It was on the morning of the twelfth of October that Dracula's six pursuers at last left London, riding the boat-train that brought them to Paris on the same night, where they took the places they had reserved aboard the Orient Express.
Three days after leaving Paris, they were all aboard a private railcar jolting slowly eastward across Bulgaria toward the port of Varna on the Black Sea. Mina was now lethargic, sometimes even comatose, through most of the daylight hours. At dawn and dusk, when she could most easily be hypnotized by Van Helsing, her murmured comments still indicated that the count was progressing steadily toward his home by ship.
Today, on awaking around midmorning, she found that the train had stopped. That, she thought, was according to plan; they would be on a siding now, near Varna, waiting for the latest word concerning the movements of their quarry.
For the moment Mina and Jonathan were alone in the small private compartment they shared. He was staring out the window, and the only sound was the endless whisper of the whetstone with which he repeatedly stroked the curved steel of the murderous weapon he had adopted.
For a time she lay regarding her husband silently. This was a far different man from the young solicitor to whom she had once become engaged—that seemed a lifetime distant. She thought now that every day his hair, at roots and temples, was grayer than it had been the day before. The process must have begun from the moment when he had discovered her in her lover's arms.
Suddenly, overwhelmed by her own feelings, Mina burst out: "My poor dear Jonathan, what have I done to you?"
Startled, Harker turned from the window. Putting down knife and whetstone, he was all tenderness and concern as he attempted to console his wife.
"No… no… no… I have done this to both of us." And even as the young man spoke, his imagination continued to torment him with visions of the three fiendish, lascivious women, tempting and shaming him at the same time.
Fiercely he commanded himself to think of other matters, of anything instead of that.
He asked: "Where is he now?"
Mina closed her eyes. Her voice sounded both helpless and hopeless. "He is at sea—somewhere. I can still, whenever I am hypnotized by the professor, hear the waves lapping against his ship. The wind is high." She paused, then added bleakly: "He calls me to him."
Her husband swallowed, considering this. Then he made his wife a solemn pledge: "Mina. If you die, I will not let you go into the unknown alone."
In another section of the same private car, a large central compartment that had been furnished as a kind of parlor or sitting room, Seward sat staring listlessly out a window into the gray gloom of the autumnal Bulgarian countryside, here on the edge of the city of Varna. Meanwhile Quincey Morris, in his cold-weather western garb, including a sheepskin jacket, busied himself with preparations for the last phase of the hunt.
At the moment he was using his bowie knife to sharpen several wooden stakes, each as thick as his wrist. This compartment, like most of the others in the car, was heated by a wood stove standing in one corner, vented by a metal chimney to the outside, and secured with taut wires to keep it from tipping. And in this stove Quincey had built up fire enough to char the sharp points of his stakes to the desired hardness.
Also near at hand, stacked in another corner of the compartment, stood four Winchester rifles, which the Texan had recently been cleaning and oiling, along with their supply of ammunition.
In the middle of the room space, a large table under a ceiling lamp held a spread-out map, along with train schedules, notes, copies of various cabled messages, and a pocket watch inexorably ticking away the hours.
A door opened and Lord Godalming came in, waving a copy of the latest cable that had just been brought to the train by special messenger from the British consulate in nearby Varna. Holmwood remarked: "We have reached Varna ahead of the Czarina Catherine and her devil's cargo."
At that Seward, who had been sitting tensely idle, snatched up and examined the contents of the telegram. He noted that the message was directed: "from Rufus Smith, Lloyd's, London, to Lord Godalming, care of H.B.M. Vice-Consul, Varna."
Harker, his kukri knife in hand as usual, now entered the compartment. When the others looked up to hear what news he might bring, he gloomily and tersely reported that "Mina is worse every day."
The men, exchanging glances among themselves, murmured such expressions of sympathy as they could find.
Harker did not seem to hear them. "Even so," he said, staring out the window, "I no longer fear this monster. I will kill him myself with the first blow."
He sat down next to Quincey, near the window, and took out a whetstone to resume sharpening his knife.
No more than a few minutes passed before a messenger on horseback pulled up beside the stopped train. Soon Holm wood was opening another wire, this one quite disturbing, from his clerk at Lloyd's.
This one Godalming read aloud, in a bitter voice, to his colleagues in the hunt. The news was that Dracula had, at least for the time being, outwitted and bypassed his pursuers, by causing the ship that bore him to sail past Varna in the night, to the port of Galatz, also on the Black Sea, but farther to the north and east.
Quickly the council of hunters—with the exception of Mina, who had not yet joined them today—regatfaered around the table spread with maps and schedules.
With stabbing motions of his forefinger, Harker indicated first Dracula's presumed position now, near Galatz, and then their own, at or just outside the city of Varna. The two were at least two hundred English miles apart by mail.
Holmwood had ordered the latest messenger to stand by; now the English lord hastily began to write out the communications necessary to get their private car moving again, toward Galatz, as rapidly as possible. The journey would take them through Bucharest.
Meanwhile Harker, more haggard than before—Seward noted that his hair was now certainly beginning to turn white—said to the others with fierce energy: "Once we get to Galatz, we'll follow the bastard upriver on horseback—cut him off. He must not be allowed to reach the castle!"
While a locomotive was found and connected to their car, and the next leg of their journey commenced, the group drew up their plans in considerable detail. When it should become necessary to leave the railway, Dr. Seward and Quincey were to carry on the pursuit on horseback while Jonathan and Lord Godalming hired a steam launch and took it up one of the rivers; Holmwood was experienced in such boating. Of course much might depend on their choosing the correct route.
The various contingencies under which the four men might later recombine their forces were considered.
Again, their final decision in this matter would depend upon what route Dracula, or those who carried him, might choose to take.
While these plans were being made, Mina joined the company, receiving, as usual, a courteous if subdued welcome.
And Van Helsing assured the other men: "Be not afraid for Madam Mina; she will be my care, if I may. I am old. My legs are not so quick to run as once; and I am not used to ride so long or to pursue as need be, or to fight with lethal weapons. But I can fight in other way, and I can die, if need be, as well as younger men.
"I will take Madam Mina right into the heart of the enemy's country while the old fox is tied in his box, floating on the running stream whence he cannot escape to land—where he dares not raise the lid of his coffin box lest his carriers should in fear leave him to perish. We shall go in the way where Jonathan went, from Bistritz over the Borgo, and find our way to the castle of Dracula. There is much to be done so that nest of vipers be obliterated."
Harker, showing emotion more openly than he had in days, was aghast, "Professor, do you mean to say that you would bring Mina, in her sad case and tainted as she is with the devil's illness, right into the jaws of his death trap?"
Van Helsing raised his chin as if accepting a challenge. "Oh, my friend, it is because I would save Madam Mina from that awful place that I would go. Remember, as she herse
lf has warned us, if she is left unguarded, he may summon her to him.
"And if the count escape us this time—and he is strong and subtle and cunning—he may choose to sleep him for a century. And then in time our dear one"—here Van Helsing took the hand of Mina, who was staring at him hopelessly—"would come to keep him company, and would be as those others that you, Jonathan, saw.
"Forgive me that I make you so much pain, but it is necessary. My friend, is it not a dire need for which I am giving, if need be, my life? Be not afraid for Madam Mina. It is she who will protect me."
For a moment Jonathan, now in hopeless confusion, only stared at the old man. Then the suffering husband gave a fatalistic shrug. "Do as you will. We are in the hands of God. And may God give him into my hands, just long enough to send his soul to burning hell!"
19
Relentlessly the pursuit continued.
Lord Godalming, by exercising to the utmost all the influence he possessed, both at the consulate and by telegram, had been able in the amazingly short time of a few hours to have the private car attached to another train. The party of adventurers got started for Galatz sooner than any of them had really dared to hope. Anxiously they pored over their maps, plotting the route by rail from Varna to that city. It seemed straightforward enough, though indirect, requiring a large jog through Bucharest—but to their consternation unforeseeable railroad difficulties in the vicinity of that latter city, in the early hours of the morning, caused them some delay, about which wealth and influence could do nothing.
Galatz, when they finally reached it on the morning of the following day, proved a more modern town than any of the travelers had expected. Electric lights illuminated portions of the waterfront, and many of the streets were paved. Immediately upon arrival, while the Harkers undertook to remove the baggage from the private car and establish rooms for the party in a hotel, the other men moved aggressively. It seemed futile to hope that Dracula would still be here within their reach, yet they dared not discount the possibility.
Lord Godalming and Professor Van Helsing soon prevailed upon Messrs. Mackenzie and Steinkoff, agents of the London firm of Hapgood, to allow them to go on board the Czarina Catherine, which lay at anchor out in the river harbor.
Captain Donelson of the Czarina, a Scot, had no objection to entertaining visitors. He told them, as if be were eager to recount the miracle to someone, of the amazingly favorable conditions his ship had enjoyed throughout the voyage from London.
Yes, the captain remembered very well the shipment in which his callers were interested: one large, coffin-like box. This item of cargo had indeed been aboard, but it had been unloaded hours ago, consigned to one Immanuel Hildesheim in Galatz.
Hildesheim, when located in his office, said he had received a letter from a Mr. de Ville of London, asking him to receive the box and give it in charge to a certain Petrof Skinsky, who dealt with the Slovaks who traded inland, by means of riverboats, to this port on the Black Sea.
Hildesheim had been paid for his work on behalf of his London client by an English bank note, which had been duly cashed for gold at the Danube International Bank.
The hunters sought for Skinsky, but were unable to find him. One of his neighbors said that he had gone away two days before, and this was corroborated by Skinsky's landlord.
Even as the men were talking in Hildesheim's office, another of the local people came running in and said that the body of Skinsky had been found in a nearby churchyard, and that his throat had been torn open as if by some wild animal.
The Englishmen and their Texan friend hurried away lest they should be in some way drawn into the affair, and so detained.
With heavy hearts they rejoined the Harkers at their new hotel in Galatz.
All the evidence, including Mina's continued communications in hypnotic trance, and also the information gathered in Galatz, pointed to the same conclusion: that their quarry was even now continuing his journey by riverboat; but by exactly what route Dracula was traveling was still uncertain.
While the men took half an hour's needed rest, Mina, examining the courses of the local rivers shown on the map, decided that either the Pruth or the Sereth would provide a possible route.
She was soon ready to deliver a report in both written and oral form. "The Sereth is, at Fundu, joined by the Bistritza, which runs up around the Borgo Pass. The loop it makes is manifestly as close to Dracula's castle as can be got by water."
At the next strategy meeting, their plans for the last phase of the pursuit were soon set in final form and put in motion.
A day or so later, Harker wrote one entry in his continuing journal after dark, by the light from the furnace door of the rented steam launch. He and Holmwood, according to plan, were headed up the Sereth, looking for the mouth of the Bistritza, as Mina had suggested.
Harker wrote: "We have no fear in running at good speed up the river at night; there is plenty of water to avoid running aground, and the banks are wide enough apart to make steaming, even in the dark, easy enough.
"Lord Godalming"—Harker, not long ago a mere solicitor's clerk, still felt uncomfortable speaking of his social betters with informality—"tells me to sleep for a while, as it is enough for one to be on watch. But I cannot sleep—how can I with the terrible danger hanging over my darling, and her going out into that awful place… My only comfort is that we are in the hands of God."
His journal continued:
31 October, Still hurrying along. The day has come, and Godalming is sleeping. The morning is bitterly cold. As yet we have passed only a few open boats, but none of them had on board any box or package anything like the size of the one we seek. The boatmen were scared every time we turned our electric lamp on them, and fell on their knees and prayed.
1 November. No news all day. We have found nothing of the kind we seek. We have now passed into the Bistritza, and if we are wrong about our quarry's plans, our chance of overtaking him, on water at any rate, is gone.
We have overhauled every boat, big and little. Early this morning, one crew took us for a government boat and treated us accordingly. We saw in this a way of smoothing matters, so at Fundu, where the Bistritza runs into the Sereth, we got a Romanian flag;—three vertical strips, of blue, yellow, and red—which we now fly conspicuously, and since then have held every deference shown us, and not once any objection to what we ask or do. Some of the Slovaks tell us that a big boat passed them, rowing at more than usual speed as she had a double crew on board…
Even though the river flows directly below the castle (I shall never forget a detail of the geography of this damned place), it must be far too rough at that point, and for some miles downstream, for any boats. The count will have to travel overland on the last miles of his journey; so I cling to the hope that we can make our planned rendezvous with Mr. Morris and Dr. Seward, and that they will have with them the necessary extra horses.
The first days of November were bringing snow and bitter cold to the high Carpathians.
On the seventh of that month, a wagon loaded with a single box the size of a large coffin, driven and guarded by mounted Gypsies, was racing over a mountain road toward Dracula's castle, now only a few miles away. Inside the box a single manlike form, garbed now in a rich robe as if for some important ceremony, rested upon a packing of earth. Dracula was almost comatose with daylight, inactivity, and the lack of recent feeding. His long hair was now white, his age-wrinkled face and hands almost the same color.
At the same hour, on a nearby road high in the Borgo Pass, Van Helsing was driving another wagon, with Mina as his passenger. Two horses had been enough for these travelers when they left Galatz; but later, after one of their several changes of horses at inns and rest stops, they made better time with, as Mina described the arrangement, "a rude four-in-hand."
The professor was wrapped in furs against the wintry day, and he was very tired, struggling to stay awake as he held the reins.
Mina was on the seat beside the profess
or, her body slumped against his, as she continued her new habit of spending most of the daylight hours in slumber. She also was wearing furs, and in addition her protector had covered her with a thick lap robe or rug.
But suddenly without any apparent cause, the young woman was wide-awake. Her manner was animated, filled with an almost childlike excitement.
The professor made no comment about this abrupt awakening, but in a moment he thought he could see what he thought must be its cause: a towering stone structure that could only be Dracula's castle had just come into view, on a high crag ahead.
Mina, looking around her now in every direction, murmured in an excited voice: "I know this place."
The ancient crucifix of a roadside shrine looked down upon the turning in the road. The figure on the cross was much worn and splintered away by time and weather, the blasphemous ambiguity of its wolf's-head image now difficult to see.
And indeed even Van Helsing failed to notice the peculiarity of this image.
"The end of the world," he remarked. Certainly the scene, particularly the even higher country ahead of the travelers, looked gloomy, frozen, desolate.
"We must go on!" his passenger urged him. She was continuing in her state of quiet excitement.
The professor, troubled by this exuberant reaction, studied his young charge.
After a moment he shook his head. "It is late, child. Better I build a fire, and we rest here."
"No, I must go! Please, let me go!" Such was Mina's vehemence that it seemed only a physical struggle could hold her back.
Rather than attempting anything of the kind, the old man reluctantly drove on.
Bram Stoker's Dracula Page 19
