I never saw in all my experience the Professor work in such deadly
earnest. I knew--as he knew--that it was a stand-up fight with death,
and in a pause told him so. He answered me in a way that I did not
understand, but with the sternest look that his face could wear:--
If that were all, I would stop here where we are now, and let her fade
away into peace, for I see no light in life over her horizon. He went
on with his work with, if possible, renewed and more frenzied vigour.
Presently we both began to be conscious that the heat was beginning to
be of some effect. Lucy s heart beat a trifle more audibly to the
stethoscope, and her lungs had a perceptible movement. Van Helsing s
face almost beamed, and as we lifted her from the bath and rolled her in
a hot sheet to dry her he said to me:--
The first gain is ours! Check to the King!
We took Lucy into another room, which had by now been prepared, and laid
her in bed and forced a few drops of brandy down her throat. I noticed
that Van Helsing tied a soft silk handkerchief round her throat. She was
still unconscious, and was quite as bad as, if not worse than, we had
ever seen her.
Van Helsing called in one of the women, and told her to stay with her
and not to take her eyes off her till we returned, and then beckoned me
out of the room.
We must consult as to what is to be done, he said as we descended the
stairs. In the hall he opened the dining-room door, and we passed in, he
closing the door carefully behind him. The shutters had been opened, but
the blinds were already down, with that obedience to the etiquette of
death which the British woman of the lower classes always rigidly
observes. The room was, therefore, dimly dark. It was, however, light
enough for our purposes. Van Helsing s sternness was somewhat relieved
by a look of perplexity. He was evidently torturing his mind about
something, so I waited for an instant, and he spoke:--
What are we to do now? Where are we to turn for help? We must have
another transfusion of blood, and that soon, or that poor girl s life
won t be worth an hour s purchase. You are exhausted already; I am
150