Vampires 3

by J. R. Rain

  "That won't do," said the doctor.

  "What won't do, sir?"

  "This excuse will not do, Sir Francis Varney. You are, although you deny it, the man who was hanged in London some years ago for a highway robbery."

  Varney laughed, and held up his hands, exclaiming,—

  "Alas! alas! our good friend, the doctor, has studied too hard; his wits, probably, at the best of times, none of the clearest, have become hopelessly entangled."

  "Do you deny," said Henry, "then, that you are that man?"

  "Most unequivocally."

  "I assert it," said the doctor, "and now, I will tell you all, for I perceive you hesitate about searching, Sir Francis Varney, I tell you all why it is that he has such an affection for Bannerworth Hall."

  "Before you do," said Varney, "there is a pill for you, which you may find more nauseous and harder of digestion, than any your shop can furnish."

  As Varney uttered these words, he suddenly drew from his pocket a pistol, and, levelling it at the unfortunate doctor, he fired it full at him.

  The act was so sudden, so utterly unexpected, and so stunning, that it was done before any one could move hand or foot to prevent it. Henry Bannerworth and his brother were the furthest off from the vampyre; and, unhappily, in the rush which they, as soon us possible, made towards him, they knocked down the admiral, who impeded them much; and, before they could spring over, or past him, Sir Francis Varney was gone.

  So sudden, too, had been his departure, that they had not the least idea in which direction he had gone; so that to follow him would have been a work of the greatest possible difficulty.

  Notwithstanding, however, both the difficulty and the danger, for no doubt the vampyre was well enough armed, Henry and his brother both rushed after the murderer, as they now believed him to be, in the route which they thought it was most probable he would take, namely, that which led towards the garden gate.

  They reached that spot in a few moments, but all was profoundly still. Not the least trace of any one could be seen, high or low, and they were compelled, after a cursory examination, to admit that Sir Francis Varney had again made his escape, despite the great odds that were against him in point of numbers.

  "He has gone," said Henry. "Let us go back, and see into the state of poor Dr. Chillingworth, who, I fear, is a dead man."

  They hurried back to the spot, and there they found the admiral looking as composed as possible, and solacing himself with a pinch of snuff, as he gazed upon the apparently lifeless form at his feet.

  "Is he dead?" said Henry.

  "I should say he was," replied the admiral; "such a shot as that was don't want to be repeated. Well, I liked the doctor with all his faults. He only had one foolish way with him, and that was, that he shirked his grog."

  "This is an awful catastrophe," said Henry, as he knelt down by the side of the body. "Assist me, some of you. Where is Charles?"

  "I'll be hanged," said the admiral, "if I know. He disappeared somewhere."

  "This is a night of mystery as well as terror. Alas! poor Dr. Chillingworth! I little thought that you would have fallen a victim to the man whom you preserved from death. How strange it is that you should have snatched from the tomb the very individual who was, eventually, to take your own life."

  The brothers gently raised the body of the doctor, and carried it on to the glass plot, which was close at hand.

  "Farewell, kind and honest-hearted Chillingworth," said Henry; "I shall, many and many a time, feel your loss; and now I will rest not until I have delivered up to justice your murderer. All consideration, or feeling, for what seemed to be latent virtues in that strange and inexplicable man, Varney, shall vanish, and he shall reap the consequences of the crime he has now committed."

  "It was a cold blooded, cowardly murder," said his brother.

  "It was; but you may depend the doctor was about to reveal something to us, which Varney so much dreaded, that he took his life as the only effectual way, at the moment, of stopping him."

  "It must be so," said Henry.

  "And now," said the admiral, "it's too late, and we shall not know it at all. That's the way. A fellow saves up what he has got to tell till it is too late to tell it, and down he goes to Davy Jones's locker with all his secrets aboard."

  "Not always," said Dr. Chillingworth, suddenly sitting bolt upright—"not always."

  Henry and his brother started back in amazement, and the admiral was so taken by surprise, that had not the resuscitated doctor suddenly stretched out his hand and laid hold of him by the ankle, he would have made a precipitate retreat.

  "Hilloa! murder!" he cried. "Let me go! How do I know but you may be a vampyre by now, as you were shot by one."

  Henry soonest recovered from the surprise of the moment, and with the most unfeigned satisfaction, he cried,—

  "Thank God you are unhurt, Dr. Chillingworth! Why he must have missed you by a miracle."

  "Not at all," said the doctor. "Help me up—thank you—all right. I'm only a little singed about the whiskers. He hit me safe enough."

  "Then how have you escaped?"

  "Why from the want of a bullet in the pistol, to be sure. I can understand it all well enough. He wanted to create sufficient confusion to cover a desperate attempt to escape, and he thought that would be best done by seeming so shoot me. The suddenness of the shock, and the full belief, at the moment, that he had sent a bullet into my brains, made me fall, and produced a temporary confusion of ideas, amounting to insensibility."

  "From which you are happily recovered. Thank Heaven that, after all, he is not such a villain as this act would have made him."

  "Ah!" said the admiral, "it takes people who have lived a little in these affairs to know the difference in sound between a firearm with a bullet in it, and one without. I knew it was all right."

  "Then why did you not say so, admiral?"

  "What was the use? I thought the doctor might be amused to know what you should say of him, so you see I didn't interfere; and, as I am not a good hand at galloping after anybody, I didn't try that part of the business, but just remained where I was."

  "Alas! alas!" cried the doctor, "I much fear that, by his going, I have lost all that I expected to be able to do for you, Henry. It's of not the least use now telling you or troubling you about it. You may now sell or let Bannerworth Hall to whomever you please, for I am afraid it is really worthless."

  "What on earth do you mean?" said Henry. "Why, doctor, will you keep up this mystery among us? If you have anything to say, why not say it at once?"

  "Because, I tell you it's of no use now. The game is up, Sir Francis Varney has escaped; but still I don't know that I need exactly hesitate."

  "There can be no reason for your hesitating about making a communication to us," said Henry. "It is unfriendly not to do so."

  "My dear boy, you will excuse me for saying that you don't know what you are talking about."

  "Can you give any reason?"

  "Yes; respect for the living. I should have to relate something of the dead which would be hurtful to their feelings."

  Henry was silent for a few moments, and then he said,—

  "What dead? And who are the living?"

  "Another time," whispered the doctor to him; "another time, Henry. Do not press me now. But you shall know all another time."

  "I must be content. But now let us remember that another man yet lingers in Bannerworth Hall. I will endure suspense on his account no longer. He is an intruder there; so I go at once to dislodge him."

  No one made any opposition to this move, not even the doctor; so Henry preceded them all to the house. They passed through the open window into the long hall, and from thence into every apartment of the mansion, without finding the object of their search. But from one of the windows up to which there grew great masses of ivy, there hung a rope, by which any one might easily have let himself down; and no doubt, therefore, existed in all their minds that the hangman had suffici
ently profited by the confusion incidental to the supposed shooting of the doctor, to make good his escape from the place.

  "And so, after all," said Henry, "we are completely foiled?"

  "We may be," said Dr. Chillingworth; "but it is, perhaps, going too far to say that we actually are. One thing, however, is quite clear; and that is, no good can be done here."

  "Then let us go home," said the admiral. "I did not think from the first that any good would be done here."

  They all left the garden together now; so that almost for the first time, Bannerworth Hall was left to itself, unguarded and unwatched by any one whatever. It was with an evident and a marked melancholy that the doctor proceeded with the party to the cottage-house of the Bannerworths; but, as after what he had said, Henry forbore to question him further upon those subjects which he admitted he was keeping secret; and as none of the party were much in a cue for general conversation, the whole of them walked on with more silence than usually characterised them.

  _____________

  CHAPTER LXXXII.

  CHARLES HOLLAND'S PURSUIT OF THE VAMPYRE.—THE DANGEROUS INTERVIEW.

  It will be recollected that the admiral had made a remark about Charles Holland having suddenly disappeared; and it is for us now to account for that disappearance and to follow him to the pathway he had chosen.

  The fact was, that he, when Varney fired the shot at the doctor, or what was the supposed shot, was the farthest from the vampyre; and he, on that very account, had the clearest and best opportunity of marking which route he took when he had discharged the pistol.

  He was not confused by the smoke, as the others were; nor was he stunned by the noise of the discharge; but he distinctly saw Varney dart across one of the garden beds, and make for the summer-house, instead of for the garden gate, as Henry had supposed was the most probable path he had chosen.

  Now, Charles Holland either had an inclination, for some reasons of his own, to follow the vampyre alone; or, on the spur of the moment, he had not time to give an alarm to the others; but certain it is that he did, unaided, rush after him. He saw him enter the summer-house, and pass out of it again at the back portion of it, as he had once before done, when surprised in his interview with Flora.

  But the vampyre did not now, as he had done on the former occasion, hide immediately behind the summer-house. He seemed to be well aware that that expedient would not answer twice; so he at once sped onwards, clearing the garden fence, and taking to the meadows.

  It formed evidently no part of the intentions of Charles Holland to come up with him. He was resolved upon dogging his footsteps, to know where he should go; so that he might have a knowledge of his hiding-place, if he had one.

  "I must and will," said Charles to himself, "penetrate the mystery that hangs about this most strange and inexplicable being. I will have an interview with him, not in hostility, for I forgive him the evil he has done me, but with a kindly spirit; and I will ask him to confide in me."

  Charles, therefore, did not keep so close upon the heels of the vampyre as to excite any suspicions of his intention to follow him; but he waited by the garden paling long enough not only for Varney to get some distance off, but long enough likewise to know that the pistol which had been fired at the doctor had produced no real bad effects, except singing some curious tufts of hair upon the sides of his face, which the doctor was pleased to call whiskers.

  "I thought as much," was Charles's exclamation when he heard the doctor's voice. "It would have been strikingly at variance with all Varney's other conduct, if he had committed such a deliberate and heartless murder."

  Then, as the form of the vampyre could be but dimly seen, Charles ran on for some distance in the direction he had taken, and then paused again; so that if Varney heard the sound of footsteps, and paused to listen they had ceased again probably, and nothing was discernible.

  In this manner he followed the mysterious individual, if we may really call him such, for above a mile; and then Varney made a rapid detour, and took his way towards the town.

  He went onwards with wonderful precision now in a right line, not stopping at any obstruction, in the way of fences, hedges, or ditches, so that it took Charles some exertion, to which, just then, he was scarcely equal, to keep up with him.

  At length the outskirts of the town were gained, and then Varney paused, and looked around him, scarcely allowing Charles, who was now closer to him than he had been, time to hide himself from observation, which, however, he did accomplish, by casting himself suddenly upon the ground, so that he could not be detected against the sky, which then formed a back ground to the spot where he was.

  Apparently satisfied that he had completely now eluded the pursuit, if any had been attempted, of those whom he had led in such a state of confusion, the vampyre walked hastily towards a house that was to let, and which was only to be reached by going up an avenue of trees, and then unlocking a gate in a wall which bounded the premises next to the avenue. But the vampyre appeared to be possessed of every facility for effecting an entrance to the place and, producing from his pocket a key, he at once opened the gate, and disappeared within the precincts of those premises.

  He, no doubt, felt that he was hunted by the mob of the town, and hence his frequent change of residence, since his own had been burnt down, and, indeed, situated as he was, there can be no manner of doubt that he would have been sacrificed to the superstitious fury of the populace, if they could but have got hold of him.

  He had, from his knowledge, which was no doubt accurate and complete, of what had been done, a good idea of what his own fate would be, were he to fall into the hands of that ferocious multitude, each individual composing which, felt a conviction that there would be no peace, nor hope of prosperity or happiness, on the place, until he, the arch vampyre of all the supposed vampyres, was destroyed.

  Charles did pause for a few moments, after having thus become roused, to consider whether he should then attempt to have the interview he had resolved upon having by some means or another, or defer it, now that he knew where Varney was to be found, until another time.

  But when he came to consider how extremely likely it was that, even in the course of a few hours, Varney might shift his abode for some good and substantial reasons, he at once determined upon attempting to see him.

  But how to accomplish such a purpose was not the easiest question in the world to answer. If he rung the bell that presented itself above the garden gate, was it at all likely that Varney, who had come there for concealment, would pay any attention to the summons?

  After some consideration, he did, however, think of a plan by which, at all events, he could ensure effecting an entrance into the premises, and then he would take his chance of finding the mysterious being whom he sought, and who probably might have no particular objection to meeting with him, Charles Holland, because their last interview in the ruins could not be said to be otherwise than of a peaceable and calm enough character.

  He saw by the board, which was nailed in the front of the house, that all applications to see it were to be made to a Mr. Nash, residing close at hand; and, as Charles had the appearance of a respectable person, he thought he might possibly have the key entrusted to him, ostensibly to look at the house, preparatory possibly to taking it, and so he should, at all events, obtain admission.