Authors: George W. M. Reynolds,James Malcolm Rymer
Closer
he went, and closer still. Then, as he clasped his hands, he said, in a voice
scarcely above a whisper,—
"It
is—it is the vampyre."
Yes,
there could be no doubt of the fact. It was Sir Francis Varney who lay there,
enveloped in the huge horseman's cloak, in which, on two or three occasions
during the progress of this narrative, he had figured. There he lay, at the
mercy completely of any arm that might be raised against him, apparently so
overcome by fatigue that no ordinary noise would have awakened him.
Well
might Charles Holland gaze at him with mingled feelings. There lay the being
who had done almost enough to drive the beautiful Flora Bannerworth
distracted—the being who had compelled the Bannerworth family to leave their
ancient house, to which they had been bound by every description of
association. The same mysterious existence, too, who, the better to carry on
his plots and plans, had, by dint of violence, immured him, Charles, in a
dungeon, and loaded him with chains. There he lay sleeping, and at his mercy.
"Shall
I awaken him," said Charles, "or let him sleep off the fatigue,
which, no doubt, is weighing down his limbs, and setting heavily on his
eyelids. No, my business with him is too urgent."
He
then raised his voice, and cried,—
"Varney,
Varney, awake!"
The
sound disturbed, without altogether breaking up, the deep slumber of the
vampyre, and he uttered a low moan, and moved one hand restlessly. Then, as if
that disturbance of the calm and deep repose which had sat upon him, had given
at once the reins to fancy, he begin to mutter strange words in his sleep, some
of which could be heard by Charles distinctly, while others were too
incoherently uttered to be clearly understood.
"Where
is it?" he said; "where—where hidden?—Pull the house down!—Murder!
No, no, no! no murder!—I will not, I dare not. Blood enough is upon my
hands.—The money!—the money! Down, villains! down! down! down!"
What
these incoherent words alluded to specifically, Charles, of course, could not
have the least idea, but he listened attentively, with a hope that something
might fall from his lips that would afford a key to some of the mysterious
circumstances with which he was so intimately connected.
Now,
however, there was a longer silence than before, only broken occasionally by
low moans; but suddenly, as Charles was thinking of again speaking, he uttered
some more disjointed sentences.
"No
harm," he said, "no harm,—Marchdale is a villain!—Not a hair of his
head injured—no, no. Set him free—yes, I will set him free. Beware! beware,
Marchdale! and you Mortimer. The scaffold! ay, the scaffold! but where is the
bright gold? The memory of the deed of blood will not cling to it. Where is it
hidden? The gold! the gold! the gold! It is not in the grave—it cannot be
there—no, no, no!—not there, not there! Load the pistols. There, there! Down,
villain, down!—down, down!"
Despairing,
now, of obtaining anything like tangible information from these ravings, which,
even if they did, by accident, so connect themselves together as to seem to
mean something, Charles again cried aloud,—
"Varney,
awake, awake!"
But,
as before, the sleeping man was sufficiently deaf to the cry to remain, with
his eyes closed, still in a disturbed slumber, but yet a slumber which might
last for a considerable time.
"I
have heard," said Charles, "that there are many persons whom no noise
will awaken, while the slightest touch rouses them in an instant. I will try
that upon this slumbering being."
As he
spoke, he advanced close to Sir Francis Varney, and touched him slightly with
the toe of his boot.
The
effect was as startling as it was instantaneous. The vampyre sprang to his
feet, as he had been suddenly impelled up by some powerful machinery; and,
casting his cloak away from his arms, so as to have them at liberty, he sprang
upon Charles Holland, and hurled him to the ground, where he held him with a
giant's gripe, as he cried,—
"Rash
fool! be you whom you may. Why have you troubled me to rid the world of your
intrusive existence?"
The
attack was so sudden and so terrific, that resistance to it, even if Charles
had had the power, was out of the question. All he could say, was,—
"Varney,
Varney! do you not know me? I am Charles Holland. Will you now, in your mad
rage, take the life you might more easily have taken when I lay in the dungeon
from which you released me?"
The
sound of his voice at once convinced Sir Francis Varney of his identity; and it
was with a voice that had some tones of regret in it, that he replied,—
"And
wherefore have you thought proper, when you were once free and unscathed, to
cast yourself into such a position of danger as to follow me to my haunt?"
"I
contemplated no danger," said Charles, "because I contemplated no
evil. I do not know why you should kill me."
"You
came here, and yet you say you do not know why I should kill you. Young man,
have you a dozen lives that you can afford to tamper with them thus? I have, at
much chance of imminence to myself, already once saved you, when another, with
a sterner feeling, would have gladly taken your life; but now, as if you were
determined to goad me to an act which I have shunned committing, you will not
let me close my eyes in peace."
"Take
your hand from off my throat, Varney, and I will then tell you what brought me
here."
Sir
Francis Varney did so.
"Rise,"
he said—"rise; I have seen blood enough to be sickened at the prospect of
more; but you should not have come here and tempted me."
"Nay,
believe me, I came here for good and not for evil. Sir Francis Varney, hear me
out, and then judge for yourself whether you can blame the perseverance which
enabled me to find out this secret place of refuge; but let me first say that
now it is as good a place of concealment to you as before it was, for I shall
not betray you."
"Go
on, go on. What is it you desire?"
"During
the long and weary hours of my captivity, I thought deeply, and painfully too,
as may be well imagined, of all the circumstances connected with your
appearance at Bannerworth Hall, and your subsequent conduct. Then I felt
convinced that there was something far more than met the eye, in the whole
affair, and, from what I have been informed of since, I am the more convinced
that some secret, some mystery, which it is in your power only perhaps to
explain, lurks at the bottom of all your conduct."
"Well,
proceed," said Varney.
"Have
I not said enough now to enable you to divine the object of my visit? It is
that you should shake off the trammels of mystery in which you have shrouded
yourself, and declare what it is you want, what it is you desire, that has
induced you to set yourself up as such a determined foe of the Bannerworth
family."
"And
that, you say, is the modest request that brings you here?"
"You
speak as if you thought it was idle curiosity that prompts me, but you know it
is not. Your language and manner are those of a man of too much sagacity not to
see that I have higher notions."
"Name
them."
"You
have yourself, in more than one instance, behaved with a strange sort of
romantic generosity, as if, but for some great object which you felt impelled
to seek by any means, and at any sacrifice, you would be a something in
character and conduct very different from what you are. One of my objects,
then, is to awaken that better nature which is slumbering within you, only now
and then rousing itself to do some deed which should be the character of all
your actions—for your own sake I have come."
"But
not wholly?"
"Not
wholly, as you say. There is another than whom, the whole world is not so dear
to me. That other one was serene as she was beautiful. Happiness danced in her
eyes, and she ought—for not more lovely is the mind that she possesses than the
glorious form that enshrines it—to be happy. Her life should have passed like
one long summer's day of beauty, sunshine, and pure heavenly enjoyment. You
have poisoned the cup of joy that the great God of nature had permitted her to
place to her lips and taste of mistrustingly. Why have you done this? I ask
you—why have you done this?"
"Have
you said all that you came to say?"
"I
have spoken the substance of my message. Much could I elaborate upon such a
theme; but it is not one, Varney, which is congenial to my heart; for your
sake, however, and for the sakes of those whom I hold most dear, let me implore
you to act in this matter with a kindly consideration. Proclaim your motives;
you cannot say that they are not such as we may aid you in."
Varney
was silent for several moments; he seemed perceptibly moved by the manner of
the young man, as well as by the matter of his discourse. In fact, one would
suppose that Charles Holland had succeeded in investing what he said with some
sort of charm that won much upon the fancy of Sir Francis Varney, for when he
ceased to speak, the latter said in a low voice,—
"Go
on, go on; you have surely much more to say."
"No,
Varney; I have said enough, and not thus much would I have said had I not been
aware, most certainly and truly aware, without the shadow of a doubt, by your
manner, that you were most accessible to human feeling."
"I
accessible to human feeling! know you to whom you speak? Am I not he before
whom all men shudder, whose name has been a terror and a desolation; and yet
you can talk of my human feelings. Nay, if I had had any, be sure they would
have been extinguished by the persecutions I have endured from those who, you
know, with savage ferocity have sought my life."
"No,
Varney; I give you credit for being a subtler reasoner than thus to argue; you
know well that you were the aggressor to those parties who sought your life;
you know well that with the greatest imaginable pains you held yourself up to
them as a thing of great terror."
"I
did—I did."
"You
cannot, then, turn round upon ignorant persons, and blame them because your
exertions to make yourself seem what you wish were but too successful."
"You
use the word
seem
,"
said Varney, with a bitterness of aspect, "as if you would imply a doubt
that I am that which thousands, by their fears, would testify me to be."
"Thousands
might," said Charles Holland; "but not among them am I, Varney; I
will not be made the victim of superstition. Were you to enact before my very
eyes some of those feats which, to the senses of others, would stamp you as the
preternatural being you assume to be, I would doubt the evidence of my own senses
ere I permitted such a bugbear to oppress my brain."
"Go,"
said Sir Francis Varney, "go: I have no more words for you; I have nothing
to relate to you."
"Nay,
you have already listened sufficiently to me to give me a hope that I had
awakened some of the humanity that was in your nature. Do not, Sir Francis
Varney, crush that hope, even as it was budding forth; not for my own sake do I
ask you for revelations; that may, perhaps—must be painful for you; but for the
sake of Flora Bannerworth, to whom you owe abundance of reparation."
"No,
no."
"In
the name of all that is great, and good, and just, I call upon you for
justice."
"What
have I to do with such an invocation? Utter such a sentiment to men who, like
yourself, are invested with the reality as well as the outward show of human
nature."
"Nay,
Sir Francis Varney, now you belie yourself. You have passed through a long,
and, perchance, a stormy life. Can you look back upon your career, and find no
reminiscences of the past that shall convince you that you are of the great
family of man, and have had abundance of human feelings and of human
affections?"
"Peace,
peace!"
"Nay,
Sir Francis Varney, I will take your word, and if you will lay your hand upon
your heart, and tell me truly that you never felt what it was to love—to have
all feeling, all taste, and all hope of future joy, concentrated in one
individual, I will despair, and leave you. If you will tell me that never, in
your whole life, you have felt for any fair and glorious creature, as I now feel
for Flora Bannerworth, a being for whom you could have sacrificed not only
existence, but all the hopes of a glorious future that bloom around it—if you
will tell me, with the calm, dispassionate aspect of truth, that you have held
yourself aloof from such human feelings, I will no longer press you to a
disclosure which I shall bring no argument to urge."
The
agitation of Sir Francis Varney's countenance was perceptible, and Charles
Holland was about to speak again, when, striking him upon the breast with his
clinched hand, the vampyre checked him, saying—
"Do
you wish to drive me mad, that you thus, from memory's hidden cells, conjure up
images of the past?"
"Then
there are such images to conjure up—there are such shadows only sleeping, but
which require only, as you did even now, but a touch to awaken them to life and
energy. Oh, Sir Francis Varney, do not tell me that you are not human."