The Penny Dreadfuls MEGAPACK™ (89 page)

“Quite sure.”

“I am more and more bewildered as each moment some strange corroborative fact of that dreadful supposition we so much shrink from seems to come to light and to force itself upon our attention.”

There was a silence of a few moments duration, and Henry had turned towards Mr. Marchdale to say something, when the cautious tread of a footstep was heard in the garden, immediately beneath that balcony.

A sickening sensation came over Henry, and he was compelled to lean against the wall for support, as in scarcely articulate accents he said—

“The vampire—the vampire! God of heaven, it has come once again!”

“Now, Heaven inspire us with more than mortal courage,” cried Mr. Marchdale, and he dashed open the window at once, and sprang into the balcony.

Henry in a moment recovered himself sufficiently to follow him, and when he reached his side in the balcony, Marchdale said, as he pointed below—

“There is some one concealed there.”

“Where—where?”

“Among the laurels. I will fire a random shot, and we may do some execution.”

“Hold!” said a voice from below; “don’t do any such thing, I beg of you.”

“Why, that is Mr. Chillingworth’s voice,” cried Henry.

“Yes, and it’s Mr. Chillingworth’s person, too,” said the doctor, as he emerged from among some laurel bushes.

“How is this?” said Marchdale.

“Simply that I made up my mind to keep watch and ward tonight outside here, in the hope of catching the vampire. I got into here by climbing the gate.”

“But why did you not let me know?” said Henry.

“Because I did not know myself, my young friend, till an hour and a half ago.”

“Have you seen anything?”

“Nothing. But I fancied I heard something in the park outside the wall.”

“Indeed!”

“What say you, Henry,” said Mr. Marchdale, “to descending and taking a hasty examination of the garden and grounds?”

“I am willing; but first allow me to speak to George, who otherwise might be surprised at our long absence.”

Henry walked rapidly to the bed chamber of Flora, and be said to George—

“Have you any objection to being left alone here for about half an hour, George, while we make an examination of the garden?”

“Let me have some weapon and I care not. Remain here while I fetch a sword from my own room.”

Henry did so, and when George returned with a sword, which he always kept in his bed-room, he said—

“Now go, Henry. I prefer a weapon of this description to pistols much. Do not be longer gone than necessary.”

“I will not, George, be assured.”

George was then left alone, and Henry returned to the balcony, where Mr. Marchdale was waiting for him. It was a quicker mode of descending to the garden to do so by clambering over the balcony than any other, and the height was not considerable enough to make it very objectionable, so Henry and Mr. Marchdale chose that way of joining Mr. Chillingworth.

“You are, no doubt, much surprised at finding me here,” said the doctor; “but the fact is, I half made up my mind to come while I was here; but I had not thoroughly done so, therefore I said nothing to you about it.”

“We are much indebted to you,” said Henry, “for making the attempt.”

“I am prompted to it by a feeling of the strongest curiosity.”

“Are you armed, sir?” said Marchdale.

“In this stick,” said the doctor, “is a sword, the exquisite temper of which I know I can depend upon, and I fully intended to run through any one whom I saw that looked in the least of the vampire order.”

“You would have done quite right,” replied Mr. Marchdale. “I have a brace of pistols here, loaded with ball; will you take one, Henry, if you please, and then we shall be all armed.”

Thus, then, prepared for any exigency, they made the whole round of the house; but found all the fastenings secure, and everything as quiet as possible.

“Suppose, now, we take a survey of the park outside the garden wall,” said Mr. Marchdale.

This was agreed to; but before they had proceeded far, Mr. Marchdale said—

“There is a ladder lying on the wall; would it not be a good plan to place it against the very spot the supposed vampire jumped over last night, and so, from a more elevated position, take a view of the open meadows. We could easily drop down on the outer side, if we saw anything suspicious.”

“Not a bad plan,” said the doctor. “Shall we do it?”

“Certainly,” said Henry; and they accordingly carried the ladder, which had been used for pruning the trees, towards the spot at the end of the long walk, at which the vampire had made good, after so many fruitless efforts, his escape from the premises.

They made haste down the long vista of trees until they reached the exact spot, and then they placed the ladder as near as possible, exactly where Henry, in his bewilderment on the evening before, had seen the apparition from the grave spring to.

“We can ascend singly,” said Marchdale; “but there is ample space for us all there to sit on the top of the wall and make our observations.”

This was seen to be the case, and in about a couple of minutes they had taken up their positions on the wall, and, although the height was but trifling, they found that they had a much more extensive view than they could have obtained by any other means.

“To contemplate the beauty of such a night as this,” said Mr. Chillingworth, “is amply sufficient compensation for coming the distance I have.”

“And who knows,” remarked Marchdale, “we may yet see something which may throw a light upon our present perplexities God knows that I would give all I can call mine in the world to relieve you and your sister, Henry Bannerworth, from the fearful effect which last night’s proceedings cannot fail to have upon you.”

“Of that I am well assured, Mr. Marchdale,” said Henry. “If the happiness of myself and family depended upon you, we should be happy indeed.”

“You are silent, Mr. Chillingworth,” remarked Marchdale, after a slight pause.

“Hush!” said Mr. Chillingworth—“hush—hush!”

“Good God, what do you hear?” cried Henry.

The doctor laid his hand upon Henry’s arm as he said—

“There is a young lime tree yonder to the right.”

“Yes—yes.”

“Carry your eye from it in a horizontal line, as near as you can, towards the wood.”

Henry did so, and then he uttered a sudden exclamation of surprise, and pointed to a rising spot of ground, which was yet, in consequence of the number of tall trees in its vicinity, partially enveloped in shadow.

“What is that?” he said.

“I see something,” said Marchdale. “By Heaven! it is a human form lying stretched there.”

“It is—as if in death.”

“What can it be?” said Chillingworth.

“I dread to say,” replied Marchdale; “but to my eyes, even at this distance, it seems like the form of him we chased last night.”

“The vampire?”

“Yes—yes. Look, the moonbeams touch him. Now the shadows of the trees gradually recede. God of Heaven! the figure moves.”

Henry’s eyes were riveted to that fearful object, and now a scene presented itself which filled them all with wonder and astonishment, mingled with sensations of the greatest awe and alarm.

As the moonbeams, in consequence of the luminary rising higher and higher in the heavens, came to touch this figure that lay extended on the rising ground, a perceptible movement took place in it. The limbs appeared to tremble, and although it did not rise up, the whole body gave signs of vitality.

“The vampire—the vampire!” said Mr. Marchdale. “I cannot doubt it now. We must have hit him last night with the pistol bullets, and the moonbeams are now restoring him to a new life.”

Henry shuddered, and even Mr. Chillingworth turned pale. But he was the first to recover himself sufficiently to propose some course of action, and he said—

“Let us descend and go up to this figure. It is a duty we owe to ourselves as much as to society.”

“Hold a moment,” said Mr. Marchdale, as he produced a pistol. “I am an unerring shot, as you well know, Henry. Before we move from this position we now occupy, allow me to try what virtue may be in a bullet to lay that figure low again.”

“He is rising!” exclaimed Henry.

Mr. Marchdale levelled the pistol—he took a sure and deliberate aim, and then, just as the figure seemed to be struggling to its feet, he fired, and, with a sudden bound, it fell again.

“You have hit it,” said Henry.

“You have indeed,” exclaimed the doctor. “I think we can go now.”

“Hush!” said Marchdale—“Hush! Does it not seem to you that, hit it as often as you will, the moonbeams will recover it?”

“Yes—yes,” said Henry, “they will—they will.”

“I can endure this no longer,” said Mr. Chillingworth, as he sprung from the wall. “Follow me or not, as you please, I will seek the spot where this being lies.”

“Oh, be not rash,” cried Marchdale. “See, it rises again, and its form looks gigantic.”

“I trust in Heaven and a righteous cause,” said the doctor, as he drew the sword he had spoken of from the stick, and threw away the scabbard. “Come with me if you like, or I go alone.”

Henry at once jumped down from the wall, and then Marchdale followed him, saying—

“Come on; I will not shrink.”

They ran towards the piece of rising ground; but before they got to it, the form rose and made rapidly towards a little wood which was in the immediate neighbourhood of the hillock.

“It is conscious of being pursued,” cried the doctor. “See how it glances back, and then increases its speed.”

“Fire upon it, Henry,” said Marchdale.

He did so; but either his shot did not take effect, or it was quite unheeded if it did, by the vampire, which gained the wood before they could have a hope of getting sufficiently near it to effect, or endeavour to effect, a capture.

“I cannot follow it there,” said Marchdale. “In open country I would have pursued it closely; but I cannot follow it into the intricacies of a wood.”

“Pursuit is useless there,” said Henry. “It is enveloped in the deepest gloom.”

“I am not so unreasonable,” remarked Mr. Chillingworth, “as to wish you to follow into such a place as that. I am confounded utterly by this affair.”

“And I,” said Marchdale. “What on earth is to be done?”

“Nothing—nothing!” exclaimed Henry, vehemently; “and yet I have, beneath the canopy of Heaven, declared that I will, so help me God! spare neither time nor trouble in the unravelling of this most fearful piece of business. Did either of you remark the clothing which this spectral appearance wore?”

“They were antique clothes,” said Mr. Chillingworth, “such as might have been fashionable a hundred years ago, but not now.”

“Such was my impression,” added Marchdale.

“And such my own,” said Henry, excitedly. “Is it at all within the compass of the wildest belief that what we have seen is a vampire, and no other than my ancestor who, a hundred years ago, committed suicide?”

There was so much intense excitement, and evidence of mental suffering, that Mr. Chillingworth took him by the arm, saying—

“Come home—come home; no more of this at present; you will but make yourself seriously unwell.”

“No—no—no.”

“Come home now, I pray you; you are by far too much excited about this matter to pursue it with the calmness which should be brought to bear upon it.”

“Take advice, Henry,” said Marchdale, “take advice, and come home at once.”

“I will yield to you; I feel that I cannot control my own feelings—I will yield to you, who, as you say, are cooler on this subject than I can be. Oh, Flora, Flora, I have no comfort to bring to you now.”

Poor Henry Bannerworth appeared to be in a complete state of mental prostration, on account of the distressing circumstances that had occurred so rapidly and so suddenly in his family, which had had quite enough to contend with without having superadded to every other evil the horror of believing that some preternatural agency was at work to destroy every hope of future happiness in this world, under any circumstances.

He suffered himself to be led home by Mr. Chillingworth and Marchdale; he no longer attempted to dispute the dreadful fact concerning the supposed vampire; he could not contend now against all the corroborating circumstances that seemed to collect together for the purpose of proving that which, even when proved, was contrary to all his notions of Heaven, and at variance with all that was recorded and established is part and parcel of the system of nature.

“I cannot deny,” he said, when they had reached home, “that such things are possible; but the probability will not bear a moment’s investigation.”

“There are more things,” said Marchdale, solemnly, “in Heaven, and on earth, than are dreamed of in our philosophy.”

“There are indeed, it appears,” said Mr. Chillingworth.

“And are you a convert?” said Henry, turning to him.

“A convert to what?”

“To a belief in—in—these vampires?”

“I? No, indeed; if you were to shut me up in a room full of vampires, I would tell them all to their teeth that I defied them.”

“But after what we have seen tonight?”

“What have we seen?”

“You are yourself a witness.”

“True; I saw a man lying down, and then I saw a man get up; he seemed then to be shot, but whether he was or not he only knows; and then I saw him walk off in a desperate hurry. Beyond that, I saw nothing.”

“Yes; but, taking such circumstances into combination with others, have you not a terrible fear of the truth of the dreadful appearance?”

“No—no; on my soul, no. I will die in my disbelief of such an outrage upon Heaven as one of these creatures would most assuredly be.”

“Oh! that I could think like you; but the circumstance strikes too nearly to my heart.”

“Be of better cheer, Henry—be of better cheer,” said Marchdale; “there is one circumstance which we ought to consider, it is that, from all we have seen, there seems to be some things which would favour an opinion, Henry, that your ancestor, whose portrait hangs in the chamber which was occupied by Flora, is the vampire.”

“The dress was the same,” said Henry.