Dracula's Guest
feet sank deeper in the grass and moss. Then the wind grew stronger and
blew with ever increasing force, till I was fain to run before it. The
air became icy-cold, and in spite of my exercise I began to suffer. The
snow was now falling so thickly and whirling around me in such rapid
eddies that I could hardly keep my eyes open. Every now and then the
heavens were torn asunder by vivid lightning, and in the flashes I
could see ahead of me a great mass of trees, chiefly yew and cypress
all heavily coated with snow.
I was soon amongst the shelter of the trees, and there, in comparative
silence, I could hear the rush of the wind high overhead. Presently the
blackness of the storm had become merged in the darkness of the night.
By-and-by the storm seemed to be passing away: it now only came in
fierce puffs or blasts. At such moments the weird sound of the wolf
appeared to be echoed by many similar sounds around me.
Now and again, through the black mass of drifting cloud, came a
straggling ray of moonlight, which lit up the expanse, and showed me
that I was at the edge of a dense mass of cypress and yew trees. As the
snow had ceased to fall, I walked out from the shelter and began to
investigate more closely. It appeared to me that, amongst so many old
foundations as I had passed, there might be still standing a house in
which, though in ruins, I could find some sort of shelter for a while.
As I skirted the edge of the copse, I found that a low wall encircled
it, and following this I presently found an opening. Here the cypresses
formed an alley leading up to a square mass of some kind of building.
Just as I caught sight of this, however, the drifting clouds obscured
the moon, and I passed up the path in darkness. The wind must have
grown colder, for I felt myself shiver as I walked; but there was hope
of shelter, and I groped my way blindly on.
I stopped, for there was a sudden stillness. The storm had passed; and,
perhaps in sympathy with nature’s silence, my heart seemed to cease to
beat. But this was only momentarily; for suddenly the moonlight broke
through the clouds, showing me that I was in a graveyard, and that the
square object before me was a great massive tomb of marble, as white as
the snow that lay on and all around it. With the moonlight there came a
fierce sigh of the storm, which appeared to resume its course with a
long, low howl, as of many dogs or wolves. I was awed and shocked, and
felt the cold perceptibly grow upon me till it seemed to grip me by the
heart. Then while the flood of moonlight still fell on the marble tomb,
the storm gave further evidence of renewing, as though it was returning
on its track. Impelled by some sort of fascination, I approached the
sepulchre to see what it was, and why such a thing stood alone in such
a place. I walked around it, and read, over the Doric door, in German:
COUNTESS DOLINGEN OF GRATZ
IN STYRIA
SOUGHT AND FOUND DEATH
1801
On the top of the tomb, seemingly driven through the solid marble—for
the structure was composed of a few vast blocks of stone—was a great
iron spike or stake. On going to the back I saw, graven in great
Russian letters:
“The dead travel fast.”
There was something so weird and uncanny about the whole thing that it
gave me a turn and made me feel quite faint. I began to wish, for the
first time, that I had taken Johann’s advice. Here a thought struck me,
which came under almost mysterious circumstances and with a terrible
shock. This was Walpurgis Night!
Walpurgis Night, when, according to the belief of millions of people,
the devil was abroad—when the graves were opened and the dead came
forth and walked. When all evil things of earth and air and water held
revel. This very place the driver had specially shunned. This was the
depopulated village of centuries ago. This was where the suicide lay;
and this was the place where I was alone—unmanned, shivering with cold
in a shroud of snow with a wild storm gathering again upon me! It took
all my philosophy, all the religion I had been taught, all my courage,
not to collapse in a paroxysm of fright.
And now a perfect tornado burst upon me. The ground shook as though
thousands of horses thundered across it; and this time the storm bore
on its icy wings, not snow, but great hailstones which drove with such
violence that they might have come from the thongs of Balearic
slingers—hailstones that beat down leaf and branch and made the shelter
of the cypresses of no more avail than though their stems were
standing-corn. At the first I had rushed to the nearest tree; but I was
soon fain to leave it and seek the only spot that seemed to afford
refuge, the deep Doric doorway of the marble tomb. There, crouching
against the massive bronze door, I gained a certain amount of
protection from the beating of the hailstones, for now they only drove
against me as they ricocheted from the ground and the side of the
marble.
As I leaned against the door, it moved slightly and opened inwards. The
shelter of even a tomb was welcome in that pitiless tempest, and I was
about to enter it when there came a flash of forked-lightning that lit
up the whole expanse of the heavens. In the instant, as I am a living
man, I saw, as my eyes were turned into the darkness of the tomb, a
beautiful woman, with rounded cheeks and red lips, seemingly sleeping
on a bier. As the thunder broke overhead, I was grasped as by the hand
of a giant and hurled out into the storm. The whole thing was so sudden
that, before I could realise the shock, moral as well as physical, I
found the hailstones beating me down. At the same time I had a strange,
dominating feeling that I was not alone. I looked towards the tomb.
Just then there came another blinding flash, which seemed to strike the
iron stake that surmounted the tomb and to pour through to the earth,
blasting and crumbling the marble, as in a burst of flame. The dead
woman rose for a moment of agony, while she was lapped in the flame,
and her bitter scream of pain was drowned in the thundercrash. The last
thing I heard was this mingling of dreadful sound, as again I was
seized in the giant-grasp and dragged away, while the hailstones beat
on me, and the air around seemed reverberant with the howling of
wolves. The last sight that I remembered was a vague, white, moving
mass, as if all the graves around me had sent out the phantoms of their
sheeted-dead, and that they were closing in on me through the white
cloudiness of the driving hail.
Gradually there came a sort of vague beginning of consciousness; then a
sense of weariness that was dreadful. For a time I remembered nothing;
but slowly my senses returned. My feet seemed positively racked with
pain, yet I could not move them. They seemed to be numbed. There was an
icy feeling at the back of my neck and all down my spine, and my ears,
like my feet, were dead, yet in torment; but there was in my breast a
sense of warmth which was, by comparison, delicious. It was as a
nightmare—a physical nightmare, if one may use such an expression; for
some heavy weight on my chest made it difficult for me to breathe.
This period of semi-lethargy seemed to remain a long time, and as it
faded away I must have slept or swooned. Then came a sort of loathing,
like the first stage of sea-sickness, and a wild desire to be free from
something—I knew not what. A vast stillness enveloped me, as though all
the world were asleep or dead—only broken by the low panting as of some
animal close to me. I felt a warm rasping at my throat, then came a
consciousness of the awful truth, which chilled me to the heart and
sent the blood surging up through my brain. Some great animal was lying
on me and now licking my throat. I feared to stir, for some instinct of
prudence bade me lie still; but the brute seemed to realise that there
was now some change in me, for it raised its head. Through my eyelashes
I saw above me the two great flaming eyes of a gigantic wolf. Its sharp
white teeth gleamed in the gaping red mouth, and I could feel its hot
breath fierce and acrid upon me.
For another spell of time I remembered no more. Then I became conscious
of a low growl, followed by a yelp, renewed again and again. Then,
seemingly very far away, I heard a “Holloa! holloa!” as of many voices
calling in unison. Cautiously I raised my head and looked in the
direction whence the sound came; but the cemetery blocked my view. The
wolf still continued to yelp in a strange way, and a red glare began to
move round the grove of cypresses, as though following the sound. As
the voices drew closer, the wolf yelped faster and louder. I feared to
make either sound or motion. Nearer came the red glow, over the white
pall which stretched into the darkness around me. Then all at once from
beyond the trees there came at a trot a troop of horsemen bearing
torches. The wolf rose from my breast and made for the cemetery. I saw
one of the horsemen (soldiers by their caps and their long military
cloaks) raise his carbine and take aim. A companion knocked up his arm,
and I heard the ball whizz over my head. He had evidently taken my body
for that of the wolf. Another sighted the animal as it slunk away, and
a shot followed. Then, at a gallop, the troop rode forward—some towards
me, others following the wolf as it disappeared amongst the snow-clad
cypresses.
As they drew nearer I tried to move, but was powerless, although I
could see and hear all that went on around me. Two or three of the
soldiers jumped from their horses and knelt beside me. One of them
raised my head, and placed his hand over my heart.
“Good news, comrades!” he cried. “His heart still beats!”
Then some brandy was poured down my throat; it put vigour into me, and
I was able to open my eyes fully and look around. Lights and shadows
were moving among the trees, and I heard men call to one another. They
drew together, uttering frightened exclamations; and the lights flashed
as the others came pouring out of the cemetery pell-mell, like men
possessed. When the further ones came close to us, those who were
around me asked them eagerly:
“Well, have you found him?”
The reply rang out hurriedly:
“No! no! Come away quick—quick! This is no place to stay, and on this
of all nights!”
“What was it?” was the question, asked in all manner of keys. The
answer came variously and all indefinitely as though the men were moved
by some common impulse to speak, yet were restrained by some common
fear from giving their thoughts.
“It—it—indeed!” gibbered one, whose wits had plainly given out for the
moment.
“A wolf—and yet not a wolf!” another put in shudderingly.
“No use trying for him without the sacred bullet,” a third remarked in
a more ordinary manner.
“Serve us right for coming out on this night! Truly we have earned our
thousand marks!” were the ejaculations of a fourth.
“There was blood on the broken marble,” another said after a pause—“the
lightning never brought that there. And for him—is he safe? Look at his
throat! See, comrades, the wolf has been lying on him and keeping his
blood warm.”
The officer looked at my throat and replied:
“He is all right; the skin is not pierced. What does it all mean? We
should never have found him but for the yelping of the wolf.”
“What became of it?” asked the man who was holding up my head, and who
seemed the least panic-stricken of the party, for his hands were steady
and without tremor. On his sleeve was the chevron of a petty officer.
“It went to its home,” answered the man, whose long face was pallid,
and who actually shook with terror as he glanced around him fearfully.
“There are graves enough there in which it may lie. Come, comrades—come
quickly! Let us leave this cursed spot.”