THE NIGHT ATTACK.—THE HORRIBLE CONCLUSION.
I paused yet a moment, for there came across me even then, after I had
gone so far, a horrible dread of what I was about to do, and a feeling
that there might be consequences arising from it that would jeopardise
me greatly. Perhaps even then if a great accession of strength had
come to my aid—mere bodily aid I mean—I should have hesitated, and
the victim would have escaped; but, as if to mock me, there came that
frightful feeling of exhaustion which felt so like the prelude to
another death.
I no longer hesitated; I turned the lock of the door, and I thought
that I must be discovered. I left it open about an inch, and then flew
back to my own chamber.
I listened attentively; there was no alarm, no movement in any of the
rooms—the same death-like stillness pervaded the house, and I felt that
I was still safe.
A soft gleam of yellow looking light had come through the crevice of
the door when I had opened it. It mingled strangely with the moonlight,
and I concluded correctly enough, as I found afterwards, that a light
was burning in the chamber.
It was at least another ten minutes before I could sufficiently
re-assure myself to glide from my own room and approach that of the
fated sleeper; but at length I told myself that I might safely do so,
and the night was waning fast, and if anything was to be accomplished
it must be done at once, before the first beams of early dawn should
chase away the spirits of the night, and perhaps should leave me no
power to act.
“What shall I be,” I asked myself; “after another four-and-twenty hours
of exhaustion? Shall I have power then to make the election of what I
will do or what I will not? No, I may suffer the pangs of death again,
and the scarcely less pangs of another revival.”
This reasoning—if it may be called reasoning—decided me; and with
cautious and cat-like footsteps, I again approached the bed-room door
which I had opened.
I no longer hesitated, but at once crossed the threshold, and looked
around me. It was the chamber of the youngest of my landlady’s
daughters, who, as far as I could judge, seemed to be about sixteen
years of age; but they had evidently been so struck with my horrible
appearance, that they had placed themselves as little as possible in my
way, so that I could not be said to be a very good judge of their ages
or of their looks.
I only knew she was the youngest, because she wore her hair long, and
wore it in ringlets, which were loose and streaming over the pillow on
which she slept, while her sister, I remarked, wore her hair plaited
up, and completely off her neck and shoulders.
I stood by the bed side, and looked upon this beautiful girl in all the
pride of her young beauty, so gently and quietly slumbering. Her lips
were parted, as though some pleasant images were passing in her mind,
and induced a slight smile even in her sleep. She murmured twice, too,
a word, which I thought was the name of some one—perchance the idol of
her young heart—but it was too indistinct for me to catch it, nor did I
care to hear; that which was perhaps a very cherished secret, indeed,
mattered not to me. I made no pretensions to her affections, however
strongly in a short time I might stand in her abhorrence.
One of her arms, which was exquisitely rounded, lay upon the coverlet;
a neck, too, as white as alabaster, was partially exposed to my gaze,
but I had no passions—it was food I wanted.
I sprung upon her. There was a shriek, but not before I had secured
a draught of life blood from her neck. It was enough. I felt it dart
through my veins like fire, and I was restored. From that moment I
found out what was to be my sustenance; it was blood—the blood of the
young and the beautiful.
[Illustration: Varney’s first taste of blood, from the youngest
daughter.]
The house was thoroughly alarmed, but not before I had retired to my
own chamber. I was but partially dressed, and those few clothes I threw
off me, and getting into my bed, I feigned to be asleep; so that when a
gentleman who slept likewise in the house, but of whose presence I knew
nothing, knocked hardly at my door, I affected to awaken in a fright,
and called out,—
“What is it? what is it?—for God’s sake tell me if it is a fire.”
“No, no—but get up, sir, get up. There’s some one in the place. An
attempt at murder, I think, sir.”
I arose and opened the door; so by the light he carried he saw that I
had to dress myself—he was but half attired himself, and he carried his
sword beneath his arm.
“It is a strange thing,” he said; “but I have heard a shriek of alarm.”
“And I likewise,” said I; “but I thought it was a dream.”
“Help! help! help!” cried the widow, who had risen, but stood upon the
threshold of her own chamber; “thieves! thieves!”
By this time I had got on sufficient of my apparel that I could make an
appearance, and, likewise with my sword in my hand, I sallied out into
the corridor.
“Oh, gentlemen—gentlemen,” cried the landlady, “did you hear anything?”
“A shriek, madam,” said my fellow-lodger; “have you looked into your
daughters’ chambers?”
The room of the youngest daughter was the nearest, and into that she
went at once. In another moment she appeared on the threshold again
with a face as white as a sheet, then she wrung her hands, and said,—
“Murder! murder!—my child is murdered—my child is murdered, Master
Harding,”—which I found was the name of my fellow-lodger.
“Fling open one of the windows, and call for the watch,” said he to
me, “and I will search the room, and woe be to any one that I may find
within its walls unauthorised.”
I did as he desired, and called the watch, but the watch came not,
and then, upon a second visit to her daughter, the landlady found
she had only fainted, and that she had been deceived in thinking she
was murdered by the sudden sight of the blood upon her neck, so the
house was restored to something like quiet again, and the morning
being now near at hand, Mr. Harding retired to his chamber, and I to
mine, leaving the landlady and her eldest daughter assiduous in their
attentions to the younger.
How wonderfully revived I felt—I was quite a new creature when the
sunlight came dancing into my apartment. I dressed and was about to
leave the house, when Mr. Harding came out of one of the lower rooms,
and intercepted me.
“Sir,” he said, “I have not the pleasure of knowing you, but I have no
doubt that an ordinary feeling of chivalry will prompt you to do all in
your power to obviate the dread of such another night as the past.”
“Dread, sir,” said I, “the dread of what?”
“A very proper question,” he said, “but one I can hardly answer; the
girl states, she was awakened by some one biting her neck, and in proof
of the story she actually exhibits the marks of teeth, and so terrified
is she, that she declares that she shall never be able to sleep again.”
“You astonish me.”
“No doubt—it is sufficiently astonishing to excuse even doubts; but
if you and I, who are both inmates of the house, were to keep watch
to-night in the corridor, it might have the effect of completely
quieting the imagination of the young girl, and perhaps result in the
discovery of this nocturnal disturber of the peace.”
“Certainly,” said I, “command me in any way, I shall have great
pleasure.”
“Shall it be understood, then, that we meet at eleven in your apartment
or in mine.”
“Whichever you may please to consider the most convenient, sir.”
“I mention my own then, which is the furthest door in the corridor, and
where I shall be happy to see you at eleven o’clock.”
There was a something about this young man’s manner which I did not
altogether like, and yet I could not come to any positive conclusion
as to whether he suspected me, and therefore I thought it would be
premature to fly, when perhaps there would be really no occasion for
doing so; on the contrary, I made up my mind to wait the result of the
evening, which might or might not be disastrous to me. At all events,
I considered that I was fully equal to taking my own part, and if by
the decrees of destiny I was really to be, as it were, repudiated from
society, and made to endure a new, strange, and horrible existence,
I did not see that I was called upon to be particular how I rescued
myself from difficulties that might arise.
Relying, then, upon my own strength, and my own unscrupulous use of it,
I awaited with tolerable composure the coming of night.
During the day I amused myself by walking about, and noting the
remarkable changes which so short a period as two years had made in
London. But these happened to be two years most abundantly prolific in
change. The feelings and habits of people seemed to have undergone a
thorough revolution, which I was the more surprised at when I learned
by what thorough treachery the restoration of the exiled family was
effected.
The day wore on; I felt no need of refreshment, and I began to feel
my own proper position, and to feel that occasionally a draught of
delicious life-blood, such as I had quaffed the night before was fresh
marrow to my bones.
I could see, when I entered the house where I had made my temporary
home, that notwithstanding that I considered my appearance wonderfully
improved, that feeling was not shared in by others, for the whole
family shrunk from me as though there had been a most frightful
contamination in my touch, and as though the very air I had breathed
was hateful and deleterious. I felt convinced that there had been some
conversation concerning me, and that I was rather more than suspected.
I certainly could then have left the place easily and quietly, but I
had a feeling of defiance, which did not enable me to do so.
I felt as if I were an injured being, and ought to resist a something
that looked like oppression.
“Why,” I said to myself, “have I been rescued from the tomb to be made
the sport of a malignant destiny? My crime was a great one, but surely
I suffered enough, when I suffered death as an expiation of it, and I
might have been left to repose in the grave.”
The feelings that have since come over me held no place in my
imagination, but with a kind of defiant desperation I felt as if I
should like to defeat the plan by which I was attempted to be punished,
and even in the face of Providence itself, to show that it was a
failure entailing far worse consequences upon others than upon me.
This was my impression, so I would not play the coward, and fly upon
the first flash of danger.
I sat in my own room until the hour came for my appointment with Mr.
Harding, and then I walked along the corridor with a confident step,
and let the hilt end of my scabbard clank along the floor. I knocked
boldly at the door, and I thought there was a little hesitation in
his voice as he bade me walk in, but this might have been only my
imagination.
He was seated at a table, fully dressed, and in addition to his sword,
there was lying upon the table before him a large holster pistol,
nearly half the size of a carbine.
“You are well prepared,” said I, as I pointed to it.
“Yes,” he said, “and I mean to use it.”
“What do they want now?” I said.
“What do who want?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “but I thought I heard some one call you by
name from below.”
“Indeed, excuse me a moment, perhaps they have made some discovery.”
There was wine upon the table, and while he was gone, I poured a glass
of good Rhenish down the barrel of the pistol. I wiped it carefully
with the cuff of my coat, so there was no appearance upon the barrel
of anything of the sort, and when he came back, he looked at me very
suspiciously, as he said,—
“Nobody called me, how could you say I was called.”
“Because I thought I heard you called; I suppose it is allowable for
human nature to be fallible now and then.”
“Yes, but then I am so surprised how you could make such a mistake.”
“So am I.”
It was rather a difficult thing to answer this, and looking at me very
steadily, he took up the pistol and examined the priming. Of course,
that was all right, and he appeared to be perfectly satisfied.
“There will be two chairs and a table,” he said, “placed in the
corridor, so that we can sit in perfect ease. I will not anticipate
that anything will happen, but if it should, I can only say that I will
not be backward in the use of my weapons.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said I, “and commend you accordingly. That pistol
must be a most formidable weapon. Does it ever miss fire?”
“Not that I know of,” he said, “I have loaded it with such
extraordinary care that it amounts to almost an impossibility that it
should. Will you take some wine?”
At this moment there came a loud knocking at the door of the house. I
saw an expression of satisfaction come over his face and he sprung to
his feet, holding the pistol in his grasp.
“Do you know the meaning of that knocking,” said I, “at such an hour?”
and at the same time with a sweep of my arm I threw his sword off the
table and beyond his reach.
“Yes,” he said, rather excitedly; “you are my prisoner, it was you who
caused the mischief and confusion last night. The girl is ready to
swear to you, and if you attempt to escape, I’ll blow your brains out.”
“Fire at me,” said I, “and take the consequences—but the threat is
sufficient, and you shall die for your temerity.”
I drew my sword, and he evidently thought his danger imminent, for he
at once snapped the pistol in my face. Of course it only flashed in the
pan, but in one moment my sword went through him like a flash of light.
It was a good blade the Jew had sold me—the hilt struck against his
breast bone, and he shrieked.
Bang! bang! bang! came again at the outer door of the house. I withdrew
the reeking blade, dashed it into the scabbard just in time to prevent
my landlady from opening the door, which she was almost in the act
of doing. I seized her by the back of the neck, and hurled her to a
considerable distance, and then opening the door myself, I stood behind
it, and let three men rush into the house. After which I quietly left
it, and was free.