Dracula. Bram Stoker
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us, as though they were following in a moving circle.
At last there came a time when the driver went further afield
than he had yet gone, and during his absence, the horses began
to tremble worse than ever and to snort and scream with fright.
I could not see any cause for it, for the howling of the wolves
had ceased altogether; but just then the moon, sailing through
the black clouds, appeared behind the jagged crest of a beet-
ling, pine-clad rock, and by its light I saw around us a ring of
wolves, with white teeth and lolling red tongues, with long,
sinewy limbs and shaggy hair. They were a hundred times more
terrible in the grim silence which held them than even when they
howled. For myself, I felt a sort of paralysis of fear. It is only
when a man feels himself face to face with such horrors that he
can understand their true import.
All at once the wolves began to howl as though the moonlight
had had some peculiar effect on them. The horses jumped about
and reared, and looked helplessly round with eyes that rolled in
a way painful to see; but the living ring of terror encompassed
them on every side; and they had perforce to remain within it.
I called to the coachman to come, for it seemed to me that our
only chance was to try to break out through the ring and to aid
his approach. I shouted and beat the side of the caleche, hoping
by the noise to scare the wolves from that side, so as to give him
a chance of reaching the trap. How he came there, I know not,
but I heard his voice raised in a tone of imperious command,
and looking towards the sound, saw him stand hi the roadway.
As he swept his long arms, as though brushing aside some im-
palpable obstacle, the wolves fell back and back further still. Just
then a heavy cloud passed across the face of the moon, so that
we were again hi darkness.
When I could see again the driver was climbing into the
caleche, and the wolves had disappeared. This was all so strange
and uncanny that a dreadful fear came upon me, and I was
Jonathan Marker’s Journal 13
afraid to speak or move. The time seemed interminable as we
swept on our way, now in almost complete darkness, for the roll-
ing clouds obscured the moon. We kept on ascending, with oc-
casional periods of quick descent, but in the main always
ascending. Suddenly, I became conscious of the fact that the
driver was in the act of pulling up the horses in the courtyard of
a vast ruined castle, from whose tall black windows came no ray
of light, and whose broken battlements showed a jagged line
against the moonlit sky.
CHAPTER II
JONATHAN BARKER’S JOURNAL continued
5 May. I must have been asleep, for certainly if I had been
fully awake I must have noticed the approach of such a remark-
able place. In the gloom the courtyard looked of considerable
size, and as several dark ways led from it under great round
arches, it perhaps seemed bigger than it really is. I have not yet
been able to see it by daylight.
When the caleche stopped, the driver jumped down and held
out his hand to assist me to alight. Again I could not but notice
his prodigious strength. His hand actually seemed like a steel
vice that could have crushed mine if he had chosen. Then he
took out my traps, and placed them on the ground beside me as
I stood close to a great door, old and studded with large iron
nails, and set in a projecting doorway of massive stone. I could
see even in the dim light that the stone was massively carved,
but that the carving had been much worn by time and weather.
As I stood, the driver jumped again into his seat ’and shook the
reins; the horses started forward, and trap and all disappeared
.down one of the dark openings.
I stood in silence where I was, fc~ I did not know what to do.
Of bell or knocker there was no sign; through these frowning
walls and dark window openings it was not likely that my voice
could penetrate. The time I waited seemed endless, and I felt
doubts and fears crowding upon me. What sort of place had I
come to, and among what kind of people? What sort of grim ad-
venture was it on which I had embarked? Was this a customary
incident in the life of a solicitor’s clerk sent out to explain the
purchase of a London estate to a foreigner? Solicitor’s clerk!
Mina would not like that. Solicitor for just before leaving Lon-
don I got word that my examination was successful; and I am
now a full-blown solicitor! I began to rub my eyes and pinch
myself to see if I were awake. It all seemed like a horrible night-
mare to me, and I expected that I should suddenly awake, and
14
Jonathan Marker’s Journal 15
find myself at home, with the dawn struggling in through the
windows, as I had now and again felt in the morning after
a day of overwork. But my flesh answered the pinching test,
and my eyes were not to be deceived. I was indeed awake and
among the Carpathians. All I could do now was to be patient,
and to wait the coming of the morning.
Just as I had come to this conclusion I heard a heavy step
approaching behind the great door, and saw through the chinks
the gleam of a coming light. Then there was the sound of rattling
chains and the clanking of massive bolts drawn back. A key was
turned with the loud grating noise of long disuse, and the great
door swung back.
Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white
moustache, and clad in black from head to. oot, without a single
speck of colour about him anywhere. He ’held in his hand an
antique silver lamp, in which