it never rains but it pours. How true the old proverbs are.
Here am I, who shall be twenty in September, and yet I never had a
proposal till today, not a real pro- posal, and today I had three. Just
fancy! Three proposals in one day! Isn't it awful! I feel sorry, really
and truly sorry, for two of the poor fellows. Oh, Mina, I am so happy
that I don't know what to do with myself. And three propos- als! But,
for goodness' sake, don't tell any of the girls, or they would be
getting all sorts of extravagant ideas, and imagining themselves injured
and slighted if in their very first day at home they did not get six at
least. Some girls are so vain! You and I, Mina dear, who are engaged and
are going to settle down soon soberly into old married women, can
despise vanity. Well, I must tell you about the three, but you must keep
it a secret, dear, from every one except, of course, Jonathan. You will
tell him, because I would, if I were in your place, certainly tell
Arthur. A woman ought to tell her husband everything. Don't you think
so, dear? And I must be fair. Men like women, certainly their wives, to
be quite as fair as they are. And women, I am afraid, are not always
quite as fair as they should be.

Well, my dear, number One came just before lunch. I told you of him, Dr.
John Seward, the lunatic asylum man, with the strong jaw and the good
forehead. He was very cool outwardly, but was nervous all the same. He
had evidently been schooling himself as to all sorts of little things,
and remembered them, but he almost managed to sit down on his silk hat,
which men don't generally do when they are cool, and then when he wanted
to appear at ease he kept playing with a lancet in a way that made me
nearly scream. He spoke to me, Mina, very straightfordwardly. He told me
how dear I was to him, though he had known me so little, and what his
life would be with me to help and cheer him. He was going to tell me how
unhappy he would be if I did not care for him, but when he saw me cry he
said he was a brute and would not add to my present trouble. Then he
broke off and asked if I could love him in time, and when I shook my
head his hands trembled, and then with some hesitation he asked me if I
cared already for any one else.He put it very nicely, saying that he did
not want to wring my confidence from me, but on- ly to know, because if
a woman's heart was free a man might have hope. And then, Mina, I felt a
sort of duty to tell him that there was some one. I only told him that
much, and then he stood up, and he looked very strong and very grave as
he took both my hands in his and said he hoped I would be happy, and
that If I ever wanted a friend I must count him one of my best.

Oh, Mina dear, I can't help crying, and you must excuse this letter
being all blotted. Being proposed to is all very nice and all that sort
of thing, but it isn't at all a happy thing when you have to see a poor
fellow,whom you know loves you honestly, going away and looking all
broken hearted, and to know that, no matter what he may say at the
moment, you are passing out of his life. My dear, I must stop here at
present, I feel so miserable, though I am so happy.

Evening.


Arthur has just gone, and I feel in better spirits than when I left off,
so I can go on telling you about the day.

Well, my dear, number Two came after lunch. He is such a nice fellow,and
American from Texas, and he looks so young and so fresh that it seems
almost impossible that he has been to so many places and has such
adventures. I sympathize with poor Desdemona when she had such a stream
poured in her ear, even by a black man. I suppose that we women are such
cowards that we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him. I
know now what I would do if I were a man and wanted to make a girl love
me. No, I don't, for there was Mr.Morris telling us his stories, and
Arthur never told any, and yet . . .

My dear, I am somewhat previous. Mr. Quincy P. Morris found me alone. It
seems that a man always does find a girl alone. No, he doesn't, for
Arthur tried twice to make a chance, and I helping him all I could, I am
not ashamed to say it now. I must tell you beforehand that Mr. Morris
does- n't always speak slang, that is to say, he never does so to
strangers or before them, for he is really well educated and has
exquisite manners, but he found out that it amused me to hear him talk
American slang,and whenever I was present, and there was no one to be
shocked, he said such funny things. I am afraid, my dear, he has to
invent it all, for it fits exactly into whatever else he has to say. But
this is a way slang has. I do not know myself if I shall ever speak
slang. I do not know if Arthur likes it, as I have never heard him use
any as yet.

Well, Mr. Morris sat down beside me and looked as happy and jolly as he
could, but I could see all the same that he was very nervous. He took my
hand in his, and said ever so sweetly . . .

"Miss Lucy, I know I ain't good enough to regulate the fixin's of your
little shoes, but I guess if you wait till you find a man that is you
will go join them seven young wo- men with the lamps when you quit.
Won't you just hitch up along-side of me and let us go down the long
road together, driving in double harness?"

Well, he did look so hood humoured and so jolly that it didn't seem half
so hard to refuse him as it did poor Dr. Seward. So I said, as lightly
as I could, that I did not know anything of hitching, and that I wasn't
broken to harn- ess at all yet. Then he said that he had spoken in a
light manner, and he hoped that if he had made a mistake in doing so on
so grave, so momentous, and occasion for him, I would forgive him. He
really did look serious when he was saying it, and I couldn't help
feeling a sort of exultation that he was number Two in one day. And
then, my dear, before I could say a word he began pouring out a perfect
torrent of love- making, laying his very heart and soul at my feet. He
looked so earnest over it that I shall never again think that a man must
be playful always, and never earnest, because he is merry at times. I
suppose he saw something in my face which checked him, for he suddenly
stopped,and said with a sort of manly fervour that I could have loved
him for if I had been free . . .

"Lucy, you are an honest hearted girl, I know. I should not be here
speaking to you as I am now if I did not believe you clean grit,right
through to the very depths of your soul. Tell me, like one good fellow
to another, is there any one else that you care for? And if there is
I'll never trouble you a hair's breadth again, but will be, if you will
let me, a very faithful friend."

My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy of
them? Here was I almost making fun of this great hearted, true
gentleman. I burst into tears, I am afraid, my dear, you will think this
a very sloppy letter in more ways than one, and I really felt very
badly.

Why can't they let a girl marry three men,or as many as want her, and
save all this trouble? But this is heresy, and I must not say it. I am
glad to say that, though I was cry- ing, I was able to look into Mr.
Morris' brave eyes, and I told him out straight . . .

"Yes, there is some one I love, though he has not told me yet that he
even loves me." I was right to speak to him so frankly, for quite a
light came into his face, and he put out both his hands and took mine, I
think I put them into his, and said in a hearty way . . .

"That's my brave girl. It's better worth being late for a chance of
winning you than being in time for any other girl in the world. Don't
cry, my dear. If it's for me, I'm a hard nut to crack, and I take it
standing up. If that other fellow doesn't know his happiness, well, he'd
better look for it soon, or he'll have to deal with me.Little girl, your
honesty and pluck have made me a friend, and that's rarer than a lover,
it's more selfish anyhow. My dear, I'm going to have a pretty lonely
walk between this and Kingdom Come.Won't you give me one kiss? It'll be
something to keep off the darkness now and then. You can, you know, if
you like, for that other good fellow, or you could not love him, hasn't
spoken yet."

That quite won me, Mina, for it was brave and sweet of him, and noble
too, to a rival, wasn't it? And he so sad, so I leant over and kissed
him.

He stood up with my two hands in his, and as he looked down into my
face, I am afraid I was blushing very much, he said, "Little girl, I
hold your hand, and you've kissed me, and if these things don't make us
friends nothing ever will. Thank you for your sweet honesty to me, and
goodbye."
 He wrung my hand, and taking up his hat, went straight out of the room
without looking back, without a tear or a quiver or a pause, and I am
crying like a baby.

Oh, why must a man like that be made unhappy when there are lots of
girls about who would worship the very ground he trod on? I know I would
if I were free, only I don't want to be free My dear, this quite upset
me, and I feel I cannot write of happiness just at once, after telling
you of it,and I don't wish to tell of the number Three until it can be
all happy. Ever your loving . . .
 Lucy


P.S.--Oh, about number Three, I needn't tell you of number Three, need
I? Besides, it was all so confused. It seemed only a moment from his
coming into the room till both his arms were round me, and he was
kissing me. I am very, very happy, and I don't know what I have done to
deserve it. I must only try in the future to show that I am not ungrate-
ful to God for all His goodness to me in sending to me such a lover,
such a husband, and such a friend.

 Goodbye.

 DR. SEWARD'S DIARY
 (Kept in phonograph)


25 May.--Ebb tide in appetite today. Cannot eat, can- not rest, so diary
instead. since my rebuff of yesterday I have a sort of empty feeling.
Nothing in the world seems of sufficient importance to be worth the
doing. As I knew that the only cure for this sort of thing was work,I
went amongst the patients. I picked out one who has afforded me a study
of much interest. He is so quaint that I am determined to understand him
as well as I can.Today I seemed to get nearer than ever before to the
heart of his mystery.

I questioned him more fully than I had ever done, with a view to making
myself master of the facts of his halluci- nation. In my manner of doing
it there was, I now see, some- thing of cruelty. I seemed to wish to
keep him to the point of his madness, a thing which I avoid with the
patients as I would the mouth of hell.

(Mem., Under what circumstances would I not avoid the pit of hell?)
Omnia Romae venalia sunt. Hell has its price! If there be anything
behind this instinct it will be valu- able to trace it afterwards
accurately, so I had better commence to do so, therefore . . .

R. M, Renfield, age 59. Sanguine temperament, great physical strength,
morbidly excitable, periods of gloom,end- ing in some fixed idea which I
cannot make out. I presume that the sanguine temperament itself and the
disturbing in- fluence end in a mentally-accomplished finish, a possibly
dangerous man, probably dangerous if unselfish. In selfish men caution
is as secure an armour for their foes as for themselves. What I think of
on this point is, when self is the fixed point the centripetal force is
balanced with the centrifugal. When duty, a cause, etc., is the fixed
point, the latter force is paramount, and only accident of a series of
accidents can balance it.


LETTER, QUINCEY P. MORRIS TO HON. ARTHUR HOLMOOD


 25 May.

My dear Art,

We've told yarns by the campfire in the prairies, and dressed one
another's wounds after trying a landing at the Marquesas, and drunk
healths on the shore of Titicaca. There are more yarns to be told,and
other wounds to be healed, and another health to be drunk. Won't you let
this be at my campfire tomorrow night? I have no hesitation in asking
you, as I know a certain lady is engaged to a certain dinner party, and
that you are free. There will only be one other, our old pal at the
Korea, Jack Seward. He's coming, too, and we both want to mingle our
weeps over the wine cup, and to drink a health with all our hearts to
the happiest man in all the wide world, who has won the noblest heart
that God has made and best worth winning. We promise you a hearty
welcome, and a loving greeting, and a health as true as your own right
hand. We shall both swear to leave you at home if you drink too deep to
a certain pair of eyes. Come!

 Yours, as ever and always,

 Quincey P. Morris


TELEGRAM FROM ARTHUR HOLMWOOD TO QUINCEY P. MORRIS

26 May


Count me in every time. I bear messages which will make both your ears
tingle.
 Art


CHAPTER 6


   MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL


24 July. Whitby.--Lucy met me at the station, looking sweeter and
lovlier than ever, and we drove up to the house at the Crescent in which
they have rooms. This is a lovely place. The little river, the Esk, runs
through a deep vall- ey, which broadens out as it comes near the
harbour. A great viaduct runs across, with high piers, through which the
view seems somehow further away than it really is. The valley is
beautifully green, and it is so steep that when you are on the high land
on either side you look right across it, un- less you are near enough to
see down. The houses of the old town--the side away from us, are all
red-roofed, and seem piled up one over the other anyhow, like the
pictures we see of Nuremberg. Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby
Abb- ey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which is the scene of part
of "Marmion," where the girl was built up in the wall. It is a most
noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beaut- iful and romantic bits.
There is a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows.
Between it and the town there is another church, the parish one, round
which is a big graveyard, all full of tombstones. This is to my mind the
nicest spot in Whitby, for it lies right over the town, and has a full
view of the harbour and all up the bay to where the headland called
Kettleness stretches out into the sea.It descends so steeply over the
harbour that part of the bank has fallen away, and some of the graves
have been destroyed.

In one place part of the stonework of the graves stret- ches out over
the sandy pathway far below. There are walks, with seats beside them,
through the churchyard, and people go and sit there all day long looking
at the beautiful view and enjoying the breeze.

I shall come and sit here often myself and work.Indeed, I am writing
now, with my book on my knee, and listening to the talk of three old men
who are sitting beside me. They seem to do nothing all day but sit here
and talk.

The harbour lies below me, with, on the far side, one long granite wall
stretching out into the sea, with a curve outwards at the end of it,in
the middle of which is a light- house. A heavy seawall runs along
outside of it. On the near side, the seawall makes an elbow crooked
inversely, and its end too has a lighthouse. Between the two piers there
is a narrow opening into the harbour, which then suddenly widens.

It is nice at high water, but when the tide is out it shoals away to
nothing,and there is merely the stream of the Esk, running between banks
of sand, with rocks here and there. Outside the harbour on this side
there rises for a- bout half a mile a great reef, the sharp of which
runs straight out from behind the south lighthouse. At the end of it is
a buoy with a bell, which swings in bad weather, and sends in a mournful
sound on the wind.

They have a legend here that when a ship is lost bells are heard out at
sea. I must ask the old man about this. He is coming this way . . .

He is a funny old man. He must be awfully old, for his face is gnarled
and twisted like the bark of a tree.He tells me that he is nearly a
hundred, and that he was a sailor in the Greenland fishing fleet when
Waterloo was fought. He is, I am afraid, a very sceptical person, for
when I asked him about the bells at sea and the White Lady at the abbey
he said very brusquely,

"I wouldn't fash masel' about them, miss. Them things be all wore out.
Mind, I don't say that they never was, but I do say that they wasn't in
my time. They be all very well for comers and trippers, an' the like,
but not for a nice young lady like you. Them feet-folks from York and
Leeds that be always eatin'cured herrin's and drinkin' tea an' lookin'
out to buy cheap jet would creed aught. I wonder masel' who'd be
bothered tellin' lies to them, even the newspapers, which is full of
fool-talk."

I thought he would be a good person to learn interest- ing things from,
so I asked him if he would mind telling me something about the whale
fishing in the old days. He was just settling himself to begin when the
clock struck six, whereupon he laboured to get up, and said,

"I must gang ageeanwards home now, miss. My grand- daughter doesn't like
to be kept waitin' when the tea is ready, for it takes me time to
crammle aboon the grees, for there be a many of `em, and miss, I lack
belly-timber sairly by the clock."

He hobbled away, and I could see him hurrying, as well as he could, down
the steps. The steps are a great feature on the place. They lead from
the town to the church, there are hundreds of them, I do not know how
many, and they wind up in a delicate curve. The slope is so gentle that
a horse could easily walk up and down them.
 I think they must originally have had something to do with the abbey. I
shall go home too. Lucy went out, visit- ing with her mother, and as
they were only duty calls, I did not go.


1 August.--I came up here an hour ago with Lucy, and we had a most
interesting talk with my old friend and the two others who always come
and join him. He is evidently the Sir Oracle of them,and I should think
must have been in his time a most dictatorial person.

He will not admit anything, and down faces everybody.If he can't
out-argue them he bullies them,and then takes their silence for
agreement with his views.

Lucy was looking sweetly pretty in her white lawn frock. She has got a
beautiful colour since she has been here.

I noticed that the old men did not lose any time in coming and sitting
near her when we sat down.She is so sweet with old people, I think they
all fell in love with her on the spot. Even my old man succumbed and did
not contradict her, but gave me double share instead. I got him on the
sub- ject of the legends , and he went off at once into a sort of
sermon. I must try to remember it and put it down.

"It be all fool-talk, lock, stock, and barrel, that's what it be and
nowt else.These bans an' wafts an' boh-ghosts an' bar-guests an' bogles
an' all anent them is only fit to set bairns an' dizzy women
a'belderin'. They be nowt but air-blebs. They, an' all grims an' signs
an' warnin's, be all invented by parsons an' illsome berk-bodies an'
railway touters to skeer an' scunner hafflin's, an' to get folks to do
somethin' that they don't other incline to. It makes me ireful to think
o' them. Why, it's them that, not content with printin' lies on paper
an' preachin' them ou t of pulpits, does want to be cuttin' them on the
tombstones.Look here all around you in what airt ye will. All them
steans, holdin' up their heads as well as they can out of their pride,
is acant, simply tumblin' down with the weight o' the lies wrote on
them, `Here lies the body' or `Sacred to the memory' wrote on all of
them, an' yet in nigh half of them there bean't no bodies at all, an'
the memories of them bean't cared a pinch of snuff about, much less
sacred. Lies all of them, nothin' but lies of one kind or another! My
gog, but it'll be a quare scowderment at the Day of Judgment when they
come tumblin' up in their death-sarks, all jouped toge- ther an' trying'
to drag their tombsteans with them to prove how good they was, some of
them trimmlin' an' dithering,with their hands that dozzened an' slippery
from lyin' in the sea that they can't even keep their gurp o' them."

I could see from the old fellow's self-satisfied air and the way in
which he looked round for the approval of his cronies that he was
"showing off," so I put in a word to keep him going.

"Oh, Mr. Swales, you can't be serious. Surely these tombstones are not
all wrong?"

"Yabblins! There may be a poorish few not wrong, savin' where they make
out the people too good, for there be folk that do think a balm-bowl be
like the sea, if only it be their own. The whole thing be only lies. Now
look you here. You come here a stranger, an' you see this kirkgarth."

I nodded, for I thought it better to assent, though I did not quite
understand his dialect. I knew it had some- thing to do with the church.

He went on, "And you consate that all these steans be aboon folk that be
haped here, snod an' snog?" I assented again. "Then that be just where
the lie comes in. Why, there be scores of these laybeds that be toom as
old Dun's `baccabox on Friday night."

He nudged one of his companions, and they all laughed. "And, my gog! How
could they be otherwise? Look at that one, the aftest abaft the
bier-bank, read it!"

I went over and read, "Edward Spencelagh, master marin- er,murdered by
pirates off the coast of Andres, April, 1854, age 30." When I came back
Mr. Swales went on,

"Who brought him home, I wonder, to hap him here? Murd- ered off the
coast of Andres! An' you consated his body lay under! Why, I could name
ye a dozen whose bones lie in the Greenland seas above," he pointed
northwards, "or where the currants may have drifted them. There be the
steans around ye. Ye can, with your young eyes, read the small print of
the lies from here. This Braithwaite Lowery, I knew his father, lost in
the Lively off Greenland in `20, or Andrew Woodhouse, drowned in the
same seas in 1777, or John Paxton, drowned off Cape Farewell a year
later,or old John Rawlings, whose grandfather sailed with me, drowned in
the Gulf of Finland in `50. Do ye think that all these men will have to
make a rush to Whitby when the trumpet sounds? I have me antherums aboot
it! I tell ye that when they got here they'd be jommlin' and jostlin'
one another that way that it `ud be like a fight up on the ice in the
old days, when we'd be at one another from daylight to dark, an' tryin'
to tie up our cuts by the aurora borealis." This was evidently local
pleasantry, for the old man cackled over it, and his cronies joined in
with gusto.

"But," I said, "surely you are not quite correct, for you start on the
assumption that all the poor people, or their spirits, will have to take
their tombstones with them on the Day of Judgment. Do you think that
will be really necessary?"

"Well, what else be they tombstones for? Answer me that, miss!"

"To please their relatives, I suppose."

"To please their relatives, you suppose!" This he said with intense
scorn. "How will it pleasure their relatives to know that lies is wrote
over them, and that everybody in the place knows that they be lies?"

He pointed to a stone at our feet which had been laid down as a slab, on
which the seat was rested, close to the edge of the cliff. "Read the
lies on that thruff-stone," he said.

The letters were upside down to me from where I sat,but Lucy was more
opposite to them, so she leant over and read, "Sacred to the memory of
George Canon, who died, in the hope of a glorious resurrection, on July
29,1873,falling from the rocks at Kettleness. This tomb was erected by
his sorrowing mother to her dearly beloved son.`He was the only son of
his mother, and she was a widow.' Really, Mr. Swales, I don't see
anything very funny in that!" She spoke her comment very gravely and
somewhat severely.

"Ye don't see aught funny! Ha-ha! But that's because ye don't gawm the
sorrowin'mother was a hell-cat that hated him because he was acrewk'd, a
regular lamiter he was, an' he hated her so that he committed suicide in
order that she mightn't get an insurance she put on his life. He blew
nigh the top of his head off with an old musket that they had for
scarin' crows with. `twarn't for crows then, for it brought the clegs
and the dowps to him. That's the way he fell off the rocks. And, as to
hopes of a glorious resurrection, I've often heard him say masel' that
he hoped he'd go to hell,for his mother was so pious that she'd be sure
to go to heaven, an' he didn't want to addle where she was. Now isn't
that stean at any rate,"he hammered it with his stick as he spoke, "a
pack of lies? And won't it make Gabriel keckle when Geordie comes
pantin' ut the grees with the tompstean balan- ced on his hump, and asks
to be took as evidence!"

I did not know what to say, but Lucy turned the conver- sation as she
said, rising up, "Oh, why did you tell us of this? It is my favorite
seat, and I cannot leave it, and now I find I must go on sitting over
the grave of a suicide."

"That won't harm ye, my pretty, an' it may make poor Geordie gladsome to
have so trim a lass sittin' on his lap. That won't hurt ye. Why, I've
sat here off an' on for nigh twenty years past, an' it hasn't done me no
harm. Don't ye fash about them as lies under ye, or that doesn' lie
there either! It'll be time for ye to be getting scart when ye see the
tombsteans all run away with, and the place as bare as a stubble-field.
There's the clock, and'I must gang.My service to ye, ladies!" And off he
hobbled.

Lucy and I sat awhile, and it was all so beautiful be- fore us that we
took hands as we sat, and she told me all over again about Arthur and
their coming marriage. That made me just a little heart-sick, for I
haven't heard from Jona- than for a whole month.


The same day. I came up here alone, for I am very sad. There was no
letter for me. I hope there cannot be anything the matter with Jonathan.
The clock has just struck nine. I see the lights scattered all over the
town,sometimes in rows where the streets are, and sometimes singly. They
run right up the Esk and die away in the curve of the valley. To my left
the view is cut off by a black line of roof of the old house next to the
abbey. The sheep and lambs are bleating in the fields away behind me,
and there is a clatter of donkeys' hoofs up the paved road below. The
band on the pier is play- ing a harsh waltz in good time, and further
along the quay there is a Salvation Army meeting in a back street.
Neither of the bands hears the other, but up here I hear and see them
both. I wonder where Jonathan is and if he is thinking of me! I wish he
were here.


 DR. SEWARD'S DIARY

 5 June.--The case of Renfield grows more interesting the more I get to
understand the man. He has certain qualities very largely developed,
selfishness, secrecy, and purpose.

I wish I could get at what is the object of the latter. He seems to have
some settled scheme of his own, but what it is I do not know.His
redeeming quality is a love of animals, though, indeed, he has such
curious turns in it that I some- times imagine he is only abnormally
cruel. His pets are of odd sorts.

Just now his hobby is catching flies. He has at pre- sent such a
quantity that I have had myself to expostulate. To my astonishment, he
did not break out into a fury, as I expected, but took the matter in
simple seriousness. He thought for a moment, and then said, "May I have
three days? I shall clear them away." Of course, I said that would do. I
must watch him.


18 June.--He has turned his mind now to spiders,and has got several very
big fellows in a box. He keeps feeding them his flies, and the number of
the latter is becoming sensibly diminished, although he has used half
his food in attracting more flies from outside to his room.


1 July.--His spiders are now becoming as great a nui- sance as his
flies, and today I told him that he must get rid of them.

He looked very sad at this, so I said that he must some of them, at all
events. He cheerfully acquiesced in this, and I gave him the same time
as before for reduction.

He disgusted me much while with him, for when a horrid blowfly, bloated
with some carrion food, buzzed into the room, he caught it, held it
exultantly for a few moments be- tween his finger and thumb, and before
I knew what he was going to do, put it in his mouth and ate it.

I scolded him for it, but he argued quietly that it was very good and
very wholesome, that it was life, strong life, and gave life to him.
This gave me an idea, or the rudiment of one. I must watch how he gets
rid of his spiders.

He has evidently some deep problem in his mind, for he keeps a little
notebook in which he is always jotting down something. whole pages of it
are filled with masses of fig- ures, generally single numbers added up
in batches, and then the totals added in batches again, as though he
were focuss- ing some account, as the auditors put it.


8 July.--There is a method in his madness,and the rudi- mentary idea in
my mind is growing. It will be a whole idea soon, and then, oh,
unconscious cerebration, you will have to give the wall to your
conscious brother.

I kept away from my friend for a few days, so that I might notice if
there were any change. Things remain as they were except that he has
parted with some of his pets and got a new one.

He has managed to get a sparrow, and has already par- tially tamed it.
His means of taming is simple, for already the spiders have diminshed.
Those that do remain, however, are well fed, for he still brings in the
flies by tempting them with his food.

19 July--We are progressing. My friend has now a whole colony of
sparrows, and his flies and spiders are almost ob- literated. When I
came in he ran to me and said he wanted to ask me a great favour, a
very, very great favour. And as he spoke, he fawned on me like a dog.

I asked him what it was, and he said, with a sort of rapture in his
voice and bearing, "A kitten, a nice, little, sleek playful kitten, that
I can play with, and teach, and feed, and feed, and feed!"

I was not unprepared for this request,for I had noticed how his pets
went on increasing in size and vivacity, but I did not care that his
pretty family of tame sparrows should be wiped out in the same manner as
the flies and spiders. So I said I would see about it, and asked him if
he would not rather have a cat than a kitten.

His eagerness betrayed him as he answered, "Oh, yes, I would like a cat!
I only asked for a kitten lest you should refuse me a cat. No one would
refuse me a kitten, would they?"

I shook my head, and said that at present I feared it would not be
possible, but that I would see about it. His face fell, and I could see
a warning of danger in it, for there was a sudden fierce, sidelong look
which meant killing. The man is an undeveloped homicidal maniac. I shall
test him with his present craving and see how it will work out, then I
shall know more.


10 pm.--I have visited him again and found him sitting in a corner
brooding. When I came in he threw himself on his knees before me and
implored me to let him have a cat, that his salvation depended upon it.

I was firm, however, and told him that he could not have it, whereupon
he went without a word, and sat down, gnawing his fingers, in the corner
where I had found him. I shall see him in the morning early.


20 July.--Visited Renfield very early, before attendant went his rounds.
Found him up and humming a tune. He was spreading out his sugar, which
he had saved, in the window, and was manifestly beginning his fly
catching again, and be- ginning it cheerfully and with a good grace.

I looked around for his birds,and not seeing them,asked him where they
were. He replied, without turning round, that they had all flown away.
There were a few feathers about the room and on his pillow a drop of
blood. I said nothing, but went and told the keeper to report to me if
there were any- thing odd about him during the day.


11 am.--The attendant has just been to see me to say that Renfield has
been very sick and has disgorged a whole lot of feathers. "My belief is,
doctor," he said, "that he has eaten his birds, and that he just took
and ate them raw!"


11 pm.--I gave Renfield a strong opiate tonight, enough to make even him
sleep, and took away his pocketbook to look at it. The thought that has
been buzzing about my brain lately is complete, and the theory proved.

My homicidal maniac is of a peculiar kind. I shall have to invent a new
classification for him, and call him a zoo- phagous (life-eating)
maniac. What he desires is to absorb as many lives as he can, and he has
laid himself out to ac- hieve it in a cumulative way. He gave many flies
to one spider and many spiders to one bird, and then wanted a cat to eat
the many birds. What would have been his later steps?

It would almost be worth while to complete the exper- iment. It might be
done if there were only a sufficient cause. Men sneered at vivisection,
and yet look at its re- sults today! Why not advance science in its most
difficult and vital aspect, the knowledge of the brain?

Had I even the secret of one such mind, did I hold the key to the fancy
of even one lunatic, I might advance my own branch of science to a pitch
compared with which Burdon- Sanderson's physiology or Ferrier's brain
knowledge would be as nothing. If only there were a sufficient cause! I
must not think too much of this, or I may be tempted. A good cause might
turn the scale with me, for may not I too be of an exceptional brain,
congenitally?

How well the man reasoned. Lunatics always do within their own scope. I
wonder at how many lives he values a man, or if at only one.He has
closed the account most accurately, and today begun a new record. How
many of us begin a new record with each day of our lives?

To me it seems only yesterday that my whole life ended with my new hope,
and that truly I began a new record. So it shall be until the Great
Recorder sums me up and closes my ledger account with a balance to
profit or loss.

Oh, Lucy,Lucy, I cannot be angry with you, nor can I be angry with my
friend whose happiness is yours, but I must only wait on hopeless and
work. Work! Work!

If I could have as strong a cause as my poor mad friend there, a good,
unselfish cause to make me work, that would be indeed happiness.


 MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL


26 July.--I am anxious,and it soothes me to express my- self here. It is
like whispering to one's self and listening at the same time. And there
is also something about the shorthand symbols that makes it different
from writing. I am unhappy about Lucy and about Jonathan. I had not
heard from Jonathan for some time, and was very concerned,but yesterday
dear Mr. Hawkins, who is always so kind, sent me a letter from him. I
had written asking him if he had heard, and he said the enclosed had
just been received. It is only a line dated from Castle Dracula, and
says that he is just starting for home. That is not like Jonathan. I do
not understand it, and it makes me uneasy.

Then, too, Lucy , although she is so well, has lately taken to her old
habit of walking in her sleep. Her mother has spoken to me about it, and
we have decided that I am to lock the door of our room every night.

Mrs. Westenra has got an idea that sleep-walkers always go out on roofs
of houses and along the edges of cliffs and then get suddenly wakened
and fall over with a despairing cry that echoes all over the place.

Poor dear, she is naturally anxious about Lucy, and she tells me that
her husband, Lucy's father, had the same habit, that he would get up in
the night and dress himself and go out, if he were not stopped.

Lucy is to be married in the autumn, and she is already planning out her
dresses and how her house is to be arranged. I sympathise with her, for
I do the same, only Jonathan and I will start in life in a very simple
way, and shall have to try to make both ends meet.

Mr. Holmwood, he is the Hon. Arthur Holmwood, only son of Lord
Godalming,is coming up here very shortly, as soon as he can leave town,
for his father is not very well, and I think dear Lucy is counting the
moments till he comes.

She wants to take him up in the seat on the churchyard cliff and show
him the beauty of Whitby. I daresay it is the waiting which disturbs
her. She will be all right when he arrives.


27 July.--No news from Jonathan. I am getting quite un- easy about him,
though why I should I do not know, but I do wish that he would write, if
it were only a single line.

Lucy walks more than ever, and each night I am awakened by her moving
about the room. Fortunately, the weather is so hot that she cannot get
cold. But still, the anxiety and the perpetually being awakened is
beginning to tell on me, and I am getting nervous and wakeful myself.
Thank God, Lucy's health keeps up. Mr. Holmwood has been suddenly called
to Ring to see his father, who has been taken seriously ill. Lucy frets
at the postponement of seeing him, but it does not touch her looks. She
is a trifle stouter, and her cheeks are a lovely rose-pink. She has lost
the anemic look which she had. I pray it will all last.


3 August.--Another week gone by, and no news from Jona- than, not even
to Mr. Hawkins, from whom I have heard. Oh, I do hope he is not ill. He
surely would have written. I look at that last letter of his, but
somehow it does not satisfy me. It does not read like him, and yet it is
his writing. There is no mistake of that.

Lucy has not walked much in her sleep the last week,but there is an odd
concentration about her which I do not under- stand, even in her sleep
she seems to be watching me. She tries the door, and finding it locked,
goes about the room searching for the key.


6 August.--Another three days, and no news. This sus- pense is getting
dreadful. If I only knew where to write to or where to go to, I should
feel easier. But no one has heard a word of Jonathan since that last
letter. I must only pray to God for patience.

Lucy is more excitable than ever, but is otherwise well. Last night was
very threatening, and the fishermen say that we are in for a storm. I
must try to watch it and learn the weather signs.

Today is a gray day,and the sun as I write is hidden in thick clouds,
high over Kettleness.Everything is gray except the green grass, which
seems like emerald amongst it, gray earthy rock, gray clouds,tinged with
the sunburst at the far edge, hang over the gray sea, into which the
sandpoints stretch like gray figures. The sea is tumbling in over the
shallows and the sandy flats with a roar, muffled in the sea-mists
drifting inland. The horizon is lost in a gray mist. All vastness, the
clouds are piled up like giant rocks, and there is a `brool' over the
sea that sounds like some passage of doom. Dark figures are on the beach
here and there, sometimes half shrouded in the mist, and seem `men like
trees walking'. The fishing boats are racing for home, and rise and dip
in the ground swell as they sweep into the harbour, bending to the
scuppers. Here comes old Mr. Swales. He is making straight for me, and I
can see, by the way he lifts his hat, that he wants to talk.


I have been quite touched by the change in the poor old man. When he sat
down beside me, he said in a very gentle way, "I want to say something
to you, miss."

I could see he was not at ease, so I took his poor old wrinkled hand in
mine and asked him to speak fully.

So he said, leaving his hand in mine, "I'm afraid, my deary, that I must
have shocked you by all the wicked things I've been sayin' about the
dead, and such like, for weeks past, but I didn't mean them, and I want
ye to remember that when I'm gone. We aud folks that be daffled, and
with one foot abaft the krok-hooal, don't altogether like to think of
it, and we don't want to feel scart of it, and that's why I've took to
makin' light of it, so that I'd cheer up my own heart a bit. But, Lord
love ye, miss, I ain't afraid of dyin', not a bit, only I don't want to
die if I can help it. My time must be nigh at hand now,for I be aud, and
a hundred years is too much for any man to expect. And I'm so nigh it
that the Aud Man is already whettin' his scythe. Ye see, I can't get out
o' the habit of caffin' about it all at once. The chafts will wag as
they be used to. Some day soon the Angel of Death will sound his trumpet
for me. But don't ye dooal an' greet, my deary!"--for he saw that I was
crying-- "if he should come this very night I'd not refuse to answer his
call. For life be, after all, only a waitin' for some- thin' else than
what we're doin', and death be all that we can rightly depend on. But
I'm content, for it's comin' to me, my deary, and comin' quick. It may
be comin' while we be lookin' and wonderin'. Maybe it's in that wind out
over the sea that's bringin' with it loss and wreck, and sore dis-
tress, and sad hearts. Look! Look!" he cried suddenly. "There's
something in that wind and in the hoast beyont that sounds, and looks,
and tastes, and smells like death. It's in the air. I feel it comin'.
Lord, make me answer cheerful, when my call comes!" He held up his arms
devoutly, and rai- sed his hat. His mouth moved as though he were
praying. After a few minutes' silence, he got up,shook hands with me,
and blessed me, and said good-bye, and hobbled off. It all touched me,
and upset me very much.

I was glad when the coastguard came along, with his spyglass under his
arm. He stopped to talk with me, as he always does, but all the time
kept looking at a strange ship.

"I can't make her out," he said. "She's a Russian, by the look of her.
But she's knocking about in the queerest way. She doesn't know her mind
a bit. She seems to see the storm coming,but can't decide whether to run
up north in the open, or to put in here. Look there again! She is
steered mighty strangely, for she doesn't mind the hand on the wheel,
changes about with every puff of wind. We'll hear more of her before
this time tomorrow."


CHAPTER 7


 CUTTING FROM "THE DAILYGRAPH," 8 AUGUST


  (PASTED IN MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL)


   From a correspondent.


Whitby.


 One of the greatest and suddenest storms on record has just been
experienced here, with results both strange and unique. The weather had
been somewhat sultry, but not to any degree uncommon in the month of
August. Saturday even- ing was as fine as was ever known, and the great
body of holiday-makers laid out yesterday for visits to Mulgrave Woods,
Robin Hood's Bay, Rig Mill, Runswick, Staithes, and the various trips in
the neighborhood of Whitby. The steamers Emma and Scarborough made trips
up and down the coast, and there was an unusual amount of `tripping'
both to and from Whitby. The day was unusually fine till the afternoon,
when some of the gossips who frequent the East Cliff churchyard, and
from the commanding eminence watch the wide sweep of sea visible to the
north and east, called attention to a sudden show of `mares tails' high
in the sky to the northwest. The wind was then blowing from the south-
west in the mild degree which in barometrical language is ranked `No. 2,
light breeze.'

The coastguard on duty at once made report, and one old fisherman,who
for more than half a century has kept watch on weather signs from the
East Cliff, foretold in an emphatic manner the coming of a sudden storm.
The approach of sunset was so very beautiful, so grand in its masses of
splendidly coloured clouds, that there was quite an assemblage on the
walk along the cliff in the old churchyard to enjoy the beauty.Before
the sun dipped below the black mass of Kettle- ness, standing boldly
athwart the western sky, its downward was was marked by myriad clouds of
every sunset colour, flame, purple, pink, green, violet, and all the
tints of gold, with here and there masses not large, but of seemingly
absolute blackness, in all sorts of shapes, as well outlined as colossal
silhouettes. The experience was not lost on the painters, and doubtless
some of the sketches of the `Prelude to the Great Storm' will grace the
R. A and R. I. walls in May next.

More than one captain made up his mind then and there that his `cobble'
or his `mule', as they term the different classes of boats, would remain
in the harbour till the storm had passed. The wind fell away entirely
during the evening, and at midnight there was a dead calm, a sultry
heat, and that prevailing intensity which, on the approach of thunder,
affects persons of a sensitive nature.

There were but few lights in sight at sea, for even the coasting
steamers,which usually hug the shore so closely, kept well to
seaward,and but few fishing boats were in sight. The only sail
noticeable was a foreign schooner with all sails set, which was
seemingly going westwards.The foolhard- iness or ignorance of her
officers was a prolific theme for comment whilst she remained in sight,
and efforts were made to signal her to reduce sail in the face of her
danger. Be- fore the night shut down she was seen with sails idly flapp-
ing as she gently rolled on the undulating swell of the sea.

"As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean."


Shortly before ten o'clock the stillness of the air grew quite
oppressive,and the silence was so marked that the bleating of a sheep
inland or the barking of a dog in the town was distinctly heard, and the
band on the pier, with its lively French air, was like a dischord in the
great har- mony of nature's silence. A little after midnight came a
strange sound from over the sea, and high overhead the air began to
carry a strange, faint, hollow booming.

Then without warning the tempest broke. With a rapidity which, at the
time, seemed incredible,and even afterwards is impossible to realize,
the whole aspect of nature at once became convulsed. The waves rose in
growing fury, each over- topping its fellow, till in a very few minutes
the lately glassy sea was like a roaring and devouring monster. White-
crested waves beat madly on the level sands and rushed up the shelving
cliffs. Others broke over the piers, and with their spume swept the
lanthorns of the lighthouses which rise from the end of either pier of
Whitby Harbour.

The wind roared like thunder, and blew with such force that it was with
difficulty that even strong men kept their feet, or clung with grim
clasp to the iron stanchions. It was found necessary to clear the entire
pier from the mass of onlookers, or else the fatalities of the night
would have increased manifold. To add to the difficulties and dangers of
the time, masses of sea-fog came drifting inland. White, wet clouds,
which swept by in ghostly fashion, so dank and damp and cold that it
needed but little effort of imagina- tion to think that the spirits of
those lost at sea were touching their living brethren with the clammy
hands of death, and many a one shuddered at the wreaths of sea-mist
swept by.

At times the mist cleared, and the sea for some dis- tance could be seen
in the glare of the lightning, which came thick and fast, followed by
such peals of thunder that the whole sky overhead seemed trembling under
the shock of the footsteps of the storm.

Some of the scenes thus revealed were of immeasurable grandeur and of
absorbing interest. The sea, running mount- ains high, threw skywards
with each wave mighty masses of white foam, which the tempest seemed to
snatch at and whirl away into space. Here and there a fishing boat, with
a rag of sail, running madly for shelter before the blast, now and again
the white wings of a storm-tossed seabird. On the summit of the East
Cliff the new searchlight was ready for experiment, but had not yet been
tried. The officers in charge of it got it into working order, and in
the pauses of onrushing mist swept with it the surface of the sea. Once
or twice its service was most effective, as when a fishing boat, with
gunwale under water, rushed into the harbour, able, by the guidance of
the sheltering light, to avoid the danger of dashing against the piers.
As each boat achieved the safety of the port there was a shout of joy
from the mass of people on the shore,a shout which for a moment seemed
to cleave the gale and was then swept away in its rush.

Before long the searchlight discovered some distance away a schooner
with all sails set, apparently the same ves- sel which had been noticed
earlier in the evening. The wind had by this time backed to the east,
and there was a shudder amongst the watchers on the cliff as they
realized the terr- ible danger in which she now was.

Between her and the port lay the great flat reef on which so many good
ships have from time to time suffered, and, with the wind blowing from
its present quarter,it would be quite impossible that she should fetch
the entrance of the harbour.

It was now nearly the hour of high tide, but the waves were so great
that in their troughs the shallows of the shore were almost visible, and
the schooner, with all sails set, was rushing with such speed that, in
the words of one old salt, "she must fetch up somewhere, if it was only
in hell". Then came another rush of sea-fog, greater than any hitherto,
a mass of dank mist, which seemed to close on all things like a gray
pall, and left available to men only the organ of hearing, for the roar
of the tempest, and the crash of the thunder, and the booming of the
mighty billows came through the damp oblivion even louder than before.
The rays of the searchlight were kept fixed on the harbour mouth across
the East Pier, where the shock was expected, and men waited breathless.

The wind suddenly shifted to the northeast, and the remnant of the sea
fog melted in the blast. And then, mirabile dictu, between the piers,
leaping from wave to wave as it rushed at headlong speed, swept the
strange schooner before the blast, with all sail set, and gained the
safety of the harbour. The searchlight followed her, and a shudder ran
through all who saw her, for lashed to the helm was a corpse, with
drooping head, which swung horribly to and fro at each motion of the
ship. No other form could be seen on the deck at all.

A great awe came on all as they realised that the ship, as if by a
miracle, had found the harbour, unsteered save by the hand of a dead
man! However, all took place more quickly than it takes to write these
words. The schooner paused not, but rushing across the harbour, pitched
herself on that accumulation of sand and gravel washed by many tides and
many storms into the southeast corner of the pier jutting under the East
Cliff, known locally as Tate Hill Pier.

There was of course a considerable concussion as the vessel drove up on
the sand heap. Every spar, rope, and stay was strained,and some of the
`top-hammer' came crashing down. But, strangest of all,the very instant
the shore was touched, an immense dog sprang up on deck from below,as if
shot up by the concussion, and running forward, jumped from the bow on
the sand.

Making straight for the steep cliff, where the church- yard hangs over
the laneway to the East Pier so steeply that some of the flat
tombstones, thruffsteans or through-stones, as they call them in Whitby
vernacular, actually project over where the sustaining cliff has fallen
away, it disa- ppeared in the darkness, which seemed intensified just
beyond the focus of the searchlight.

It so happened that there was no one at the moment on Tate Hill Pier, as
all those whose houses are in close prox- imity were either in bed or
were out on the heights above. Thus the coastguard on duty on the
eastern side of the har- bour, who at once ran down to the little pier,
was the first to climb aboard. The men working the searchlight, after
scouring the entrance of the harbour without seeing anything, then
turned the light on the derelict and kept it there. The coastguard ran
aft, and when he came beside the wheel, bent over to examine it,and
recoiled at once as though under some sudden emotion. This seemed to
pique general curiosity, and quite a number of people began to run.

It is a good way round from the West Cliff by the Draw- bridge to Tate
Hill Pier, but your correspondent is a fairly good runner, and came well
ahead of the crowd. When I arri- ved, however, I found already assembled
on the pier a crowd, whom the coastguard and police refused to allow to
come on board. By the courtesy of the chief boatman, I was, as your
correspondent, permitted to climb on deck, and was one of a small group
who saw the dead seaman whilst actually lashed to the wheel.

It was no wonder that the coastguard was surprised, or even awed, for
not often can such a sight have been seen. The man was simply fastened
by his hands, tied one over the other, to a spoke of the wheel. Between
the inner hand and the wood was a crucifix, the set of beads on which it
was fastened being around both wrists and wheel, and all kept fast by
the binding cords. The poor fellow may have been seated at one time, but
the flapping and buffeting of the sails had worked through the rudder of
the wheel and had dragged him to and fro, so that the cords with which
he was tied had cut the flesh to the bone.

Accurate note was made of the state of things, and a doctor, Surgeon J.
M. Caffyn, of 33, East Elliot Place, who came immediately after me,
declared, after making examina- tion, that the man must have been dead
for quite two days.

In his pocket was a bottle, carefully corked, empty save for a little
roll of paper, which proved to be the addendum to the log.

The coastguard said the man must have tied up his own hands, fastening
the knots with his teeth. The fact that a coastguard was the first on
board may save some complica- tions later on, in the Admiralty Court,
for coastguards cannot claim the salvage which is the right of the first
civilian entering on a derelict. Already, however, the legal tongues are
wagging, and one young law student is loudly asserting that the rights
of the owner are already complete- ly sacrificed, his property being
held in contravention of the statues of mortmain, since the tiller, as
emblemship, if not proof, of delegated possession, is held in a dead
hand.

It is needless to say that the dead steersman has been reverently
removed from the place where he held his honour- able watch and ward
till death, a steadfastness as noble as that of the young Casabianca,
and placed in the mortuary to await inquest.

Already the sudden storm is passing,and its fierceness is abating.
Crowds are scattering backward, and the sky is beginning to redden over
the Yorkshire wolds.

I shall send, in time for your next issue, further de- tails of the
derelict ship which found her way so miracu- lously into harbour in the
storm.


9 August.--The sequel to the strange arrival of the derelict in the
storm last night is almost more startling than the thing itself. It
turns out that the schooner is Russian from Varna, and is called the
Demeter. She is almost entirely in ballast of silver sand, with only a
small amount of cargo, a number of great wooden boxes filled with mould.

This cargo was consigned to a Whitby solicitor,Mr. S.F. Billington, of
7, The Crescent, who this morning went aboard and took formal possession
of the goods consigned to him.

The Russian consul, too, acting for the charter-party, took formal
possession of the ship, and paid all harbour dues, etc.

Nothing is talked about here today except the strange coincidence. The
officials of the Board of Trade have been most exacting in seeing that
every compliance has been made with existing regulations. As the matter
is to be a `nine days wonder', they are evidently determined that there
shall be no cause of other complaint.

A good deal of interest was abroad concerning the dog which landed when
the ship struck, and more than a few of the members of the S.P.C.A.,
which is very strong in Whitby, have tried to befriend the animal. To
the general disa- ppointment, however, it was not to be found. It seems
to have disappeared entirely from the town. It may be that it was
frightened and made its way on to the moors, where it is still hiding in
terror.

There are some who look with dread on such a possibil- ity, lest later
on it should in itself become a danger, for it is evidently a fierce
brute. Early this morning a large dog, a half-bred mastiff belonging to
a coal merchant close to Tate Hill Pier, was found dead in the roadway
opposite its master's yard. It had been fighting, and manifestly had had
a savage opponent,for its throat was torn away, and its belly was slit
open as if with a savage claw.


Later.--By the kindness of the Board of Trade inspector, I have been
permitted to look over the log book of the Deme- ter, which was in order
up to within three days, but con- tained nothing of special interest
except as to facts of missing men. The greatest interest, however, is
with regard to the paper found in the bottle,which was today produced at
the inquest. And a more strange narrative than the two bet- ween them
unfold it has not been my lot to come across.

As there is no motive for concealment,I am permitted to use them, and
accordingly send you a transcript, simply omitting technical details of
seamanship and supercargo. It almost seems as though the captain had
been seized with some kind of mania before he had got well into blue
water, and that this had developed persistently throughout the voyage.
Of course my statement must be taken cum grano, since I am writing from
the dictation of a clerk of the Russian consul, who kindly translated
for me, time being short.

LOG OF THE "DEMETER"
 Varna to Whitby


Written 18 July, things so strange happening, that I shall keep accurate
note henceforth till we land.


On 6 July we finished taking in cargo, silver sand and boxes of earth.
At noon set sail. East wind, fresh. Crew, five hands . . . two mates,
cook, and myself, (captain).


On 11 July at dawn entered Bosphorus. Boarded by Turkish Customs
officers. Backsheesh. All correct. Under way at 4 p. m.


On 12 July through Dardanelles. More Customs officers and flagboat of
guarding squadron. Backsheesh again. Work of officers thorough, but
quick. Want us off soon. At dark passed into Archipelago.


On 13 July passed Cape Matapan. Crew dissatisfied about something.
Seemed scared, but would not speak out.


On 14 July was somewhat anxious about crew. Men all steady fellows, who
sailed with me before. Mate could not make out what was wrong. They only
told him there was SOME- THING, and crossed themselves. Mate lost temper
with one of them that day and struck him. Expected fierce quarrel, but
all was quiet.


On 16 July mate reported in the morning that one of the crew, Petrofsky,
was missing. Could not account for it.Took larboard watch eight bells
last night, was relieved by Amra- moff, but did not go to bunk. Men more
downcast than ever. All said they expected something of the kind, but
would not say more than there was SOMETHING aboard. Mate getting very
impatient with them. Feared some trouble ahead.


On 17 July, yesterday, one of the men, Olgaren, came to my cabin, and in
an awestruck way confided to me that he thought there was a strange man
aboard the ship.He said that in his watch he had been sheltering behind
the deckhouse, as there was a rain storm, when he saw a tall,thin man,
who was not like any of the crew, come up the companionway, and go along
the deck forward and disappear.He followed cautiously, but when he got
to bows found no one, and the hatchways were all closed. He was in a
panic of superstitious fear, and I am afraid the panic may spread. To
allay it, I shall today search the entire ship carefully from stem to
stern.


Later in the day I got together the whole crew,and told them, as they
evidently thought there was some one in the ship, we would search from
stem to stern. First mate angry, said it was folly, and to yield to such
foolish ideas would demoralise the men, said he would engage to keep
them out of trouble with the handspike. I let him take the helm, while
the rest began a thorough search, all keeping abreast, with lanterns. We
left no corner unsearched. As there were only the big wooden boxes,
there were no odd corners where a man could hide. Men much relieved when
search over, and went back to work cheerfully.First mate scowled,but
said nothing.


22 July.--Rough weather last three days, and all hands busy with sails,
no time to be frightened. Men seem to have forgotten their dread. Mate
cheerful again, and all on good terms. Praised men for work in bad
weather. Passed Gibral- tar and out through Straits. All well.


24 July.--There seems some doom over this ship. Already a hand short,
and entering the Bay of Biscay with wild wea- ther ahead, and yet last
night another man lost, disappeared. Like the first, he came off his
watch and was not seen again. Men all in a panic of fear, sent a round
robin, asking to have double watch, as they fear to be alone. Mate
angry. Fear there will be some trouble,as either he or the men will do
some violence.


28 July.--Four days in hell,knocking about in a sort of malestrom, and
the wind a tempest. No sleep for any one. Men all worn out. Hardly know
how to set a watch, since no one fit to go on. Second mate volunteered
to steer and watch, and let men snatch a few hours sleep. Wind abating,
seas still terrific, but feel them less, as ship is steadier.


29 July.--Another tragedy. Had single watch tonight, as crew too tired
to double. When morning watch came on deck could find no one except
steersman. Raised outcry, and all came on deck. Thorough search, but no
one found. Are now without second mate, and crew in a panic. Mate and I
agreed to go armed henceforth and wait for any sign of cause.


30 July.--Last night. Rejoiced we are nearing England. Weather fine, all
sails set. Retired worn out, slept sound- ly, awakened by mate telling
me that both man of watch and steersman missing. Only self and mate and
two hands left to work ship.


1 August.--Two days of fog, and not a sail sighted. Had hoped when in
the English Channel to be able to signal for help or get in somewhere.
Not having power to work sails, have to run before wind. Dare not lower,
as could not raise them again. We seem to be drifting to some terrible
doom. Mate now more demoralised than either of men. His stronger nature
seems to have worked inwardly against himself. Men are beyond fear,
working stolidly and patiently, with minds made up to worst. They are
Russian, he Roumanian.


2 August, midnight.--Woke up from few minutes sleep by hearing a cry,
seemingly outside my port. Could see nothing in fog. Rushed on deck, and
ran against mate. Tells me he heard cry and ran, but no sign of man on
watch. One more gone. Lord, help us! Mate says we must be past Straits
of Dover, as in a moment of fog lifting he saw North Foreland, just as
he heard the man cry out. If so we are now off in the North Sea, and
only God can guide us in the fog, which seems to move with us, and God
seems to have deserted us.


3 August.--At midnight I went to relieve the man at the wheel and when I
got to it found no one there. The wind was steady, and as we ran before
it there was no yawing. I dared not leave it, so shouted for the mate.
After a few seconds, he rushed up on deck in his flannels. He looked
wild-eyed and haggard, and I greatly fear his reason has given way. He
came close to me and whispered hoarsely, with his mouth to my ear, as
though fearing the very air might hear. "It is here. I know it now. On
the watch last night I saw It, like a man, tall and thin, and ghastly
pale. It was in the bows, and looking out. I crept behind It, and gave
it my knife, but the knife went through It, empty as the air." And as he
spoke he took the knife and drove it savagely into space. Then he went
on, "But It is here, and I'll find It. It is in the hold, perhaps in one
of those boxes. I'll un- screw them one by one and see. You work the
helm." And with a warning look and his finger on his lip, he went below.
There was springing up a choppy wind, and I could not leave the helm. I
saw him come out on deck again with a tool chest and lantern, and go
down the forward hatchway. He is mad, stark, raving mad, and it's no use
my trying to stop him. He can't hurt those big boxes, they are invoiced
as clay, and to pull them about is as harmless a thing as he can do. So
here I stay and mind the helm, and write these notes. I can only trust
in God and wait till the fog clears. Then, if I can't steer to any
harbour with the wind that is, I shall cut down sails, and lie by, and
signal for help . . .

It is nearly all over now. Just as I was beginning to hope that the mate
would come out calmer, for I heard him knocking away at something in the
hold, and work is good for him, there came up the hatchway a sudden,
startled scream, which made my blood run cold, and up on the deck he
came as if shot from a gun, a raging madman, with his eyes rolling and
his face convulsed with fear. "Save me! Save me!" he cried, and then
looked round on the blanket of fog. His horror turned to despair, and in
a steady voice he said,"You had better come too, captain, before it is
too late. He is there! I know the secret now. The sea will save me from
Him, and it is all that is left!" Before I could say a word, or move
forward to seize him, he sprang on the bulwark and deliberately threw
himself into the sea. I suppose I know the secret too, now. It was this
madman who had got rid of the men one by one, and now he has followed
them himself. God help me! How am I to account for all these horrors
when I get to port? When I get to port! Will that ever be?


4 August.--Still fog, which the sunrise cannot pierce,I know there is
sunrise because I am a sailor, why else I know not. I dared not go
below, I dared not leave the helm, so here all night I stayed, and in
the dimness of the night I saw it, Him! God, forgive me, but the mate
was right to jump overboard. It was better to die like a man. To die
like a sailor in blue water, no man can object. But I am captain, and I
must not leave my ship. But I shall baffle this fiend or monster, for I
shall tie my hands to the wheel when my strength begins to fail, and
along with them I shall tie that which He, It, dare not touch. And then,
come good wind or foul, I shall save my soul, and my honour as a
captain. I am growing weaker, and the night is coming on. If He can look
me in the face again, I may not have time to act . . .If we are wrecked,
mayhap this bottle may be found, and those who find it may understand.
If not . . . well, then all men shall know that I have been true to my
trust. God and the Blessed Virgin and the Saints help a poor ignor- ant
soul trying to do his duty . . .


Of course the verdict was an open one. There is no evidence to adduce,
and whether or not the man himself comm- itted the murders there is now
none to say. The folk here hold almost universally that the captain is
simply a hero, and he is to be given a public funeral. Already it is
arran- ged that his body is to be taken with a train of boats up the Esk
for a piece and then brought back to Tate Hill Pier and up the abbey
steps, for he is to be buried in the church- yard on the cliff. The
owners of more than a hundred boats have already given in their names as
wishing to follow him to the grave.

No trace has ever been found of the great dog, at which there is much
mourning, for, with public opinion in its pre- sent state, he would, I
believe, be adopted by the town. To- morrow will see the funeral, and so
will end this one more `mystery of the sea'.


 MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL


8 August.--Lucy was very restless all night, and I too, could not sleep.
The storm was fearful, and as it boomed loudly among the chimney pots,
it made me shudder. When a sharp puff came it seemed to be like a
distant gun. Strange- ly enough,Lucy did not wake, but she got up twice
and dress- ed herself. Fortunately, each time I awoke in time and
managed to undress her without waking her, and got her back to bed. It
is a very strange thing, this sleep-walking, for as soon as her will is
thwarted in any physical way, her in- tention, if there be any,
disappears, and she yields herself almost exactly to the routine of her
life.

Early in the morning we both got up and went down to the harbour to see
if anything had happened in the night. There were very few people about,
and though the sun was bright, and the air clear and fresh, the big,
grim-looking waves, that seemed dark themselves because the foam that
topped them was like snow, forced themselves in through the mouth of the
harbour, like a bullying man going through a crowd. Somehow I felt glad
that Jonathan was not on the sea last night, but on land. But, oh, is he
on land or sea? Where is he, and how? I am getting fearfully anxious
about him. If I only knew what to do, and could do anything!


10 August.--The funeral of the poor sea captain today was most touching.
Every boat in the harbour seemed to be there, and the coffin was carried
by captains all the way from Tate Hill Pier up to the churchyard. Lucy
came with me, and we went early to our old seat, whilst the cortege of
boats went up the river to the Viaduct and came down again. We had a
lovely view, and saw the procession nearly all the way. The poor fellow
was laid to rest near our seat so that we stood on it,when the time came
and saw everything.

Poor Lucy seemed much upset. She was restless and uneasy all the
time,and I cannot but think that her dreaming at night is telling on
her. She is quite odd in one thing. She will not admit to me that there
is any cause for rest- lessness, or if there be, she does not understand
it herself.

There is an additional cause in that poor Mr. Swales was found dead this
morning on our seat, his neck being broken. He had evidently, as the
doctor said, fallen back in the seat in some sort of fright, for there
was a look of fear and horror on his face that the men said made them
shudder. Poor dear old man!

 Lucy is so sweet and sensitive that she feels influ- ences more acutely
than other people do. Just now she was quite upset by a little thing
which I did not much heed, though I am myself very fond of animals.

One of the men who came up here often to look for the boats was followed
by his dog. The dog is always with him. They are both quiet persons, and
I never saw the man angry, nor heard the dog bark. During the service
the dog would not come to its master, who was on the seat with us, but
kept a few yards off, barking and howling. Its master spoke to it
gently, and then harshly, and then angrily. But it would neither come
nor cease to make a noise. It was in a fury, with its eyes savage, and
all its hair bristling out like a cat's tail when puss is on the war
path.

Finally the man too got angry, and jumped down and kicked the dog, and
then took it by the scruff of the neck and half dragged and half threw
it on the tombstone on which the seat is fixed. The moment it touched
the stone the poor thing began to tremble. It did not try to get away,
but crouched down, quivering and cowering, and was in such a pitiable
state of terror that I tried, though without effect, to comfort it.

Lucy was full of pity, too, but she did not attempt to touch the dog,
but looked at it in an agonised sort of way. I greatly fear that she is
of too super sensitive a nature to go through the world without trouble.
She will be dream- ing of this tonight, I am sure. The whole
agglomeration of things, the ship steered into port by a dead man, his
atti- tude, tied to the wheel with a crucifix and beads, the touching
funeral, the dog, now furious and now in terror, will all afford
material for her dreams.

I think it will be best for her to go to bed tired out physically, so I
shall take her for a long walk by the cliffs to Robin Hood's Bay and
back. She ought not to have much inclination for sleep-walking then.