The dilemma had me between his horns.
Her, I had not dare to take into this place, but left safe from the
Vampire in that Holy circle; and yet even there would be the wolf! I
resolve me that my work lay here, and that as to the wolves we must
submit, if it were God s will. At any rate it was only death and
freedom beyond. So did I choose for her. Had it but been for myself the
choice had been easy, the maw of the wolf were better to rest in than
the grave of the Vampire! So I make my choice to go on with my work.
I knew that there were at least three graves to find--graves that are
inhabit; so I search, and search, and I find one of them. She lay in her
Vampire sleep, so full of life and voluptuous beauty that I shudder as
though I have come to do murder. Ah, I doubt not that in old time, when
such things were, many a man who set forth to do such a task as mine,
found at the last his heart fail him, and then his nerve. So he delay,
and delay, and delay, till the mere beauty and the fascination of the
wanton Un-Dead have hypnotise him; and he remain on and on, till sunset
come, and the Vampire sleep be over. Then the beautiful eyes of the fair
woman open and look love, and the voluptuous mouth present to a
kiss--and man is weak. And there remain one more victim in the Vampire
fold; one more to swell the grim and grisly ranks of the Un-Dead!...
There is some fascination, surely, when I am moved by the mere presence
of such an one, even lying as she lay in a tomb fretted with age and
heavy with the dust of centuries, though there be that horrid odour such
as the lairs of the Count have had. Yes, I was moved--I, Van Helsing,
with all my purpose and with my motive for hate--I was moved to a
yearning for delay which seemed to paralyse my faculties and to clog my
very soul. It may have been that the need of natural sleep, and the
strange oppression of the air were beginning to overcome me. Certain it
was that I was lapsing into sleep, the open-eyed sleep of one who yields
to a sweet fascination, when there came through the snow-stilled air a
long, low wail, so full of woe and pity that it woke me like the sound
of a clarion. For it was the voice of my dear Madam Mina that I heard.
Then I braced myself again to my horrid task, and found by wrenching
away tomb-tops one other of the sisters, the other dark one. I dared not
pause to look on her as I had on her sister, lest once more I should
begin to be enthrall; but I go on searching until, presently, I find in
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