So we all slept with more or less reality of sleep.
29 September, night.--A little before twelve o'clock we three, Arthur, Quincey Morris, and myself, called for the Professor.
It was odd to notice that by common consent we had all put on black clothes. Of course, Arthur wore black, for he was in deep mourning, but the rest of us wore it by instinct.
We got to the graveyard by half-past one, and strolled about, keeping out of official observation, so that when the gravediggers had completed their task and the sexton under the belief that every one had gone, had locked the gate, we had the place all to ourselves. Van Helsing, instead of his little black bag, had with him a long leather one, something like a cricketing bag.
It was manifestly of fair weight.
When we were alone and had heard the last of the footsteps die out up the road, we silently, and as if by ordered intention, followed the Professor to the tomb.
He unlocked the door, and we entered, closing it behind us.
Then he took from his bag the lantern, which he lit, and also two wax candles, which, when lighted, he stuck by melting their own ends, on other coffins, so that they might give light sufficient to work by. When he again lifted the lid off Lucy's coffin we all looked, Arthur trembling like an aspen, and saw that the corpse lay there in all its death beauty.
But there was no love in my own heart, nothing but loathing for the foul Thing which had taken Lucy's shape without her soul.
I could see even Arthur's face grow hard as he looked.
Presently he said to Van Helsing, "Is this really Lucy's body, or only a demon in her shape?"
"It is her body, and yet not it. But wait a while, and you shall see her as she was, and is."
She seemed like a nightmare of Lucy as she lay there, the pointed teeth, the blood stained, voluptuous mouth, which made one shudder to see, the whole carnal and unspirited appearance, seeming like a devilish mockery of Lucy's sweet purity.
Van Helsing, with his usual methodicalness, began taking the various contents from his bag and placing them ready for use.
First he took out a soldering iron and some plumbing solder, and then small oil lamp, which gave out, when lit in a corner of the tomb, gas which burned at a fierce heat with a blue flame, then his operating knives, which he placed to hand, and last a round wooden stake, some two and a half or three inches thick and about three feet long. One end of it was hardened by charring in the fire, and was sharpened to a fine point.
With this stake came a heavy hammer, such as in households is used in the coal cellar for breaking the lumps. To me, a doctor's preperations for work of any kind are stimulating and bracing, but the effect of these things on both Arthur and Quincey was to cause them a sort of consternation.
They both, however, kept their courage, and remained silent and quiet.
When all was ready, Van Helsing said, "Before we do anything, let me tell you this. It is out of the lore and experience of the ancients and of all those who have studied the powers of the UnDead.
When they become such, there comes with the change the curse of immortality. They cannot die, but must go on age after age adding new victims and multiplying the evils of the world.
For all that die from the preying of the Undead become themselves Undead, and prey on their kind. And so the circle goes on ever widening, like as the ripples from a stone thrown in the water.
Friend Arthur, if you had met that kiss which you know of before poor Lucy die, or again, last night when you open your arms to her, you would in time, when you had died, have become nosferatu, as they call it in Eastern europe, and would for all time make more of those Un-Deads that so have filled us with horror.
The career of this so unhappy dear lady is but just begun.
Those children whose blood she sucked are not as yet so much the worse, but if she lives on, UnDead, more and more they lose their blood and by her power over them they come to her, and so she draw their blood with that so wicked mouth. But if she die in truth, then all cease.
The tiny wounds of the throats disappear, and they go back to their play unknowing ever of what has been. But of the most blessed of all, when this now UnDead be made to rest as true dead, then the soul of the poor lady whom we love shall again be free.
Instead of working wickedness by night and growing more debased in the assimilating of it by day, she shall take her place with the other Angels. So that, my friend, it will be a blessed hand for her that shall strike the blow that sets her free.
To this I am willing, but is there none amongst us who has a better right?
Will it be no joy to think of hereafter in the silence of the night when sleep is not, `It was my hand that sent her to the stars.
It was the hand of him that loved her best, the hand that of all she would herself have chosen, had it been to her to choose?'
Tell me if there be such a one amongst us?"
We all looked at Arthur. He saw too, what we all did, the infinite kindness which suggested that his should be the hand which would restore Lucy to us as a holy, and not an unholy, memory. He stepped forward and said bravely, though his hand trembled, and his face was as pale as snow, "My true friend, from the bottom of my broken heart I thank you.
Tell me what I am to do, and I shall not falter!"
Van Helsing laid a hand on his shoulder, and said, "Brave lad!
A moment's courage, and it is done. This stake must be driven through her.
It well be a fearful ordeal, be not deceived in that, but it will be only a short time, and you will then rejoice more than your pain was great.
From this grim tomb you will emerge as though you tread on air.
