_30 September._--When we met in Dr. Seward s study two hours after
dinner, which had been at six o clock, we unconsciously formed a sort of
board or committee. Professor Van Helsing took the head of the table, to
which Dr. Seward motioned him as he came into the room. He made me sit
next to him on his right, and asked me to act as secretary; Jonathan sat
next to me. Opposite us were Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, and Mr.
Morris--Lord Godalming being next the Professor, and Dr. Seward in the
centre. The Professor said:--
I may, I suppose, take it that we are all acquainted with the facts
that are in these papers. We all expressed assent, and he went on:--
Then it were, I think good that I tell you something of the kind of
enemy with which we have to deal. I shall then make known to you
something of the history of this man, which has been ascertained for me.
So we then can discuss how we shall act, and can take our measure
according.
There are such beings as vampires; some of us have evidence that they
exist. Even had we not the proof of our own unhappy experience, the
teachings and the records of the past give proof enough for sane
peoples. I admit that at the first I was sceptic. Were it not that
through long years I have train myself to keep an open mind, I could not
have believe until such time as that fact thunder on my ear. See! see!
I prove; I prove. Alas! Had I known at the first what now I know--nay,
had I even guess at him--one so precious life had been spared to many of
us who did love her. But that is gone; and we must so work, that other
poor souls perish not, whilst we can save. The _nosferatu_ do not die
like the bee when he sting once. He is only stronger; and being
stronger, have yet more power to work evil. This vampire which is
amongst us is of himself so strong in person as twenty men; he is of
cunning more than mortal, for his cunning be the growth of ages; he have
still the aids of necromancy, which is, as his etymology imply, the
divination by the dead, and all the dead that he can come nigh to are
for him at command; he is brute, and more than brute; he is devil in
callous, and the heart of him is not; he can, within limitations, appear
at will when, and where, and in any of the forms that are to him; he
can, within his range, direct the elements; the storm, the fog, the
thunder; he can command all the meaner things: the rat, and the owl, and
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