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.
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.
