DRACULA

Feature Writer: Arlin Wordsmith
Feature Title: Dracula / Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Warning: This is a re-wright of Bram Stoker’s classic tale. I have changed it. This story contains sex with children and the death and torture of children, women and men. If such things offends you do not read this work.
Contact: [email protected]
Story Codes: Pedo, Mg, gg, Fg, Vampires, Werewolves
Synopsis: Come see what befalls the Count when he meets a pedophile Englishman.

Dracula – 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. Budapest seems a wonderful 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 national dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along the Carpathians. There was there a sweet bit of a child who I thought was the daughter of my chamber maid. She was a saucy little tart coming only to my belt.

She sat upon my lap and gave me kisses all round my neck and ears. The child wore only a thin nightshirt with no undergarments. During our play her nightshirt did rise up and her bare bottom sat against my cock. Taking a daring chance I let my fingers dally between her milky white tiny legs. It was to my amazement that she spread her legs and invited me to dally deeper in that golden honey pot. Upon my finger entering her yoni I found it wet and slippery as if it were inviting me deeper into it’s folds.

The dear child’s eyes fixed upon mine and the deep blue pools looked as if I could immerse my soul there in. Her ruby red lips parted and she lay her head back against mine in an invitation to mix our tongues of fiery passion. Our lips touched and in that instant her body arched and clamped down on my invading fingers. Her pussy pulled my fingers deeper into her willing body. There was an animal cry that escaped her lips as her need was given voice.

We were away to my bedchamber in an instant and I soon found myself upon the writhing child. I knew not the words that came from her mouth but the meaning of them were clear as the actions of her body spoke an universal language. She had my trousers off of me and my short clothing in a pile on the floor in a wink of the eye.

She lay nude under me and her small hand guided my stiff member into her soft tight folds as I mounted the young imp. The heat of our coupling raced through my body as I stretched the passage to her womb. My need was upon me and I spilt my seed in her wondrous vessel. I opened my eyes to see the child transformed by our sexual congress. The sweet imp was gone and in its place was a violently hostile beast. Her jaw was open and that sweet hot tunnel that I had but a moment before so lovingly kissed now sported large canine fangs that sought to rip into my flesh. My member shrank in a instant and all thought of fucking were driven from my soul.

Her bite was like fire pumped into my body. I know not how long she suckled on my flesh for all light went from me. I awoke alone cold and nude in my bed. I first thought that I had imagined it all in some nightmare brought on by strong drink or a bit of undigested paprika hendl but upon my neck were two small round puncture wounds at the spot I remember the child biting me.

I staggered out of my bed and dressed myself as best I could and went looking for the child. I found my smattering of German very useful here, indeed, I don’t know how I should be able to get on without it. I was told that there was no child as I had described and that my chamber maid was just that a maid who had no husband or child. I overheard the groundsman mutter the word Vampire. When I pressed him for a further explanation he claimed that I had misunderstood his words and had been talking of a campfire to ward off the chill of the night. I treated my small wound with a bandage and a bit of sulfur powder. I could get no further information from the staff and my coach was arriving early in that morning.

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. It was there that I had learned the legends of the undead, the Vampires that stocked the wildes of Transylvania. They all went back to Vlad the Impaler.

Vlad III was a fifteenth century ruler of Wallachia, an east European principality within modern Romania. Vlad became infamous for his brutal punishments, such as impalement, but also renowned by some for his attempt to fight the Muslim Ottomans, even though Vlad was only largely successful against Christian forces. I wondered if I could have been the victim of one.

The sun rose the next morning I and I felt no ill effects from my night terrors and in the light of day put them off as an overworked mind and the strangeness of the countryside and its’ inhabitants. The small wounds upon my neck had faded as had my memory of the night. I boarded the coach and resumed my journey.

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 Ordnance 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 distinct 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 center of some sort of imaginative whirlpool; if so my stay may be very interesting. (Mem., I must ask the Count all about them.)

The coach made very slow going as the roads were in a poor state of repair and we often had to stop for fallen branches or herds of milling sheep that blocked the road. We came upon and Inn and with the sun setting behind the mountains the driver refused to travel a league further. I took my supper in my room and locked the door against any who may trespass the night.

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 carafe, 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 force meat, a very excellent dish, which they call “impletata”.

I had to hurry breakfast, we had to make it to the station in the next town 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 less punctual 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 to 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 mustaches. 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 being 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 colored 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. She led me to a table by the hearth and set before me a stout Ale and some rough rye bread with some soft cheese. A serving winch came to the table with a plate of lamb and some garlic garnishments. Now I used to love the smell of garlic and its pungent taste but the odor of the offending bulbs killed any apatite I had for the roast lamb. I told the winch to take it straight away.

The elderly man returned with a letter:

“My friend — Welcome to the Carpathians. I am anxiously 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 seemed somewhat reticent, and pretended that he could not understand my German.

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

He and his wife, the old lady who had received me,looked 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 starting 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 tonight, 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 before starting.

It was all very ridiculous but I did not feel comfortable. 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 crucifix from her neck offered it to me.

I did not know what to do, for, as an English Churchman, I have been taught to regard such things as in some measure idolatrous, and yet it seemed so ungracious to refuse 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, my triste with the child would top the list, 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. (Memo, 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. She would not answer at first, but on learning that I was English, she explained that it was a charm or guard against the evil eye. I shared the coach with three women, rather two grown women and a young lass of tender years. The older women’s costumes took up a lot of room on the narrow seats in the coach so it was given over that the young lass should sit next to me.

The narrowness of the seat complied our touching though out the ride.

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 crossing 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 center of the yard.

Then our driver, whose wide linen drawers covered the whole front of the box seat — “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 the child vampire and other 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 bewildering 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 among 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 hillside 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 different 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 foreign troops, and so hasten the war which was always really at loading point.

The rapid pace the driver set and the lack of good springs upon the coach caused us to come together often. The rough ride loosened the young lass’ top and soon I was given over to the pleasant view of her swelling young breast. I got a peek at the twin pink tops of her nipples. The lass must have been very sleepy for she lay her head on my shoulder and drifted off to slumber mostly in my arms. Our other two companions were in the arms of Morpheus as they were sound asleep.

I found my hand around the young lass’ shoulder. She must have been having a present sexual dream for she move her hips and made soft guttural noises through her open lips. The coach hit a deep rut and we were thrown together.

My hand slid under her blouse and I found it clutching her budding breast. The nipple was now erect as was my cock. I went to remove my hand when she grasp my hand and clutched it tight to her breast. Her brown eyes flew open and she gave me a wicked wink and rubbed her lithe body against mine.

Fearful of being caught by the older women I removed my hand and pinched her cheek. I pointed towards the other passengers and told her that they would not approve of my mensuration. She made it quite clear that her services were available for a slight fee and that her ‘aunts’ would share in the profits of our union.

The people of the area had the mistaken idea that all English Gentlemen were men of wealth. I suppose that the income of a traveling Gentleman set against that of the peasants would be much larger.

The lass held out her hand and demanded payment up front as most of her trade do. For once the deed is done and the man has cum there is little recourse the whore can use to get paid. Funds exchanged hands and she quickly and quite skillfully freed my cock and mounted it. The bucking coach gave us an enjoyable ride as she rode my manhood. She pulled back the bandage on my neck and screamed in horror as she pulled off me and made the sign of the cross.

I shoved my cock back in my pants as the two women sat up and asked the still shaken lass what the problem was. She pointed to my neck and would say no more. The older of the two women sat next to me and pulled down the bandage. She was taken back by what she saw.

“You have been bitten! God have mercy on your soul! When were you bitten?” she demanded as she pulled a vile of clear water from her handbag.

“I was bitten last night by a young child.” I blurted out not knowing why I was so honest with my answer for further investigation as to our union would not turn out well for me.

“Good there still may be time. Here let me put this Holy Water on your wound. If it does not bubble or give off the stench of brimstone then it was just a human bite, but if it reacts you very soul is in dire straights,” she said as she opened the vile and poured the cool water on my wound.

I yelled out as it felt as if she had poured hot acid upon my flesh. Smoke arose from the wound and there was the stench of brimstone in the cramped cab of the coach. My female companions started to pray for my soul. I wondered now just how much of this folklore was real and how much simple superstition. The women pleaded with me to reconsider my employment with the Count.

Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians themselves. Right and left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon them and bringing out all the glorious colors 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 she crossed herself 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 kneeling 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 peasant’s cart — with its long, snakelike vertebra, calculated to suit the inequalities of the road. On this were sure to be seated quite a group of homecoming peasant, the Cszeks with their white, and the Slovaks with their colored sheep skins, 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 grayness which here and there beset 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 among 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 evidently 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 among the women, and they kept speaking to him, 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 women 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. We were entering on the Borgo Pass. The women 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 women, craning over the edge of the coach, peered eagerly into the darkness. It was evident that something 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 separated two atmospheres, and that now we had got into the thunderous one.

I was now myself looking out for the conveyance 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 women 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 tomorrow 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, among a chorus of screams from the women and a universal crossing of themselves, a caleche, with four horses, drove up behind 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 the women whispered 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 her face away, at the same time putting out her two fingers and crossing herself.

“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 with all that had happened to me so far in this strange land. 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 before 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 nearer, 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 turning 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 gathering 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 onward 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 understand their true import.

All at once the wolves began to howl as though the moonlight 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 pulling 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.

Dracula – 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 considerable 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 the 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 jumped again into his seat and shook the reins.The horses started 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 endless, 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 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 solicitor! 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 overwork. 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 mustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of color 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 draft 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 speaking.

So to make sure, I said interrogatively, “Count Dracula?”

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 insisted 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 opened 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 chimney. 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 stonework, 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 passage of it, at least, gave me a thrill of pleasure.

“I must regret that an attack of gout, from which malady I am a constant sufferer, forbids absolutely any traveling 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 save for the child and her bit on my neck.

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 himself 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 mustache, 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 pointed. 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 center 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.

The wounds on my neck suddenly gave me a great pain which, do what I would, I could not conceal. The Count, evidently noticing it, drew back the bandage. And with a grim sort of smile, which showed more than he had yet done his protuberant teeth, he said.

“I see that you have been bitten. Do tell me of the event and leave no detail out!”

With that he sat himself down again on his own side of the fireplace. We were both silent for a while, and as I looked back in my mind to find the words to tell of the strange event with the child.

I recanted the event leaving out the part where I had sex with the underage child and told him only that we were playing and I stole a kiss and then she bit me on the neck.

The Count only said to me, “You should be more careful with whom you play.”

There seemed a strange stillness over everything towards the window I saw the first dim streak of the coming dawn. 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. I have committed adultery on my wife and bedded to strange females in under a week. 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 int  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 certainly odd deficiencies in the house, considering the extraordinary 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 or 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 permission. There was absolutely nothing in the room, book, newspaper, 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. 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 noble. 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 answered, “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 England. 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 asked 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 unchecked 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 centuries 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 Austrian and the Hungarian came up in hordes, and the patriots went out to meet them, men and women, the aged and the children 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 triumphant 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 undiscovered, 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 daylight 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 surrounded 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 medieval 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 called Queen’s Grace. It is not, however, 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 Transylvanian nobles love not to think that our bones may lie among 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, manifestly 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 returned.

“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, chatting and asking questions on every conceivable subject, hour after hour.

I felt that it was getting very late indeed, 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 forget how time flies by us, I have taken the liberty to acquire something warm and soft with which you may pass some few hours of pleasure.”

And with a courtly bow, he drew back a curtain and there standing as if carved from ivory was an exquisite young child of no more than seven or eight. Her features were very beautiful and delicate. Her eyes were pale blue and her flaxen hair hung loose down to her bare shoulders. She was covered only by a thin nightgown. She stared straight ahead looking nether to the left or right.

“Her name is Abigail Adams. She is a ward of mine. Do with her as you will her only thoughts are to please you my new friend. Our ways here are not those of your England, her willing body is open to you. I can read in you the desire to consume her flesh. I assure you that her only thoughts are to couple with you in any manner you chose. I will not think less of you my English friend. Take her as a gift from me to you for all the wonderful work you have done for me.”

With that he quickly left me. I went into my room with my new charge 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.

The sun’s light once so welcomed unto me now seemed an ill thing something to be avoided. I noticed that my skin now had a paleness to it not unlike the Counts. So I pulled the curtains again, and looked at the fair child standing as I had left her. It was as if she were in some kind of trance. I lifted her arm and she kept it raised. I touched her face and her skin felt chilled to the bone. She had the look of a living porcelain doll.

I spoke to her saying, “Do you understand English?”

She in reply only nodded and turned only her head to follow my movement in the chamber. I thought to test her knowledge and the Count’s assertion that she would be a willing sex partner for my every desire and perversion as the dark castle seemed to draw from me a dark side that longed to do horrid things to her body.

“Then take off your gown and lay on the bed,” I ordered and watched as she moved slowly to pull the thin cotton garment over her head and climb into the bed and lay on her back with her arms down by her side.

Lust rose in my loins as I examined the young child’s body. I saw that her vulva were not distended yet which gave her yoni the look of a babies. I saw two small holes just above her mound that matched the wound on my neck. The child’s skin was a China white allover.

There was little color in her lips or on her tiny twin nipples that set like bee stings upon her chest. Her cleft was a pail pink when I pulled back the lips of her pussy. She struck me to look more like a corps than a living child yet she drew breath as her flat chest rose and fell with each shallow breath she took. Her gaze upon me unnerved me some what as she seemed to look through me rather then at me.

I bent to the bed to closer examine this imp when the crucifix fell out from my under shirt. The child reacted as if the cross was a living snake as he hissed and recoiled away from the religious icon. She covered her eyes and would not stand my touch.

I made to put the crucifix back inside my shirt as I touched it the thing did feel alive and unpleasant to the touch. I flipped the cross back under my shirt and the child calmed down. Abigail lay back down on the bed and spread her legs inviting me to draw near and sample her willing flesh.

I was drawn to her crotch and I bent to the bed and put my mouth over her sex. The child flinched at my touch but opened wider her legs for me and rolled her hips up to meet my probing tongue. I felt her cold hands caresses my cheeks as I worked her vagina. I had taped some hidden spring within the child’s vagina for as I sucked on the pale pink slit a thick clear ambrosia flowed out of her body.

I as a drunken man sucked down each precious drop. I thirsted for more as I pushed deeper into her willing wet body. She moved her hips in rhythm with my invading tongue. With each thrust she pumped out more of her addictive juice.

She moaned and lifted her slim legs and put them over my shoulders and fucked my face with her crotch. The child pulled me off her pussy and reached down grabbing my stiff member. She guided it into her tight opening. Her wet hole swallowed my cock sucking it in with an unnatural force. I quickly ejaculated into her body my seed. Her cunt sucked the cum from my body and I kept on pumping my life’s fluid into the willing child’s body. Her body drank from my well and did so until I lay spent and wasted.

The child pushed me back down on her crotch and held my head to her loins as she pumped out more of her ambrosia. I drank the wondrous fluid down just like any Chinese Coolly strung out on narcotic analgesic opiate drugs. Thus have I sunken so low that now my only sexual thoughts of pleasure come from a preteen for me. I intend to put into words my actions as my mind seems unclear. So my dear wife this is what has transpired and I 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 the child to use in the darkness yet she speaks not a word to me, the Count I fear I am myself the only living soul within the place. Let me be prosaic 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 found Abigail the child in my arms. I had no knowledge of how she came to be in my bed. I had hung my shaving 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 myself 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. I turned the shaving glass to cover the bed and the child was not in its’ reflection.

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 turned back to the bed the child was gone as swiftly and as silently as the Count’s passing. I added this strangeness to an ever growing list. I cleaned my cut and feeling hunger went to break my fast.

When I went into the dining room, breakfast was prepared, but I could not find the Count anywhere. So I breakfasted alone. It was all that I could do to eat the food laid out for me. There was a cut of beef thick and barely touched by the cooking flames. Red dark blood seeped from the chunk of flesh.

I was drawn to the juice and forgoing the other fair sucked on the cool meat taking from it until it was dry. I licked the plate of all its red juice and felt satiated. 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 everywhere, 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!

Dracula – CHAPTER 3

Jonathan Harker’s Journal Continued

When I found that I was a prisoner a sort of wild feeling 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. I did not fined the child in any of the unlocked rooms. 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 quietly 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 cautiously 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 save the child, 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?

Curse that simple minded woman who hung the crucifix round my neck! For it is a discomfort and a pain to me whenever I touch it is not odd that a thing which I have been taught to regard with disfavor and as idolatrous should in a time of loneliness and trouble be of no help.

Is it that there is something in the essence of the thing itself, or that it is a medium, a tangible power, in conveying memories of pain and discomfort? 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. He asked me how I was getting along with his ward. I told him that she was very willing to cater to my needs. It was then that I was struck by the level of depravity I had sunk since coming to this thrice cursed land.

“Count how did Abigail Adams come to be your ward?”

I asked as my cock grew just thinking of the pale tart who came so willing to my bed.

“Aha, that my friend is a long tale. Her parents were in my employment as so had there family for generations served the house Dracula. I have told you of the stupid peasants and their foolish superstitions. Well some years ago a mad man rose up in the village below. He became a prophet and led the villagers to attack the castle. Sadly Abigail’s parents were killed defending my home. It was then that much of the damage was done to the castle. Since the attack I have had to maintain the holdings by my hand alone as I will not have any of those fools in my ancestral home,” he said anger rising in his voice and his countenance.

“That is a sad tale. Is that why the child does not speak? She seems to understand me but other than a few moans and grunts she has not uttered a word to me.” I said as I had such a thirst for the golden fluid that seeped from her loins that I licked my lips.

“Yes that is so. The villagers did horrid things to her mother in front of the child’s eyes. It was that which as left her such a state. She seems to enjoy what you do with her. I am glad that she brings you pleasure and you to her,” the Count said taking my hand as would a dear friend.

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 mustache 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 sea boards 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 Honfoglalas was completed there? And when the Hungarian flood swept eastward,the Szekelys were claimed as kindred by the victorious Magyars, and to us for centuries was trusted the guarding of the frontier of Turkey land. 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 standard 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 Turkey land,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 without 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 among 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 dishonorable 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. I found dear Abigail waiting for me in bed she was nude. I found myself between her legs dining on that sweet meat and drinking my fill from her well. (Memo, this diary seems horribly like the beginning of the “Arabian Nights,”) for everything has to break off at cockcrow, At the first light coming through a crack in the heavy drapery the child moved from under my and picking up her nightgown fled my chamber. I fell into my covers and slept like the dead.

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 solicitors 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 difficulty 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 labors should be only to my interest. Now, suppose I, who have much of affairs, wish to ship goods, say, to Newcastle, 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 consignment and the forms to be gone through, and of all sorts of difficulties which might arise, but by forethought 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 warm 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 with my secret addiction to the child’s body? It was Mr.Hawkins’ interest, and mine, and I had to think of him, and 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 mastery 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. Say nothing of dear Abigail as I am sure they would not understand such a relationship. 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 letters, 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, Budapest . 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 carefully, 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 and do take up the child, she needs your special attention.” 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 removed the crucifix tossing it out the window and letting if fall to the depths far below, I imagine that my rest is thus freer from dreams, and there it shall remain.

When he left me I went to my room. She was there waiting for me. After a little while, not hearing any sound, I came out with the child and went up the stone stair to where we 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 courtyard.

Looking out on this, I felt that I was indeed in prison, and I seemed to want a breath of fresh air, though it were of the night. I am beginning to feel this nocturnal existence tell on me. It is destroying my nerve. I start at my own shadow, and am full of all sorts of horrible imaginings and ungodly lust. 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 blackness just like the folds of dear Abigail’s cunt. Her mere beauty seemed to cheer me. There was peace and comfort in every breath I drew.

As I leaned from the window my eye was caught by something moving a story 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 weather worn, 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 opportunities 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 moonlight, 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 horrible place overpowering me.I am in fear, in awful fear, and there is no escape for me save I become as he a creature of the night. I am encompassed about with terrors that I dare not think of what I have or yet may become.. Lord forgive me but I sought and was granted solace in the arms of the sweet child. I used her hard and she me. I felt the sting of her teeth but was now beyond caring.

15 May.

I am beset with sorrow, my sweet child has been taken from me. The damned Count came into my chamber and took her away saying that she had disobeyed his orders. He said that he was sending her away. My heart sank as I am now truly alone in this mad house.

Later this night 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 distance was too great to allow a proper angle of sight. I knew he had left the castle now, and thought to use the opportunity 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 unlocked, 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 rested 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 story lower down. From the windows I could see that the suite of rooms lay along to the south of the castle, the windows 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 culverin could not reach, and consequently light and comfort, impossible to a position which had to be guarded, were secured.

To the west was a great valley, and then, rising far away, great jagged mountain vastness, 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 colors,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 brilliant 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 presence 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 shorthand all that has happened since I closed it last. It is the nineteenth century up-to-date with a vengeance. And yet, unless 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 I have done and the evil that lurks in this hateful 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 am beginning to be changed by the bite of that other child and by time spent here with the Count and dear Abigail. I must study my mind to get new insights 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 replaced 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 moonlight soothed, and the wide expanse without gave a sense of freedom which refreshed me. I determined not to return tonight 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 followed 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 disturbed the long accumulation of dust. In the moonlight opposite 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 golden 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 something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning 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 water glasses 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 voluptuousness 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 languorous 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 positively 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, soulless 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 attentively, 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, of a half smothered child. The women closed round, whilst I was aghast with horror. I saw a young boy no more than five, nude and bound in that horrid bag, But as I looked, they disappeared with a peasant child, 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. I heard the wail of the child as they had their meal of his blood.

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

Dracula – 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 unquestionable 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 sanctuary, for nothing can be more dreadful than those awful women, who were, who are, waiting to suck my blood. I so miss the tender touch of the child.

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 doorway at the top of the stairs I found it closed. It had been so forcibly driven against the jamb that part of the woodwork 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 suavest 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 opportunities.

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 gypsies. I have notes of them in my book. They are peculiar to this part of the world, though allied to the ordinary gypsies 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 or my addiction to the child. 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 calmly 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 softly. 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, I know that you are missing sweet Abigail so I have relented and brought her back to my house. Yes it is true yet are you are tired? Get to bed and take what pleasure you may with sweet Abigail. There is the surest rest. I may not have the pleasure of talk tonight, since there are many labors to me, but you will sleep after you have drank your fill from the child, I pray.”

I passed to my room and took the child to bed, and, she fed me it seemed an unusually large amount of her golden mung. After I drank from her, I mounted her and by force entered her body. She lay there letting me enter her forbidden passage. I spent my seed in her womb and then strange to say, slept without dreaming.

Desire has its own calms.

31 May.

This morning when I woke I found the child gone again. I found a note in the Count’s hand.

Dear friend, I did not wish to wake you. I have need of the child once again sadly you shall see her no more. However soon you shall be on the road to Jolly Old England. Take heart from that knowledge.

The note was signed simply D. He gives and takes as it suits his needs. I am but a puppet for him to pull the strings. 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 memorandum, 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 traveled 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 cudgeling 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 leiterwagens, 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 “headman” 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 leiterwagens 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 crackling of their whips die away in the distance.

Later at night Abigail came to me again but this time she pushed me down on the bed and fell upon my neck. I felt the twin stabs of her long teeth enter my throat and pierce my vanes in my neck. She drank her fill and then laughing left my chamber.

I fell back spent and weakened.

24 June.

Last night the Count left me early, and locked 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 ruthless 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 traveling here, and slung over his shoulder the terrible bag which I had seen the women take away.

The horrid bag came open and I stifled a cry for there surly dead was the child Abigale Adams her throat torn wide open yet no blood was on the wound. 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 criminals 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 notice 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 embrasure in a more comfortable position, so that I could enjoy more fully the aerial gamboling.

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 striving to answer the call. I was becoming hypnotized!

Quicker and quicker danced the dust.The moonbeams seemed 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 materialized 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 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 agonized cry of a woman. I rushed to the window, and throwing it up, peered between the bars.

There, indeed, was a woman with disheveled hair, holding 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 violence 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 howling 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 molested 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 calves, 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 helping 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 direction 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 anywhere. The only thing I found was a great heap of gold in one corner, gold of all kinds, Roman, and British, and Austrian, 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 jeweled, 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 passage, through which came a deathly, sickly odor, the odor 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 movement, 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 letter home has been dispatched. Tomorrow I shall not be here, but all shall be ready for your journey. In the morning come the Szgany, who have some labors of their own here, and also 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 clamping 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 minute 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 listened. 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! Then she was there in the moonlight the ghost of my sweet Abigail. Her spectral form commanded me to kneel and present my neck to her. She spoke to me for the first and last time.

“Thrice bitten and forever more shall you walk in darkness. Come willing to me and I shall make you as I and he are creatures of the night. Your power will not match his yet but you can forestall his plans for your death. The first bite was not from his blood so he will have no power over you. He is strong and has hundreds of years of fighting to draw on. Know this your soul is lost and you are bound by the laws of the undead. Things of God are harmful to you. Sunlight will burn you to death. A wooden stake driven thorough your heart will kill you. You can be drowned in running water. Garlic and holy water are poison to you. Use the power of your mind for it can control lesser beast and mere humans. Knowing this will you take my blood and join with me for eternity?” Abigail’s ghost asked as she drew near me again.

“Yes I have no other course but the one you offer. Take me my dear Abigail,” I said as I felt her fangs bite deep in my flesh.

She pumped in my vanes her vampire blood the mingled with mine. I fell to the floor and a great fire came over my mind. I shook and then all was darkness. When I awoke I found myself hanging from the ceiling of my bed chamber like some giant bat.

The shock of the transformation cause me to lose my hold on the timbers of the vaulted ceiling. I fell but before I hit the floor I snapped my legs out and landed lightly on my feet. I moved into a beam of sunlight that came from a crack in the shuttered window. I put out my hand and pulled it back as swiftly as I could as it burned me as if it were a pillar of fire.

Then Abigail’s words came back to me. I felt that subtle change in the air, and knew that the morning had come. Then came the unwelcome cock-crow, and I felt that I was not 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. A rage came over me and I ripped the door off its hinges sending it crashing to the floor. The noise rebounded down the long empty hall.

Then a wild desire took me to obtain the key at any risk, and I determined then and there to gain the Count’s room. He might kill me, but death now seemed the happier choice of evils. Without a pause I rushed down the east hall into the Count’s room. It was empty, but that was as I expected. 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 mustache 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 among swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches underneath were bloated. It seemed as if the whole awful creature were simply gored 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 looked 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, among its teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood, and create a new and ever-widening circle of semi-demons to fatten 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 saw the broken wooden handle of a workers hammer. I seized a shovel which the workmen had been using to fill the cases, and lifting it high, drove the wooden stake with the edge downward, at his heart.

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 his chest merely making a deep gash in his chest. with the hammer handle sticking in the shallow gash. The shovel 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 feeling growing over me.

As I waited I heard in the distance a gypsy 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 saw that the Count had fallen on the stake. His body was now just a pile of black dust. The dust disappeared as I watched.

I ran from the place and gained the Count’s room, determined to take the pile of gold and place it in one of the coffins as I realized what his plan was. He was going to have his body sent back to England in the coffin. He must return to the soil of his birth to rest during the day. Since I was bitten here in Transylvania I hoped that it would work for me. I found that I could easily carry the heavy gold.

I pulled off a heavy blanket and dumped a in gold and gems into the blanket and carried it over my shoulder as I rushed back down the stairs. I opened the next crate in line and found one of the sleeping women that wanted my blood. I took the stake and drove it through her heart and she turned to dust. I went down the line and killed all of the beast laying dormant in their coffins. I hammered their lids back on and then righted the heavy crate that had held the Count and waited for the a worker to come in the chamber.

I hid behind the dark end doorway and waited for the man to come. It was the boss that had laughed at me from below my window. I waited until he had come into the room. I shut the door and fell upon him. He was holding a lantern up to give light to the darkened chamber. He turned as the door shut and let out a cry as I grabbed the man and sunk my fangs into his throat. The blood lust came over me and I drained his body of blood. I took his body and dumped into one of the holes dug in the floor of the chamber. I covered him with dirt and then got into the Count’s crate. I lay on the moist earth and as I calmed myself I fell into a deep sleep.

I was awakened 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.by the sound of nails being driven into the lid of the crate.

I hear muffled voices in Slovak. The crate was lifted off the stand and carried out of the castle. I felt it being loaded on a wagon and after the other crates were loaded the teamsters cracked their whips and headed towards the village bellow and the railroad that would carry my crate to the Black Sea and then into the Mediterranean.

The door is shut, the chains rattle. There is a grinding 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 we pass into the distance.

I fell again into the sleep of the dead. If I dreamed I had no recall of the dream. I woke by some new internal clock that told my new body that it was time to feed and that the sun was set. I felt the crate rock with the motion that could only be a vessel upon a body of water. I smelled salt air and assumed that we were at sea. I listened and heard only the sounds that a sailing ship makes as it plows the waves. I pressed against the lid and it creaked as the nails were pulled free.

The hold was dark lit only by dim red lights few and far between but I found with my new sight that is was bright enough for me to read a newspaper should I choose to do so. I got out of my coffin and explored the ship. I heard the bleating of goats through the bulkhead in the next hold. I found a steel door leading to the hold and entered.

The goats set up such a racket as they tried to get away from me. They acted as if a wolf were at them. Worse than a wolf was upon them. I could smell their blood pumping through their veins and my lust rose. I pulled a small young goat from the pen and drained the life out of the beast. The blood did not taste that good to me for I knew that human blood was what my body craved. However I did not want to take another life here at sea where it would be missed. I lifted the top of one of the empty crates and buried the carcass of the dead goat and got back into my coffin.

I pondered how I would seal myself back in from the inside. I though hard about the nails and willed them back into the wood. To my amazement I heard them being pulled back into the wood. I wondered what limits there were to my new found powers. I recalled the Count’s former plans and knew that the crates would be delivered to the house I had acquired for him in London.

The place would suit my needs as well as they would have the Count. I then remembered that he had vast sums of cash transferred to the Bank of England and that I knew the solicitor he had chosen to deal with. I was sure that some arrangements could be reached between he and I. If not a dark night and I would come calling and drain his body of its blood. One way or the other I would have the Count’s funds.

I am ill the goat’s blood did not sate my thirst. I have given my soul over the Satin as there is blood on my hands and between my loins as I hunger for my sweet little Abigail or sadly some other young child to use and drink from. I walk the Russian ship now to feed. I took a deckhand as he stood the night watch. He died quite and quick. I slipped his body into the arms of the sea.

FROM THE JOURNAL OF MISS MINA MURRAY’S

10 June

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 playing 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.

27 July.

No news from Jonathan. I am getting quite uneasy 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.

3 August.

Another week gone by, and no news from Jonathan, 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.

6 August.

Another three days, and no news. This suspense 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. 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.”

Dracula – CHAPTER 7

CUTTING FROM “THE DAILY GRAPH,” 8 AUGUST (PASTED IN MINA MURRAY’S JOURNAL)

From a correspondent. Whitby.

One of the greatest and sudden-est 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 evening 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 southwest in the mild degree which in barometrically 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 colored 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 Kettleness, standing boldly athwart the western sky, its downward was was marked by myriad clouds of every sunset color, 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 harbor 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 foolhardiness 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. Before the night shut down she was seen with sails idly flapping 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 discord in the great harmony 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 Harbor.

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 imagination 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 distance 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 mountains high, threw skyward 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 harbor, 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 vessel which had been noticed earlier in the evening. The wind had by this time backed to the east, and there was a shudder among the watchers on the cliff as they realized the terrible 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 harbor.

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 harbor 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 harbor. 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 realized that the ship, as if by a miracle, had found the harbor, un-steered 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 harbor, 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 churchyard hangs over the lane way to the East Pier so steeply that some of the flat tombstones, turff steans or through-stones, as they call them in Whitby vernacular, actually project over where the sustaining cliff has fallen away, it disappeared 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 proximity were either in bed or were out on the heights above. Thus the coastguard on duty on the eastern side of the harbor, 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 harbor 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 Drawbridge to Tate Hill Pier, but your correspondent is a fairly good runner, and came well ahead of the crowd. When I arrived, 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 examination, 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 complications later on, in the Admiralty Court, for coast guards 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 completely 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 honorable watch and ward till death, a steadfastness as noble as that of the young Casablanca, 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 hills. I shall send, in time for your next issue, further details of the derelict ship which found her way so miraculously into harbor 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 mold.

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 harbor 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 disappointment, 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 possibility, 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 Demeter, which was in order up to within three days, but contained 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 between 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 flag boat 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 SOMETHING, 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 Amramoff, 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 deck house, 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 hatchway 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 demoralize the men, said he would engage to keep them out of trouble with the hand spike. I let him take the helm, while the rest began a thorough search, all keeping abreast, with lanterns. We left no corner un-searched. 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 Gibraltar 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 weather 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 maelstrom, 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 soundly, 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 demoralized 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 Rumanian.

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 unscrew 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 harbor 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 honor 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, may-hap 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 ignorant 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 committed 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 arranged 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 churchyard 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 and so will end this one more ‘mystery of the sea’. No trace has ever been found of the great dog, at which there is much mourning, for, with public opinion in its present state, he would, I believe, be adopted by the town.

Jonathan Harker’s Journal Continued

I found the sailor alone at his watch after the horrid storm the small ship had survived. Before I was bitten I was a seasoned traveler and not prone to sea sickness. I had slept through the worst of the tempest. The decks were wet from the sea spray and the ship groaned in the following wind.

I saw the mate working on some broken rigging. He was bent to his task and did not hear my approach. He was bent on one knee working a thick rope with a marlin spike. I grasped him by his slicker and sank my fangs into he jugular vein and drank my fill. I tossed his dead body over the side into the churning sea. I went back down below to my earth and slept until hunger woke me.

The sea is rough and a storm is coming. I moved aft and found the cook killing one of the goats for its’ meat. The cook’s blood spilled on the deck to mingle with the dead goat’s. I threw his body overboard once I had finished feeding. It was a close thing for he had the stink of garlic on his clothing.

The blood of the goat had covered enough that I might take the cook, but I did not enjoy his blood. Another night and I took a deckhand as he came to get some fresh water from the kegs below. The fools searched the ship but missed me as I took the form of a bat and hid in the timbers of the ship. I fed again they are trapped like rats on this ship of the damned and I chief among them. I went into the captains’ cabin and read his log we are nearing England. The ship should reach port in three days.

I went into the crew’s quarters and took a sailor in his bunk. I fed and then carried him to the port side of the ship and committed his corps to the sea. I awoke and found the ship sailing in a thick fog all the better for me to move quite and find another sailor to dine on. This one cried out as I pulled him down the hatchway. I had to hurry my meal as the alarm had be called and I heard the sound of rushing feet upon the deck. I slid his body into the sea and hurried down into the hold.

I was awoke by the lid of my coffin being torn open. I saw a maddened sailor with a mallet in his hands. He swung it down at me and I cough it as if it were a wand directing a band. I drew up to my full height and showed him my fangs. He let lose the mallet and fled as if the hounds of hell were set upon him.

I heard his cry as he dove over the side of the ship leaving only me and the captain of the ship. The fool has put the cross up to stave off my attack. I can not go near him but he has died tied to the wheel. I have gone below and moved the rudder by the ropes and steer the ship into the harbor. It is night and I take the form of the wolf. For I am hidden from the eyes of man in this form. I shall trust to the Counts orders being carried out as I run on the soil of England.

LETTER, SAMUEL F. BILLINGTON & SON, SOLICITORS   WHITBY, TO MESSRS. CARTER, PATERSON & CO., LONDON.

17 August

“Dear Sirs,

“Herewith please receive invoice of goods sent by Great Northern Railway. Same are to be delivered at Carfax, near Purfleet, immediately on receipt at goods station King’s Cross. The house is at present empty, but enclosed please find keys, all of which are labeled.

“You will please deposit the boxes, fifty in number, which form the consignment, in the partially ruined building forming part of the house and marked  ‘A’ on rough diagrams enclosed. Your agent will easily recognize the locality, as it is the ancient chapel of the mansion.

The goods leave by the train at 9:30 tonight, and will be due at King’s Cross at 4:30 tomorrow afternoon. As our client wishes the delivery made as soon as possible, we shall be obliged by your having teams ready at King’s Cross at the time named and forthwith conveying the goods to destination. In order to obviate any delays possible through any routine requirements as to payment in your departments,we enclose cheque herewith for ten pounds, receipt of which please acknowledge.

Should the charge be less than this amount, you can return balance, if greater, we shall at once send cheque for difference on hearing from you. You are to leave the keys on coming away in the main hall of the house, where the proprietor may get them on his entering the house by means of his duplicate key.

“Pray do not take us as exceeding the bounds of business courtesy in pressing you in all ways to use the utmost expedition.

“We are, dear Sirs,

“Faithfully yours, “SAMUEL F. BILLINGTON & SON”

LETTER, MESSRS. CARTER, PATERSON & CO., LONDON, TO MESSRS. BILLINGTON & SON, WHITBY.

21 August.

“Dear Sirs,

“We beg to acknowledge 10 pounds received and to return cheque of 1 pound, 17s, 9d, amount of over plus, as shown in receipted account herewith. Goods are delivered in exact accordance with instructions, and keys left in parcel in main hall, as directed.

“We are, dear Sirs, “Yours respectfully, “Pro CARTER, PATERSON & CO.”

THE PALL MALL GAZETTE May 23rd 1890

THE ESCAPED WOLF PERILOUS ADVENTURE OF OUR INTERVIEWER

INTERVIEW WITH THE KEEPER IN THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS

After many inquiries and almost as many refusals, and perpetually using the words `PALL MALL GAZETTE ‘ as a sort of talisman, I managed to find the keeper of the section of the Zoological Gardens in which the wold department is included. Thomas Bilder lives in one of the cottages in the enclosure behind the elephant house, and was just sitting down to his tea when I found him. Thomas and his wife are hospitable folk, elderly, and without children, and if the specimen I enjoyed of their hospitality be of the average kind, their lives must be pretty comfortable. The keeper would not enter on what he called business until the supper was over, and we were all satisfied. Then when the table was cleared, and he had lit his pipe, he said,

“Now, Sir, you can go on and ask me what you want. You’ll excoose me refoosin’ to talk of perfeshunal subjucts afore meals. I gives the wolves and the jackals and the hyaenas in all our section their tea afore I begins to arsk them questions.”

“How do you mean, ask them questions?” I queried, wishful to get him into a talkative humor.

” ‘Ittin’ of them over the ‘ead with a pole is one way. Scratchin’ of their ears in another, when gents as is flush wants a bit of a show-orf to their gals. I don’t so much mind the fust, the ‘ittin of the pole part afore I chucks in their dinner, but I waits till they’ve ad their sherry and kawffee,so to speak,afore I tries on with the ear scratchin'. Mind you," he added philosophically, "there's a deal of the same nature in us as in them theer animiles. Here's you a-comin' and arskin' of me questions about my business, and I that grump-like that only for your bloomin'arf-quid I’d a' seen you blowed fustfore I’d answer. Not even when you arsked me sarcastic like if I’d like you to arsk the Superintendent if you might arsk me questions. Without offence did I tell yer to go to `ell?”

“You did.”

“An’ when you said you’d report me for usin’ obscene language that was ‘ittin’ me over the ‘ead. But the ‘arfquid made that all right. I weren’t a-goin’ to fight, so I waited for the food, and did with my owl as the wolves and lions and tigers does. But, lor' love yer 'art, now that the oldooman has stuck a chunk of her tea-cake in me, an’ rinsed me out with her bloomin’ old teapot, and I’ve lit hup, you may scratch my ears for all you’re worth, and won’t even get a growl out of me. Drive along with your questions. I know what yer a-comin’ at, that ‘ere escaped wolf.”

“Exactly. I want you to give me your view of it. Just tell me how it happened, and when I know the facts I’ll get you to say what you consider was the cause of it, and how you think the whole affair will end.”

“All right, guv’nor. This ‘ere is about the ‘ole story. That’ere wolf what we called Bersicker was one of three gray ones that came from Norway to Jamrach’s, which we bought off him four years ago. He was a nice well-behaved wolf, that never gave no trouble to talk of. I’m more surprised at ‘im for wantin’ to get out nor any other animile in the place. But, there, you can’t trust wolves no more nor women.”

“Don’t you mind him, Sir!” broke in Mrs. Tom, with a cheery laugh. ” ‘E’s got mindin’ the animiles so long that blest if he ain’t like a old wolf ‘isself! But there ain’t no ‘arm in ‘im.”

“Well, Sir, it was about two hours after feedin’ yesterday when I first hear my disturbance. I was makin’ up a litter in the monkey house for a young puma which is ill. But when I heard the yelpin’ and ‘owlin’ I kem away straight. There was Bersicker a-tearin’ like a mad thing at the bars as if he wanted to get out. There wasn’t much people about that day, and close at hand was only one man, a tall, thin chap, with a ‘ook nose and a pointed beard, with a few white hairs runnin’ through it. He had a ‘ard, cold look and red eyes, and I took a sort of mislike to him, for it seemed as if it was ‘im as they was hirritated at. He ‘ad white kid gloves on ‘is ‘ands, and he pointed out the animiles to me and says, ‘Keeper, these wolves seem upset at something.’

“Maybe it's you,' says I, for I did not like the airs as he give 'isself. He didn't get angry, as Ioped he would, but he smiled a kind of insolent smile, with a mouth full of white, sharp teeth. ‘Oh no, they wouldn’t like me,’ ‘e says.

” ‘Ow yes, they would,’ says I, a-imitatin’of him.`They always like a bone or two to clean their teeth on about tea time, which you ‘as a bagful.’

“Well, it was a odd thing, but when the animiles see us a-talkin’ they lay down,and when I went over to Bersicker he let me stroke his ears same as ever.That there man kem over, and blessed but if he didn’t put in his hand and stroke the old wolf’s ears too!

” ‘Tyke care,’ says I. ‘Bersicker is quick.’

” ‘Never mind,’ he says. I’m used to ’em!’

” ‘Are you in the business yourself?” I says, tyking off my ‘at, for a man what trades in wolves, anceterer, is a good friend to keepers.

” ‘Nom’ says he, ‘not exactly in the business, but I ‘ave made pets of several.’ and with that he lifts his ‘at as perlite as a lord, and walks away. Old Bersicker kep’ a-lookin’ arter ‘im till ‘e was out of sight, and then went and lay down in a corner and wouldn’t come hout the ‘ole hevening. Well, larst night, so soon as the moon was hup, the wolves here all began a-`owling. There warn’t nothing for them to ‘owl at. There warn’t no one near, except some one that was evidently a-callin’ a dog somewheres out back of the gardings in the Park road. Once or twice I went out to see that all was right, and it was, and then the ‘owling stopped. Just before twelve o’clock I just took a look round afore turnin’ in, an’, bust me, but when I kem opposite to old Bersicker’s cage I see the rails broken and twisted about and the cage empty. And that’s all I know for certing.”

“Did any one else see anything?”

“One of our gard’ners was a-comin’ ‘ome about that time from a ‘armony, when he sees a big gray dog comin’ out through the garding ‘edges.At least, so he says, but I don’t give much for it myself, for if he did `e never said a word about it to his missis when ‘e got ‘ome, and it was only after the escape of the wolf was made known,and we had been up all night a-huntin’ of the Park for Bersicker,that he remembered seein’ anything. My own belief was that the ‘armony ‘ad got into his ‘ead.”

“Now, Mr. Bilder, can you account in any way for the escape of the wolf?”

“Well, Sir,”he said, with a suspicious sort of modesty, “I think I can, but I don’t know as `ow you’d be satisfied with thetheory.”

“Certainly I shall. If a man like you, who knows the animals from experience, can’t hazard a good guess at any rate, who is even to try?”

“Well then, Sir, I accounts for it this way. It seems to me that ‘ere wolf escaped–simply because he wanted to get out.”

From the hearty way that both Thomas and his wife laughed at the joke I could see that it had done service before, and that the whole explanation was simply an elaborate sell. I couldn’t cope in badinage with the worthy Thomas, but I thought I knew a surer way to his heart, so I said, “Now, Mr. Bilder, we’ll consider that first half-sovereign worked off, and this brother of his is waiting to be claimed when you’ve told me what you think will happen.”

“Right y’are, Sir,” he said briskly. “Ye`ll excoose me, I know, for a-chaffin’ of ye, but the old woman her winked at me, which was as much as telling me to go on.”

“Well, I never!” Said the old lady. “My opinion is this. That ‘ere wolf is a ‘idin’ of, somewheres. The gard’ner wot didn’t remember said he was a-gallopin’ northward faster than a horse could go, but I don’t believe him, for, yer see, Sir, wolves don’t gallop no more nor dogs does, they not bein’ built that way. Wolves is fine things in a storybook, and I dessay when they gets in packs and does be chivyin’ somethin’ that’s more afeared than they is they can make a devil of a noise and chop it up, whatever it is. But, Lor’ bless you, in real life a wolf is only a low creature, not half so clever or bold as a good dog, and not half a quarter so much fight in ‘im. This one ain’t been used to fightin’ or even to providin’ for hisself, and more like he’s somewhere round the Park a’hidin’ an’ a’shiverin’ of, and if he thinks at all, wonderin’ where he is to get his breakfast from. Or maybe he’s got down some area and is in a coal cellar. My eye, won’t some cook get a rum start when she sees his green eyes a-shinin’ at her out of the dark! If he can’t get food he’s bound to look for it, and may hap he may chance to light on a butcher’s shop in time. If he doesn’t, and some nursemaid goes out walkin’ or orf with a soldier, leavin’ of the hinfant in the perambulator–well, then I shouldn’t be surprised if the census is one babby the less. That’s all.”

I was handing him the half-sovereign, when something came bobbing up against the window, and Mr. Bilder’s face doubled its natural length with surprise.

“God bless me!” he said. “If there ain’t old Bersicker come back by ‘isself!”

He went to the door and opened it, a most unnecessary proceeding it seemed to me. I have always thought that a wild animal never looks so well as when some obstacle of pronounced durability is between us. A personal experience has intensified rather than diminished that idea. After all, however, there is nothing like custom, for neither Bilder nor his wife thought any more of the wolf than I should of a dog. The animal itself was a peaceful and well-behaved as that father of all picture-wolves, Red Riding Hood’s quondam friend, whilst moving her confidence in masquerade.

The whole scene was a unutterable mixture of comedy and pathos. The wicked wolf that for a half a day had paralyzed London and set all the children in town shivering in their shoes, was there in a sort of penitent mood,and was received and petted like a sort of vulpine prodigal son.

Old Bilder examined him all over with most tender solicitude, and when he had finished with his penitent said, “There, I knew the poor old chap would get into some kind of trouble. Didn’t I say it all along? Here’s his head all cut and full of broken glass. ‘E’s been a-gettin’ over some bloomin’ wall or other. It’s a shyme that people are allowed to top their walls with broken bottles. This’ere’s what comes of it. Come along, Bersicker.”

He took the wolf and locked him up in a cage, with a piece of meat that satisfied, in quantity at any rate, the elementary conditions of the fatted calf, and went off to report. I came off too,to report the only exclusive information that is given today regarding the strange escapade at the Zoo.

Jonathan Harker’s Journal Continued

I kept the form of the wolf as I made my way to the new holdings at Carfax. I made my way in the night via back roads and winding lanes. I came upon a small cottage with its upper windows open to take the night air. I climbed the wall and stole into a small bedchamber.

There sleeping was a sweet little girl. I took her from her bed and out into the night where I could use her as I chose. The little child awoke and made to cry out but I put her under my spell and she became dossal and allowed me to use her body in the most vile ways.

I took her to a mound of straw laid up for the local teamsters mules. There I pulled off her night clothes and bit her yoni putting in my blood not taking hers making her one of my minions. I turned her with another bite sending her soul to hell as she became as I an undead.

We fucked and I schooled her on the ways to pleasure me. Her tight cunt sucked my cock as I fed it in between her thighs. I sent my Satan’s seed deep into her undeveloped cunt and rode her hard and long. I found out that her name is Leonora, she is seven years old and will not age a day until she is destroyed by my hand or some human vampire hunter or some unlucky accident.

We run nude through the moonlight and climb the stone wall surrounding my new estate. The child and I climb the south wall of the house and enter through an open window. We explore the house together. I lead her down to the cellar door where the fifty crates of soil are kept.

I lay the nude child on the earth and plow her field. She is a hellcat and takes all of my cock deep in her willing body. My member stretches her flesh and our union is one of mutual joy. There is enough time for us to feed so we are off into the night looking for some isolated fool to feed upon.

Leonora finds a drunken man stumbling home after a round of heavy drink at his pub. I let her entice the fool into a darkend ally way where she rips his throat out and drinks her fill. She rubs her cunt on his torn throat and coats her pussy with his hot blood. The imp then offers up her bloody cunt for my tender mouth to use and enjoy. We leave the dead man in the darkness and flee the coming sunrise. Back in the house we share a coffin and fall into sleep joined cock to cunt.

THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE, 25 SEPTEMBER 1890 / A HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY

The neighborhood of Hampstead is just at present exercised with a series of events which seem to run on lines parallel to those of what was known to the writers of headlines and “The Kensington Horror,” or “The Stabbing Woman,” or “The Woman in Black.”

During the past two or three days several cases have occurred of young children straying from home or neglecting to return from their playing on the Heath. In all these cases the children were too young to give any properly intelligible account of themselves, but the consensus of their excuses is that they had been with a “bloofer lady.”

It has always been late in the evening when they have been missed, and on two occasions the children have not been found until early in the following morning. It is generally supposed in the neighborhood that, as the first child missed gave as his reason for being away that a “bloofer lady” had asked him to come for a walk,the others had picked up the phrase and used it as occasion served.

This is the more natural as the favorite game of the little ones at present is luring each other away by wiles. A correspondent writes us that to see some of the tiny tots pretending to be the “bloofer lady” is supremely funny.Some of our caricaturist might, he says,take a lesson in the irony of grotesque by comparing the reality and the picture. It is only in accordance with general principles of human nature that the “bloofer lady” should be the popular role at these al fresco performances.

Our correspondent naively says that even Ellen Terry could not be so winningly attractive as some of these grubby-faced little children pretend, and even imagine themselves, to be.

There is, however, possibly a serious side to the question, for some of the children, indeed all who have been missed at night, have been slightly torn or wounded in the throat. The wounds seem such as might be made by a rat or a small dog, and although of not much importance individually, would tend to show that whatever animal inflicts them has a system or method of its own.

The police of the division have been instructed to keep a sharp lookout for straying children, especially when very young, in and around Hampstead Heath, and for any stray dog which may be about.

Sweet Leonora has taken to dressing all in black and has taken on the form of an old witch whom the children call the bloofer lady. She lures the imps into the Heath where we use them and leave them wounded and weak. I take from them their innocence and virginity, while she takes their souls. Their cries as I enter their little bodies is music to our ears.

24 SEPTEMBER The Heath North of the Manor

Dear Leonora and I were hunting in the night. She had found a pale ill child left in her rowhouse all alone as her older sisters, father, and mother worked the second sift at the mill spinning cotton into cloth. The tike was thin weighing no more than a two stones. Leonora quickly put a charm upon the waif and we used her in her own room.

I removed her soiled undergarments and fell at once upon her crotch. I thrust my long tongue deep into the folds of her yoni. The toddler moaned as I abused her underdeveloped body. Leonora mounted her face and made the lass clean her neater parts. It was no long before my demon lover was pumping her tainted mung into the small child’s body. We turned her that night and added her to our house hold. Not knowing her name we simply called her slut. I mounted her and filled her small womb with my hot Satin’s seed. Once I had finished I let Leonora feed on her yoni as she sucked my fluid and the child’s from her body.

We were away in the darkness when we happen upon a fellow from my past. I knew his rotund frame in an instant. It was Peter Hawkins doddering along. His Gout must have been acting up as he had an unsteady gate. His face was illuminated by a gaslight and his eyes opened wide in surprise as he recognized me .

“By the Gods! Is that you Jonathan Harker? We all thought you dead! Where on God’s Green Earth have you been? Dear God you look as pale as a corps! Darling Mina is sick with worry and grief. We must go to her strait away I have a Hanson Cab just down the block!” My old friend exclaimed as he rushed to take my hand.

” Peter, it is a shock to see you here in this dissolute district. As you can see I am not dead. I had some problems with the Count and have now taken to managing his affairs here in England. It it is a heavy burden that I have taken on, one that leaves me little time for old friends and lovers.” I said as I put my arm around his shoulder. He recoiled at my touch and tried to pull away from me.

“Good Lord man how can you say such a thing? It is ill of you to cast away dear friends and loved ones for some bit of business.” He chastised me as he recoiled from my new countenance.

I fell upon him and ripped out his throat and left him in the dust to die alone. We went straight away to our manor and used Slut until the cock did crow and the hated sun did rise defeating the night. Spent form our sexual congress I lay Slut in one of the 50 vessels of earth and then took sweet Leonora to rest upon the soil.

THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE, 25 SEPTEMBER 1890 EXTRA SPECIAL

THE HAMPSTEAD HORROR – ANOTHER CHILD INJURED / THE “BLOOFER LADY”

We have just received intelligence that another child, missed last night, was only discovered late in the morning under a furze bush at the Shooter’s Hill side of Hampstead Heath, which is perhaps,less frequented than the other parts. It has the same tiny wound in the throat as has been noticed in other cases. It was terribly weak, and looked quite emaciated.It too, when partially restored, had the common story to tell of being lured away by the “bloofer lady”. transference. No? Nor in materialization. No? Nor in astral bodies. No? Nor in the reading of thought. No? Nor in hypnotism . . .”

THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE, 25 SEPTEMBER 1890 / EXTRA SPECIAL

THE HAMPSTEAD SLAUGHTER – WELL KNOWN SOLICITOR HORRIDLY KILLED

A source in the Yard has disclosed to us that Mister Peter Hawkins, age fifty-three, a well known Solicitor of London, was found on Brayer Lane with his throat slashed as if by some horrid beast. Residents of the district have reported to the authorities a strange pale man all dressed in black haunting the nights there accompanied by one or two pale women or young girls . Our source did not give much credence to the tales and said that rather he thought it to be some wild beast come down from the Heath or some large hunting dog gone feral. We are sending out our Ace reporter to investigate these strange goings on. More in the next issue …

Lord Godalming’s Journal October 1890

“I tell you Raymond the devil is afoot! I have seen the wounds on these children and the injuries to their sex organs. There is some fiend using them most foul. The old estate at 347 Piccadilly Lane has been sold and there are lights showing in the windows at night. Yet when I went to pay a welcoming visit to the hall I could raise no one. The house was locked up tight. I peered through heavy drapery and saw some few sticks of furniture, but all and all the hall was not furnished as if someone were living in it.

I have made inquires to the local butcher shop and to the grocery store and they have not sold an item to anyone claiming the hall as their home. The garden is all taken over by weeds and the lawn is in need of cutting. I tell you something is not right!” Lord Godalming stated as he strode back and forth over the carpet holding a brandy in his right hand.

“Look here Godalming, if someone has gotten the old hall and wishes to be left alone and cares not for the garden or lawn what truck is it of us? They might be some eccentric foreign Count who’s ways are not of jolly old England. So far all you have is a tempest in a pot of tea.” Duke William said as he took a corner shot off the rail on the green felt of the billiard table …

“But what of the missing children and the wounded ones and this damned bloofer lady. At least have the Yard take a look at the case! I am going to make inquires as to just whom has bought the place. I intend on getting to the bottom of this soon. I shall call upon the house when the lights are in the widows and find out what I may.

“Mind the laws of trespass! I do not want a lad come calling at my club saying that you are locked up in the Yard for mucking about in someone else’s business.” the Duke warned his friend as the man left the club.

LETTER, MITCHELL, SONS & CANDY TO LORD GODALMING.

1 October. 1890

“My Lord,

“We are at all times only too happy to meet your wishes. We beg, with regard to the desire of your Lordship, expressed by Mr. Harker on your behalf, to supply the following information concerning the sale and purchase of No.347, Piccadilly. The original vendors are the executors of the late Mr. Archibald Winter-Suffield. The purchaser is a foreign nobleman, Count de Ville, who effected the purchase himself paying the purchase money in notes `over the counter,’ if your Lordship will pardon us using so vulgar an expression. Beyond this we know nothing whatever of him.

“We are, my Lord,

“Your Lordship’s humble servants,

“MITCHELL, SONS & CANDY.”

“Some good my letter to Candy did . All that I know now is that some foreign Count de Ville purchased the holdings. Manford get the Greenfield Double-Barreled shotguns and a game-bag. We shall invite this Count de Ville for a bit of sport if he is Kosher or be armed should he be queer.” Lord Godalming ordered as he he drew on his hunting garb complete with rubber calf high boots.

“Yes sir your Lordship. Should we take one of the Springer Spaniels with us?” his gamekeeper asked as he got the Damascus barreled guns down from their rack and loaded the twin 12 gauge weapons with number 2 field shot which was not a load for killing birds unless you wanted just a pile of scattered feathers left.

“Yes that is a capital idea, bring old Bell she his good to the gun and quick to act.” Godalming said as they took a hurricane lantern to light the way.

They took the Gig cart pulled by a gray pony and set out for the Count’s holdings. They came to the old rusted iron gate and found it fastened with a new chain and padlock. A fresh tin sign read Posted No Trespassing.

“Bollocks! Let us see if there is a side gate down the east side of the manor.” Godalming said as they tied the pony to the gate and took the dog and their guns with them. They did not find an unlocked gate but they did find a portion of the wall that had fallen down in the storm last month and no one had made repairs to the breach in the old black stone wall.

They looked through the breach and saw lights burning in the hall. They climbed over the fallen stones and made their way to the Manor House. Bell rose her hackles and set out a deep low growl and strained at her lead. The two men took up the dog’s unease and readied their weapons. They dew up to the large leaded glass window and saw through a part in the drapes a man sitting with a wee child on his lap.

The men jumped back when another child pale of skin appeared at the window. Bell went off and snarled and savaged the glass between her and the odd child. Godalming was afraid that the dog would break the glass so fervent was her attack. He pulled back on her lead to control the enraged animal.

He looked up from the dog and saw the man standing next to him outside. He was amazed at the speed the man had appeared. The tall pale man spoke a foreign word and Bell stopped her snarling and lay her head down and whined in submission to this odd fellow.

“What sir is the meaning of this trespass? Why do you come uninvited to my hall?” the man asked as he starred at them with eyes rimmed in red. It looked as if the fire’s of hell burned within his skull.

“I… Well… We… I mean that my man Manford and I were going hunting in the Moors and thought to invite you to join us as we are neighbors. My Estate is just down the lane to yours. Do I have the pleasure of addressing Count de Ville?” Godalming asked as he lowered his gun and went into his pocket to get a calling card.

“Lord Godalming, I know of you from the house of Lords. I have had on rare occasions been before that august body as a solicitor general for my firm. It is for that reason that I do not call out the Yard and press charges of trespass. You come armed to the teeth in the night unbidden and expect me to welcome you with open arms? It would be best if you withdrew and came no more to this abode.” Harker said as he pocketed the calling card.

“Be that as it may, I would like to speak to Count de Ville if he is available.” Lord Godalming said as he steeled himself to this odd man.

“You may not speak to him. The Count does not take unannounced callers, especially at this hour. I bid you goodnight and do not press upon my goodwill again for things may not have the same ending.” Harker ordered as he pointed away from the Manor House.

“I shall have a word with this Count one way or the other. Even if I must call out the constabulary. I bid you a goodnight sir.” he said as he pulled at Bell and turned to leave the grounds. He heard the call of wild wolves drawing near. Bell set off a long mournful howl in reply.

“I hear the call of the wild coming near. You had best, my Lord, retire to your abode forthwith.” Harker said as he turned and went back towards the main entrance of the Hall.

“Let us be away, My Lord. I dislike this place and that man. If Bell does not truck to him nether do I.” the shaken gamekeeper said as he crossed himself.

“Very well then, I shall call on the courts and have a magistrate issue a search warrant.” Lord Godalming muttered as the two men left the Manor House with more questions that answers.

THE STAR INQUIRER 3 OCTOBER 1890 – EXTRA EDTION THE HAMPTIONS

THE STRANGE CASE OF MRS. ANNE O’GRADY AND HER MISSING CHILD.

Mrs. Anne O’Grady has gone missing from her home on Piccadilly Pike along with her young daughter, Kelly age 7. Mr. Shan O’Grady filed a missing persons report with the local constabulary after he came home from his second shift at the mill. He returned around 11:00 P.M. to find his hut empty save for his infant daughter.

His supper was on the stove and burnt. He searched the village for his wife and daughter but could find no trace of them. He raised an alarm and the townsfolk mounted a vigorous search. The river was even dragged but to no avail. The local ASPCA turned out their hounds and the moors north of the village were searched.

A missing persons report was filed at the local precinct and Officer Tommy O’Shayne was sent to investigate the case. A search of the home was made and nothing was out of place save the missing mother and her child. Her wooden crucifix was found broken on the floor.

Mr. O’Grady stated that his wife would have never left their infant daughter alone. He suspects that foul play was the cause of his wife’s disappearance. His infant daughter was found to have two small puncture wounds upon her neck. The child was pale and cold. She was sent by ambulance to King’s Cross Holly Hospital where she is under the care of Dr. Carl West. Who states that the child’s condition is guarded but that she is expected to make a full recovery.

The local townsfolk say that it is the work of the ‘ bloofer lady’ but the officers mark such talk as simple superstition on the part of the villagers. A larger search is planed for tomorrow…

Jonathan Harker’s Journal Continued October 1890

I have decided to create more undead to serve me. The run in with Lord Godalming has pointed out my lack of support in keeping the household safe from outside meddling. I found on the upper floors of the house several strong boxes that had been shipped by the Count from his castle in Europe.

They held a great quantity of gold, silver, and jewels. There also were letters of credit on three mainland banks. One in Switzerland, one in France, and the other in Austria. It seems that his holdings were much vaster than he had led me to believe. However if you are over four hundred years old you tend to collect wealth over the centuries.

I have sufficient wealth to last a few hundred years and I have already created several sweet little sex toys that will not suffer the ravages of time. They are locked in at their present ages and will be until they are destroyed by my hand, or some vampire hunter or some unlucky accident. I am in need of a housekeeper. I can not hire one that would keep her mouth shut and have the nerve to live among the undead so I shall create one. We hunt tonight.

Leonora and I took on the form of wolves and ran through the twisting lanes and allies of the village. We soon came upon a hut set away from other dwellings. There inside was a stout plain woman of some twenty-seven years. She was cooking supper for her husband who was not at home. A slim young child sat at a table knitting wool into socks.

I stood outside the threshold and willed the child to come unto her mind was easy to sway. I placed a trance on her and had her remove the hated cross from her mother’s neck. Once the protection of God was removed Leonora and I changed into human form and fell on the two. I turned the mother and child.

I allowed sweet Leonora to feed on the infant. I held the squirming child up to her mother and saw her sink her new fangs into her child’s flesh. I pulled off her short clothes and spread her tiny legs as let her sister feed upon her tiny yoni.

We were away from the hut in the matter of just a few minutes. Leonora and I enjoyed the new child Kelly as she was given the honor of dining on Leonora’s pussy while I filled her undeveloped cunt with my cock.

I took on the form of the wolf and mounted the child over and over through the night. The crowing of the cock sent us to our coffins. I felt unprotected now that Lord God-dammit had stuck his fucking nose in my business. I would have to make a few day-walkers to watch over us as we slumber the day away and to act as my agents when the sun does rule the sky.

I have all of the Count’s privet library here and have found his most secret papers. In order to create a day-walker I must find a pack of lycanthropes among the Romani people. There is a large community of them living in the North York Moors. I shall set out as soon as I am able to make arrangements to find suitable men and women to serve me. Many men’s hearts are won over by the sight of gold. Such is the folly of mankind.

5 October 1890

I sent out letters via the post to the Law Offices of Hart, Marks, and Shatter esq.

LETTER TO HEART, SHATTER, and MARKS esq

7 MOCKINGBIRD LANE, SUSSEX

5 OCTOBER 1890

Dear Sirs:

You will find inclosed a check for the sum of £500 . With these funds you are to acquire a small farmhouse in the village of Kellgorn in northern York. I need no more that an acre or two. The farmhouse should be within a mile of the main road, King’s Highway, it should be of good repair, sound in all ways but special care should be taken that the windows can all be shut tight against the light. Sadly I have an elderly brother that has a fobia against the light of the sun. Send word by return post when you have found such a property as I will not be at home to receive callers.

You may keep and excess funds as a reward for swift service in this matter as pressing needs drive me compleat this transaction. I remain your most trusted client, Count Laud de V’ill

LETTER FROM HEART, SHATTER, and MARKS esq.

10 OCTOBER 1890

Dearest Count:

It gives me great pleasure to send to you via this post the deed to a charming small farm house in the village of Kellgorn. I have ridden to York and seen the property myself and it suits your needs most admirable. Enclosed are the keys to the home. It sets well back from the main road on three wooded acres. I hope that if you have need of our services again you shall not hesitate to contact us directly.

I remain your devoted servant, Thomas H Heart esq.

Jonathan Harker’s Journal Continued October 1890

October 10

I have turned half a dozen stout fellows who were knock-a-bouts down on the wharfs. They are low class longshoremen who spent most of their pay and all of their free time in a pub.

Leonora turned the first one as she lured him from the crowed smoky dive where he was in his cups. His name is Drago Wallaski. He is large and well muscled and hung like a horse. Leonora likes that part of him.

Once he had sobered up and adjusted to being un-dead he gave us the names of other stout lads that had no family or anyone that would miss them off the waterfront. It was from this pool of goons that I got the rest of the men. Feeding my hord of un-dead requires us to hunt further afield. I have two teams that go out each night with gig carts we converted to hold our feeding stock. We have built black enclosed cabs for the two-wheeled carts. There are two crates into which the victims can be deposited out of sight and brought back to the Manor for us to use at our pleasure.

Drago came up with the idea of using pigs to do away with the bodies once we have fed on them and abused them. I have bought a pig farm on the outskirts of the city. The new lads take a cargo of pig food to the farm nightly. My pigs are well fed. Drago turns out to be a clever fellow. It was his idea to get a large meat grinder from a slaughter house and process the dead food into a mass of unrecognizable red meat. The “pig feed” is put into wooden casks and transported to the farm. We use quick-lime to keep down the stench.

The new men are violent and hell bent on torturing their food. The cellar of the old chapel has been turned into a torture chamber. The children love to torment the living and taunt them with their nude sexy bodies. The girls can get their hands far inside a woman’s ass or cunt. The living men’s anus are usually ruined and a bloody mess from the little tykes thrusting their fist up them.

Two of the new fellows are not fully turned and can tolerate the light of day. They will be our teamsters for the trip up to York. We have constructed to heavy wagons that are proof against sun light in which we may travel during the day. I and my minions are safe in our coffins and earth as they are installed in false bottoms in the wagons. Six draft horses pull the heavy timbered wagons at a good clip. I estimate it will take three days to get to the werewolves’ camp.

STAR INQUIRER 11 OCTOBER 1890

STRANGE DISAPPEARANCES ON THE WATERFRONT

CITIZENS GONE MISSING, NUMBERS RISE!

Authorities at Scotland Yard fear that press gangs are working English docks again. Able bodied sailors, longshoremen, and teamsters are being spirited away. Detective Holmes has put forth the idea that certain Asian shipping lines are responsible for the disappearances. The schooner Star of China was stopped at the mouth of the Thames River. Three sorry Welsh lads were found tide up in a hold. They said that they were taken from a pub on the lower east side of the city. The captain and first mate are being held at the Yard on charges of impressment and unlawful imprisonment.

No commit was made by the shipping company’s London representative when questioned. Letters to the parent company are as of this date unanswered. The Yard has put more men on the streets of the lower east end and they warn young men not to travel alone at night. Strange women seen stalking the night. Reports are flooding our office of several pale young women plying the streets in the wee hours of the night.

They have been seen pulling men and women into the dark corners of the city. Many are found ill and weak all color drained from their faces. They all have small wounds upon their bodies most on the neck. Doctor West of Mercy Hospital told us that someone has drained blood from the victims. Some of them respond well to the new transfusion treatments he has devised using human blood rather than cows milk.. The Star Inquirer is putting a team of reporters on the streets to get to the bottom of these happenings. Look for more on this story in tomorrow’s Star Inquirer…

Jonathan Harker’s Journal Continued October 1890

October 12

We set out for York this evening. I have left several of my household behind to tend to the manor. We set upon a family farm on the Old York Road. Their isolated farm house gave us the chance to feed. All five of them were taken. Only the two youngest girls were turned. There mother and father and older brother were slain and their bodies tossed in to their pigs.

I have the new little girl nude and sucking my cock as I write. Jennie is a sweet little girl of around five years. Her pink pussy is tight on my cock. Sweet Leonora sits upon her face as she screams out in agony as I rape the small child. The cussed Sun is rising and I must be away to my crypt. I am taking Jennie and Leonora with me to our rest.

October 13

We have made good time. Sampson one of my teamsters traded out draft horses for a good stout set of Clydesdales for both wagons. The crack of his whip sends the brutes racing on through the dark night. I run with wild wolves in the darkness. I happened upon a small holding in the moor off the road. There I found an old man bedding his granddaughter. He cries drew me in. I killed the old man and raped the young child. She was dirty and ill so I did not turn her but consumed her blood and then left her to rot with her dead grandfather.

October 14

We have arrived at the Moors and have made contact with the pack of lycanthropes among the Romani. Wolfen Dergo is their leader. We have entered into negations for the cost of the lycanthropes I turn into day-walkers. Wolfen has pressed me to take his entire tribe back to London and settle around the Manor house. They are hunted here by a human that I have knowledge of, Van Helsing! He had made a name for himself as a slayer of werewolves and vampires alike. He has a small band of followers that hunt the Romani down. They are well schooled in combat with our kind. I have turned six lycanthropes this night. They now have the powers of both our kind. I doubt that Van Helsing has ever dealt with such powerful adversaries.

THE END