seemed to be saying: All these lives will I give you, ay, and many more
and greater, through countless ages, if you will fall down and worship
me! And then a red cloud, like the colour of blood, seemed to close
over my eyes; and before I knew what I was doing, I found myself opening
the sash and saying to Him: Come in, Lord and Master! The rats were
all gone, but He slid into the room through the sash, though it was only
open an inch wide--just as the Moon herself has often come in through
the tiniest crack and has stood before me in all her size and
splendour.
His voice was weaker, so I moistened his lips with the brandy again, and
he continued; but it seemed as though his memory had gone on working in
the interval for his story was further advanced. I was about to call him
back to the point, but Van Helsing whispered to me: Let him go on. Do
not interrupt him; he cannot go back, and maybe could not proceed at all
if once he lost the thread of his thought. He proceeded:--
All day I waited to hear from him, but he did not send me anything, not
even a blow-fly, and when the moon got up I was pretty angry with him.
When he slid in through the window, though it was shut, and did not even
knock, I got mad with him. He sneered at me, and his white face looked
out of the mist with his red eyes gleaming, and he went on as though he
owned the whole place, and I was no one. He didn t even smell the same
as he went by me. I couldn t hold him. I thought that, somehow, Mrs.
Harker had come into the room.
The two men sitting on the bed stood up and came over, standing behind
him so that he could not see them, but where they could hear better.
They were both silent, but the Professor started and quivered; his face,
however, grew grimmer and sterner still. Renfield went on without
noticing:--
When Mrs. Harker came in to see me this afternoon she wasn t the same;
it was like tea after the teapot had been watered. Here we all moved,
but no one said a word; he went on:--
I didn t know that she was here till she spoke; and she didn t look the
same. I don t care for the pale people; I like them with lots of blood
in them, and hers had all seemed to have run out. I didn t think of it
at the time; but when she went away I began to think, and it made me mad
286