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 has 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 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 to know that He had been taking the life out of her."
I could feel that the rest quivered, as I did. But we remained otherwise still. "So when He came tonight I was ready for Him.
I saw the mist stealing in, and I grabbed it tight. I had heard that madmen have unnatural strength. And as I knew I was a madman, at times anyhow, I resolved to use my power. Ay, and He felt it too, for He had to come out of the mist to struggle with me.
I held tight, and I thought I was going to win, for I didn't mean Him to take any more of her life, till I saw His eyes.
They burned into me, and my strength became like water.
He slipped through it, and when I tried to cling to Him, He raised me up and flung me down. There was a red cloud before me, and a noise like thunder, and the mist seemed to steal away under the door."
His voice was becoming fainter and his breath more stertorous.
Van Helsing stood up instinctively.
"We know the worst now," he said. "He is here, and we know his purpose.
It may not be too late. Let us be armed, the same as we were the other night, but lose no time, there is not an instant to spare."
There was no need to put our fear, nay our conviction, into words, we shared them in common. We all hurried and took from our rooms the same things that we had when we entered the Count's house.
The Professor had his ready, and as we met in the corridor he pointed to them significantly as he said, "They never leave me, and they shall not till this unhappy business is over.
Be wise also, my friends. It is no common enemy that we deal with Alas! Alas! That dear Madam Mina should suffer!"
He stopped, his voice was breaking, and I do not know if rage or terror predominated in my own heart.
Outside the Harkers' door we paused. Art and Quincey held back, and the latter said, "Should we disturb her?"
"We must," said Van Helsing grimly. "If the door be locked, I shall break it in."
"May it not frighten her terribly? It is unusual to break into a lady's room!"
Van Helsing said solemnly, "You are always right.
But this is life and death. All chambers are alike to the doctor.
And even were they not they are all as one to me tonight.
Friend John, when I turn the handle, if the door does not open, do you put your shoulder down and shove. And you too, my friends. Now!"
He turned the handle as he spoke, but the door did not yield.
We threw ourselves against it. With a crash it burst open, and we almost fell headlong into the room. The Professor did actually fall, and I saw across him as he gathered himself up from hands and knees. What I saw appalled me.
I felt my hair rise like bristles on the back of my neck, and my heart seemed to stand still.
The moonlight was so bright that through the thick yellow blind the room was light enough to see. On the bed beside the window lay Jonathan Harker, his face flushed and breathing heavily as though in a stupor.
Kneeling on the near edge of the bed facing outwards was the white-clad figure of his wife. By her side stood a tall, thin man, clad in black.
His face was turned from us, but the instant we saw we all recognized the Count, in every way, even to the scar on his forehead.
With his left hand he held both Mrs. Harker's hands, keeping them away with her arms at full tension. His right hand gripped her by the back of the neck, forcing her face down on his bosom.
Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man's bare chest which was shown by his torn-open dress.
The attitude of the two had a terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kitten's nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink.
As we burst into the room, the Count turned his face, and the hellish look that I had heard described seemed to leap into it.
His eyes flamed red with devilish passion. The great nostrils of the white aquiline nose opened wide and quivered at the edge, and the white sharp teeth, behind the full lips of the blood dripping mouth, clamped together like those of a wild beast.
With a wrench, which threw his victim back upon the bed as though hurled from a height, he turned and sprang at us.
But by this time the Professor had gained his feet, and was holding towards him the envelope which contained the Sacred Wafer.
The Count suddenly stopped, just as poor Lucy had done outside the tomb, and cowered back. Further and further back he cowered, as we, lifting our crucifixes, advanced. The moonlight suddenly failed, as a great black cloud sailed across the sky. And when the gaslight sprang up under Quincey's match, we saw nothing but a faint vapor.
This, as we looked, trailed under the door, which with the recoil from its bursting open, had swung back to its old position.
Van Helsing, Art, and I moved forward to Mrs. Harker, who by this time had drawn her breath and with it had given a scream so wild, so ear-piercing, so despairing that it seems to me now that it will ring in my ears till my dying day.
For a few seconds she lay in her helpless attitude and disarray.
Her face was ghastly, with a pallor which was accentuated by the blood which smeared her lips and cheeks and chin. From her throat trickled a thin stream of blood. Her eyes were mad with terror.