Varney the Vampire by Thomas Preskett Prest

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"I am unworthy of one glance from those dear eyes if it were not."

"Oh, if we could but go from here I think then we might be happy. A
strong impression is upon my mind, and has been so for some time, that
these persecutions to which I have been subjected are peculiar to this
house."

"Think you so?"

"I do, indeed!"

"It may be so, Flora. You are aware that your brother has made up his
mind that he will leave the Hall."

"Yes, yes."

"And that only in deference to an expressed wish of mine he put off the
carrying such a resolve into effect for a few days."

"He said so much."

"Do not, however, imagine, dearest Flora, that those few days will be
idly spent."

"Nay, Charles, I could not imagine so."

"Believe me, I have some hopes that in that short space of time I shall
be able to accomplish yet something which shall have a material effect
upon the present posture of affairs."

"Do not run into danger, Charles."

"I will not. Believe me, Flora, I have too much appreciation of the
value of an existence which is blessed by your love, to encounter any
needless risks."

"You say needless. Why do you not confide in me, and tell me if the
object you have in view to accomplish in the few days delay is a
dangerous one at all."

"Will you forgive me, Flora, if for once I keep a secret from you?"

"Then, Charles, along with the forgiveness I must conjure up a host of
apprehensions."

"Nay, why so?"

"You would tell me if there were no circumstances that you feared would
fill me with alarm."

"Now, Flora, your fears and not your judgment condemn me. Surely you
cannot think me so utterly heedless as to court danger for danger's
sake."

"No, not so--"

"You pause."

"And yet you have a sense of what you call honour, which, I fear, would
lead you into much risk."

"I have a sense of honour; but not that foolish one which hangs far more
upon the opinions of others than my own. If I thought a course of honour
lay before me, and all the world, in a mistaken judgment, were to
condemn it as wrong, I would follow it."

"You are right, Charles; you are right. Let me pray of you to be
careful, and, at all events, to interpose no more delay to our leaving
this house than you shall feel convinced is absolutely necessary for
some object of real and permanent importance."

Charles promised Flora Bannerworth that for her sake, as well as his
own, he would be most specially careful of his safety; and then in such
endearing conversation as may be well supposed to be dictated by such
hearts as theirs another happy hour was passed away.

[Illustration]

They pictured to themselves the scene where first they met, and with a
world of interest hanging on every word they uttered, they told each
other of the first delightful dawnings of that affection which had
sprung up between them, and which they fondly believed neither time nor
circumstance would have the power to change or subvert.

In the meantime the old admiral was surprised that Charles was so
patient, and had not been to him to demand the result of his
deliberation.

But he knew not on what rapid pinions time flies, when in the presence
of those whom we love. What was an actual hour, was but a fleeting
minute to Charles Holland, as he sat with Flora's hand clasped in his,
and looking at her sweet face.

At length a clock striking reminded him of his engagement with his
uncle, and he reluctantly rose.

"Dear Flora," he said, "I am going to sit up to watch to-night, so be
under no sort of apprehension."

"I will feel doubly safe," she said.

"I have now something to talk to my uncle about, and must leave you."

Flora smiled, and held out her hand to him. He pressed it to his heart.
He knew not what impulse came over him then, but for the first time he
kissed the cheek of the beautiful girl.

With a heightened colour she gently repulsed him. He took a long
lingering look at her as he passed out of the room, and when the door
was closed between them, the sensation he experienced was as if some
sudden cloud had swept across the face of the sun, dimming to a vast
extent its precious lustre.

A strange heaviness came across his spirits, which before had been so
unaccountably raised. He felt as if the shadow of some coming evil was
resting on his soul--as if some momentous calamity was preparing for
him, which would almost be enough to drive him to madness, and
irredeemable despair.

"What can this be," he exclaimed, "that thus oppresses me? What feeling
is this that seems to tell me, I shall never again see Flora
Bannerworth?"

Unconsciously he uttered these words, which betrayed the nature of his
worst forebodings.

"Oh, this is weakness," he then added. "I must fight out against this;
it is mere nervousness. I must not endure it, I will not suffer myself
thus to become the sport of imagination. Courage, courage, Charles
Holland. There are real evils enough, without your adding to them by
those of a disordered fancy. Courage, courage, courage."

CHAPTER XXV.

THE ADMIRAL'S OPINION.--THE REQUEST OF CHARLES.

[Illustration]

Charles then sought the admiral, whom he found with his hands behind
him, pacing to and fro in one of the long walks of the garden, evidently
in a very unsettled state of mind. When Charles appeared, he quickened
his pace, and looked in such a state of unusual perplexity that it was
quite ridiculous to observe him.

"I suppose, uncle, you have made up your mind thoroughly by this time?"

"Well, I don't know that."

"Why, you have had long enough surely to think over it. I have not
troubled you soon."

"Well, I cannot exactly say you have, but, somehow or another, I don't
think very fast, and I have an unfortunate propensity after a time of
coming exactly round to where I began."

"Then, to tell the truth, uncle, you can come to no sort of conclusion."

"Only one."

"And what may that be?"

"Why, that you are right in one thing, Charles, which is, that having
sent a challenge to this fellow of a vampyre, you must fight him."

"I suspect that that is a conclusion you had from the first, uncle?"

"Why so?"

"Because it is an obvious and a natural one. All your doubts, and
trouble, and perplexities, have been to try and find some excuse for not
entertaining that opinion, and now that you really find it in vain to
make it, I trust that you will accede as you first promised to do, and
not seek by any means to thwart me."

"I will not thwart you, my boy, although in my opinion you ought not to
fight with a vampyre."

"Never mind that. We cannot urge that as a valid excuse, so long as he
chooses to deny being one. And after all, if he be really wrongfully
suspected, you must admit that he is a very injured man."

"Injured!--nonsense. If he is not a vampyre, he's some other
out-of-the-way sort of fish, you may depend. He's the oddest-looking
fellow ever I came across in all my born days, ashore or afloat."

"Is he?"

"Yes, he is: and yet, when I come to look at the thing again in my mind,
some droll sights that I have seen come across my memory. The sea is the
place for wonders and for mysteries. Why, we see more in a day and a
night there, than you landsmen could contrive to make a whole
twelvemonth's wonder of."

"But you never saw a vampyre, uncle?"

"Well, I don't know that. I didn't know anything about vampyres till I
came here; but that was my ignorance, you know. There might have been
lots of vampyres where I've been, for all I know."

"Oh, certainly; but as regards this duel, will you wait now until
to-morrow morning, before you take any further steps in the matter?"

"Till to-morrow morning?"

"Yes, uncle."

"Why, only a little while ago, you were all eagerness to have something
done off-hand."

"Just so; but now I have a particular reason for waiting until to-morrow
morning."

"Have you? Well, as you please, boy--as you please. Have everything your
own way."

"You are very kind, uncle; and now I have another favour to ask of you."

"What is it?"

"Why, you know that Henry Bannerworth receives but a very small sum out
of the whole proceeds of the estate here, which ought, but for his
father's extravagance, to be wholly at his disposal."

"So I have heard."

"I am certain he is at present distressed for money, and I have not
much. Will you lend me fifty pounds, uncle, until my own affairs are
sufficiently arranged to enable you to pay yourself again?"

"Will I! of course I will."

"I wish to offer that sum as an accommodation to Henry. From me, I dare
say he will receive it freely, because he must be convinced how freely
it is offered; and, besides, they look upon me now almost as a member of
the family in consequence of my engagement with Flora."

"Certainly, and quite correct too: there's a fifty-pound note, my boy;
take it, and do what you like with it, and when you want any more, come
to me for it."

"I knew I could trespass thus far on your kindness, uncle."

"Trespass! It's no trespass at all."

"Well, we will not fall out about the terms in which I cannot help
expressing my gratitude to you for many favours. To-morrow, you will
arrange the duel for me."

"As you please. I don't altogether like going to that fellow's house
again."

"Well, then, we can manage, I dare say, by note."

"Very good. Do so. He puts me in mind altogether of a circumstance that
happened a good while ago, when I was at sea, and not so old a man as I
am now."

"Puts you in mind of a circumstance, uncle?"

"Yes; he's something like a fellow that figured in an affair that I know
a good deal about; only I do think as my chap was more mysterious by a
d----d sight than this one."

"Indeed!"

"Oh, dear, yes. When anything happens in an odd way at sea, it is as odd
again as anything that occurs on land, my boy, you may depend."

"Oh, you only fancy that, uncle, because you have spent so long a time
at sea."

"No, I don't imagine it, you rascal. What can you have on shore equal to
what we have at sea? Why, the sights that come before us would make you
landsmen's hairs stand up on end, and never come down again."

"In the ocean, do you mean, that you see those sights, uncle?"

"To be sure. I was once in the southern ocean, in a small frigate,
looking out for a seventy-four we were to join company with, when a man
at the mast-head sung out that he saw her on the larboard bow. Well, we
thought it was all right enough, and made away that quarter, when what
do you think it turned out to be?"

"I really cannot say."

"The head of a fish."

"A fish!"

"Yes! a d----d deal bigger than the hull of a vessel. He was swimming
along with his head just what I dare say he considered a shaving or so
out of the water."

"But where were the sails, uncle?"

"The sails?"

"Yes; your man at the mast-head must have been a poor seaman not to have
missed the sails."

"All, that's one of your shore-going ideas, now. You know nothing
whatever about it. I'll tell you where the sails were, master Charley."

"Well, I should like to know."

"The spray, then, that he dashed up with a pair of fins that were close
to his head, was in such a quantity, and so white, that they looked just
like sails."

"Oh!"

"Ah! you may say 'oh!' but we all saw him--the whole ship's crew; and we
sailed alongside of him for some time, till he got tired of us, and
suddenly dived down, making such a vortex in the water, that the ship
shook again, and seemed for about a minute as if she was inclined to
follow him to the bottom of the sea."

"And what do you suppose it was, uncle?"

"How should I know?"

"Did you ever see it again?"

"Never; though others have caught a glimpse of him now and then in the
same ocean, but never came so near him as we did, that ever I heard of,
at all events. They may have done so."

"It is singular!"

"Singular or not, it's a fool to what I can tell you. Why, I've seen
things that, if I were to set about describing them to you, you would
say I was making up a romance."

"Oh, no; it's quite impossible, uncle, any one could ever suspect you of
such a thing."

"You'd believe me, would you?"

"Of course I would."

"Then here goes. I'll just tell you now of a circumstance that I haven't
liked to mention to anybody yet."

"Indeed! why so?"

"Because I didn't want to be continually fighting people for not
believing it; but here you have it:--"

We were outward bound; a good ship, a good captain, and good messmates,
you know, go far towards making a prosperous voyage a pleasant and happy
one, and on this occasion we had every reasonable prospect of all.

Our hands were all tried men--they had been sailors from infancy; none
of your French craft, that serve an apprenticeship and then become land
lubbers again. Oh, no, they were stanch and true, and loved the ocean as
the sluggard loves his bed, or the lover his mistress.

Ay, and for the matter of that, the love was a more enduring and a more
healthy love, for it increased with years, and made men love one
another, and they would stand by each other while they had a limb to
lift--while they were able to chew a quid or wink an eye, leave alone
wag a pigtail.

We were outward bound for Ceylon, with cargo, and were to bring spices
and other matters home from the Indian market. The ship was new and
good--a pretty craft; she sat like a duck upon the water, and a stiff
breeze carried her along the surface of the waves without your rocking,
and pitching, and tossing, like an old wash-tub at a mill-tail, as I
have had the misfortune to sail in more than once afore.

No, no, we were well laden, and well pleased, and weighed anchor with
light hearts and a hearty cheer.

Away we went down the river, and soon rounded the North Foreland, and
stood out in the Channel. The breeze was a steady and stiff one, and
carried us through the water as though it had been made for us.

"Jack," said I to a messmate of mine, as he stood looking at the skies,
then at the sails, and finally at the water, with a graver air than I
thought was at all consistent with the occasion or circumstances.

"Well," he replied.

"What ails you? You seem as melancholy as if we were about to cast lots
who should be eaten first. Are you well enough?"

"I am hearty enough, thank Heaven," he said, "but I don't like this
breeze."

"Don't like the breeze!" said I; "why, mate, it is as good and kind a
breeze as ever filled a sail. What would you have, a gale?"

"No, no; I fear that."

"With such a ship, and such a set of hearty able seamen, I think we
could manage to weather out the stiffest gale that ever whistled through
a yard."

"That may be; I hope it is, and I really believe and think so."

"Then what makes you so infernally mopish and melancholy?"

"I don't know, but can't help it. It seems to me as though there was
something hanging over us, and I can't tell what."

"Yes, there are the colours, Jack, at the masthead; they are flying over
us with a hearty breeze."

"Ah! ah!" said Jack, looking up at the colours, and then went away
without saying anything more, for he had some piece of duty to perform.

I thought my messmate had something on his mind that caused him to feel
sad and uncomfortable, and I took no more notice of it; indeed, in the
course of a day or two he was as merry as any of the rest, and had no
more melancholy that I could perceive, but was as comfortable as
anybody.

We had a gale off the coast of Biscay, and rode it out without the loss
of a spar or a yard; indeed, without the slightest accident or rent of
any kind.

"Now, Jack, what do you think of our vessel?" said I.

"She's like a duck upon water, rises and falls with the waves, and
doesn't tumble up and down like a hoop over stones."

"No, no; she goes smoothly and sweetly; she is a gallant craft, and this
is her first voyage, and I predict a prosperous one."

"I hope so," he said.

Well, we went on prosperously enough for about three weeks; the ocean
was as calm and as smooth as a meadow, the breeze light but good, and we
stemmed along majestically over the deep blue waters, and passed coast
after coast, though all around was nothing but the apparently pathless
main in sight.

"A better sailer I never stepped into," said the captain one day; "it
would be a pleasure to live and die in such a vessel."

Well, as I said, we had been three weeks or thereabouts, when one
morning, after the sun was up and the decks washed, we saw a strange man
sitting on one of the water-casks that were on deck, for, being full, we
were compelled to stow some of them on deck.

You may guess those on deck did a little more than stare at this strange
and unexpected apparition. By jingo, I never saw men open their eyes
wider in all my life, nor was I any exception to the rule. I stared, as
well I might; but we said nothing for some minutes, and the stranger
looked calmly on us, and then cocked his eye with a nautical air up at
the sky, as if he expected to receive a twopenny-post letter from St.
Michael, or a _billet doux_ from the Virgin Mary.

"Where has he come from?" said one of the men in a low tone to his
companion, who was standing by him at that moment.

"How can I tell?" replied his companion. "He may have dropped from the
clouds; he seems to be examining the road; perhaps he is going back."

The stranger sat all this time with the most extreme and provoking
coolness and unconcern; he deigned us but a passing notice, but it was
very slight.

He was a tall, spare man--what is termed long and lathy--but he was
evidently a powerful man. He had a broad chest, and long, sinewy arms, a
hooked nose, and a black, eagle eye. His hair was curly, but frosted by
age; it seemed as though it had been tinged with white at the
extremities, but he was hale and active otherwise, to judge from
appearances.

Notwithstanding all this, there was a singular repulsiveness about him
that I could not imagine the cause, or describe; at the same time there
was an air of determination in his wild and singular-looking eyes, and
over their whole there was decidedly an air and an appearance so
sinister as to be positively disagreeable.

"Well," said I, after we had stood some minutes, "where did you come
from, shipmate?"

He looked at me and then up at the sky, in a knowing manner.

"Come, come, that won't do; you have none of Peter Wilkins's wings, and
couldn't come on the aerial dodge; it won't do; how did you get here?"

He gave me an awful wink, and made a sort of involuntary movement, which
jumped him up a few inches, and he bumped down again on the water-cask.

"That's as much as to say," thought I, "that he's sat himself on it."

"I'll go and inform the captain," said I, "of this affair; he'll hardly
believe me when I tell him, I am sure."

So saying, I left the deck and went to the cabin, where the captain was
at breakfast, and related to him what I had seen respecting the
stranger. The captain looked at me with an air of disbelief, and said,--

"What?--do you mean to say there's a man on board we haven't seen
before?"

"Yes, I do, captain. I never saw him afore, and he's sitting beating his
heels on the water-cask on deck."

"The devil!"

"He is, I assure you, sir; and he won't answer any questions."

"I'll see to that. I'll see if I can't make the lubber say something,
providing his tongue's not cut out. But how came he on board? Confound
it, he can't be the devil, and dropped from the moon."

"Don't know, captain," said I. "He is evil-looking enough, to my mind,
to be the father of evil, but it's ill bespeaking attentions from that
quarter at any time."

"Go on, lad; I'll come up after you."

I left the cabin, and I heard the captain coming after me. When I got on
deck, I saw he had not moved from the place where I left him. There was
a general commotion among the crew when they beard of the occurrence,
and all crowded round him, save the man at the wheel, who had to remain
at his post.

The captain now came forward, and the men fell a little back as he
approached. For a moment the captain stood silent, attentively examining
the stranger, who was excessively cool, and stood the scrutiny with the
same unconcern that he would had the captain been looking at his watch.

"Well, my man," said the captain, "how did you come here?"

"I'm part of the cargo," he said, with an indescribable leer.

"Part of the cargo be d----d!" said the captain, in sudden rage, for he
thought the stranger was coming his jokes too strong. "I know you are
not in the bills of lading."

"I'm contraband," replied the stranger; "and my uncle's the great chain
of Tartary."

The captain stared, as well he might, and did not speak for some
minutes; all the while the stranger kept kicking his heels against the
water-casks and squinting up at the skies; it made us feel very queer.

"Well, I must confess you are not in the regular way of trading."

"Oh, no," said the stranger; "I am contraband--entirely contraband."

"And how did you come on board?"

At this question the stranger again looked curiously up at the skies,
and continued to do so for more than a minute; he then turned his gaze
upon the captain.

"No, no," said the captain; "eloquent dumb show won't do with me; you
didn't come, like Mother Shipton, upon a birch broom. How did you come
on board my vessel?"

"I walked on board," said the stranger.

"You walked on board; and where did you conceal yourself?"

"Below."

"Very good; and why didn't you stay below altogether?"

"Because I wanted fresh air. I'm in a delicate state of health, you see;
it doesn't do to stay in a confined place too long."

"Confound the binnacle!" said the captain; it was his usual oath when
anything bothered him, and he could not make it out. "Confound the
binnacle!--what a delicate-looking animal you are. I wish you had stayed
where you were; your delicacy would have been all the same to me.
Delicate, indeed!"

"Yes, very," said the stranger, coolly.

There was something so comic in the assertion of his delicateness of
health, that we should all have laughed; but we were somewhat scared,
and had not the inclination.

"How have you lived since you came on board?" inquired the captain.

"Very indifferently."

"But how? What have you eaten? and what have you drank?"

"Nothing, I assure you. All I did while was below was--"

"What?"

"Why, I sucked my thumbs like a polar bear in its winter quarters."

And as he spoke the stranger put his two thumbs into his mouth, and
extraordinary thumbs they were, too, for each would have filled an
ordinary man's mouth.

"These," said the stranger, pulling them out, and gazing at them
wistfully, and with a deep sigh he continued,--

"These were thumbs at one time; but they are nothing now to what they
were."

"Confound the binnacle!" muttered the captain to himself, and then he
added, aloud,--

"It's cheap living, however; but where are you going to, and why did you
come aboard?"

"I wanted a cheap cruise, and I am going there and back."

"Why, that's where we are going," said the captain.

"Then we are brothers," exclaimed the stranger, hopping off the
water-cask like a kangaroo, and bounding towards the captain, holding
out his hand as though he would have shaken hands with him.

"No, no," said the captain; "I can't do it."

"Can't do it!" exclaimed the stranger, angrily. "What do you mean?"

"That I can't have anything to do with contraband articles; I am a fair
trader, and do all above board. I haven't a chaplain on board, or he
should offer up prayers for your preservation, and the recovery of your
health, which seems so delicate."

"That be--"

The stranger didn't finish the sentence; he merely screwed his mouth up
into an incomprehensible shape, and puffed out a lot of breath, with
some force, and which sounded very much like a whistle: but, oh, what
thick breath he had, it was as much like smoke as anything I ever saw,
and so my shipmate said.

"I say, captain," said the stranger, as he saw him pacing the deck.

"Well."

"Just send me up some beef and biscuit, and some coffee royal--be sure
it's royal, do you hear, because I'm partial to brandy, it's the only
good thing there is on earth."

I shall not easily forget the captain's look as he turned towards the
stranger, and gave his huge shoulders a shrug, as much as to say,--

"Well, I can't help it now; he's here, and I can't throw him overboard."

The coffee, beef, and biscuit were sent him, and the stranger seemed to
eat them with great _gout_, and drank the coffee with much relish, and
returned the things, saying,

"Your captain is an excellent cook; give him my compliments."

I thought the captain would think that was but a left-handed compliment,
and look more angry than pleased, but no notice was taken of it.

It was strange, but this man had impressed upon all in the vessel some
singular notion of his being more than he should be--more than a mere
mortal, and not one endeavoured to interfere with him; the captain was a
stout and dare-devil a fellow as you would well met with, yet he seemed
tacitly to acknowledge more than he would say, for he never after took
any further notice of the stranger nor he of him.