10 September.—I was conscious of the Professor’s
hand on my head, and started awake all in a second.
That is one of the things that we learn in an asylum,
at any rate.
“And how is our patient?”
“Well, when I left her, or rather when she left
me,” I answered.
“Come, let us see,” he said. And
together we went into the room.
The blind was down, and I went over to raise it gently,
whilst Van Helsing stepped, with his soft, cat-like
tread, over to the bed.
As I raised the blind, and the morning sunlight flooded
the room, I heard the Professor’s low hiss of
inspiration, and knowing its rarity, a deadly fear
shot through my heart. As I passed over he moved
back, and his exclamation of horror, “Gott in
Himmel!” needed no enforcement from his agonized
face. He raised his hand and pointed to the bed,
and his iron face was drawn and ashen white.
I felt my knees begin to tremble.
There on the bed, seemingly in a swoon, lay poor Lucy,
more horribly white and wan-looking than ever.
Even the lips were white, and the gums seemed to
have shrunken back from the teeth, as we sometimes
see in a corpse after a prolonged illness.
Van Helsing raised his foot to stamp in anger, but
the instinct of his life and all the long years of
habit stood to him, and he put it down again softly.
“Quick!” he said. “Bring the
brandy.”
I flew to the dining room, and returned with the decanter.
He wetted the poor white lips with it, and together
we rubbed palm and wrist and heart. He felt
her heart, and after a few moments of agonizing suspense
said,
“It is not too late. It beats, though
but feebly. All our work is undone. We
must begin again. There is no young Arthur here
now. I have to call on you yourself this time,
friend John.” As he spoke, he was dipping
into his bag, and producing the instruments of transfusion.
I had taken off my coat and rolled up my shirt sleeve.
There was no possibility of an opiate just at present,
and no need of one; and so, without a moment’s
delay, we began the operation.
After a time, it did not seem a short time either,
for the draining away of one’s blood, no matter
how willingly it be given, is a terrible feeling,
Van Helsing held up a warning finger. “Do
not stir,” he said. “But I fear
that with growing strength she may wake, and that
would make danger, oh, so much danger. But I
shall precaution take. I shall give hypodermic
injection of morphia.” He proceeded then,
swiftly and deftly, to carry out his intent.
The effect on Lucy was not bad, for the faint seemed
to merge subtly into the narcotic sleep. It
was with a feeling of personal pride that I could
see a faint tinge of colour steal back into the pallid
cheeks and lips. No man knows, till he experiences
it, what it is to feel his own lifeblood drawn away
into the veins of the woman he loves.
