Dracula. Bram Stoker
God help me!
How am I to account for all these horrors when I get to port?
When I get to port! Will that ever be?
4 August. Still fog, which the sunrise cannot pierce. I know
there is sunrise because I am a sailor, why else I know not. I
dared not go below, I dared not leave the helm; so here all night
I stayed, and in the dimness of the night I saw It Him! God
forgive me, but the mate was right to jump overboard. It was
better to die like a man; to die like a sailor in blue water no man
can object. But I am captain, and I must not leave my ship. But
I shall baffle this fiend or monster, for I shall tie my hands to
the wheel when my strength begins to fail, and along with them
I shall tie that which He It! dare not touch; and then, come
good wind or foul, I shall save my soul, and my honour as a
captain. I am growing weaker, and the night is coming on. If He
can look me in the face again, I may not have time to act…, If
Cutting from «The Dailygraph» 81
we are wrecked, mayhap this bottle may be found, and those
who find it may understand; if not, … well, then all men shall
know that I have been true to my trust. God and the Blessed
Virgin and the saints help a poor ignorant soul trying to do his
duty….
Of course the verdict was an open one. There is no evidence to
adduce; and whether or not the man himself committed the
murders there is now none to say. The folk here hold almost
universally that the captain is simply a hero, and he is to be given
a public funeral. Already it is arranged that his body is to be
taken with a train of boats up the Esk for a piece and then
brought back to Tate Hill Pier and up the abbey steps; for he is
to be buried in the churchyard on the cliff. The owners of more
than a hundred boats have already given in their names as wish-
ing to follow him to the grave.
No trace has ever been found of the great dog; at which there
is much mourning, for, with public opinion in its present state,
he would, I believe, be adopted by the town. To-morrow will see
the funeral; and so will end this one more «mystery of the sea.»
Mina Murray’s Journal.
8 August. Lucy was very restless all night, and I, too, could
not sleep. The storm was fearful, and as it boomed loudly among
the chimney-pots, it made me shudder. When a sharp puff came
it seemed to be like a distant gun. Strangely enough, Lucy did
not wake; but she got up twice and dressed herself. Fortunately,
each time I awoke in time and managed to undress her without
waking her, and got her back to bed. It is a very strange thing, this
sleep-walking, for as soon as her will is thwarted in any physical
way, her intention, if there be any, disappears, and she yields
herself almost exactly to the routine of her life.
Early in the morning we both got up and went down to the
harbour to see if anything had happened in the night. There
were very few people about, and though the sun was bright, and
the air clear and fresh, the big, grim-looking waves, that seemed
dark themselves because the foam that topped them was like
snow, forced themselves in through the narrow mouth of the
harbour like a bullying man going through a crowd. Somehow
I felt glad that Jonathan was not on the sea last night, but on
land. But, oh, is he on land or sea? Where is he, and how? I am
getting fearfully anxious about him. If I only knew what to do,
aad could do anything!
82 Dracula
10 August. The funeral of the poor sea-captain to-day was
most touching. Every boat in the harbour seeme’oV to be there,
and the coffin was carried by captains all the way from’TTate Hill
Pier up to the churchyard. Lucy came with me, and we went
early to our old seat, whilst the cortege of boats went up the river
to the Viaduct and came down again. We had a lovely view, and
saw the procession nearly all the way. The poor fellow was laid
to rest quite near our seat so that we stood on it when the time
came and saw everything. Poor Lucy seemed much upset. She
was restless and uneasy all the time, and I cannot but think that
her dreaming at night is telling on her. She is quite odd in one
thing: she will not admit to me that there is any cause for rest-
lessness; or if there be, she does not understand it herself. There
is an additional cause in that poor old Mr. Swales was found
dead this morning on our seat, his neck being broken. He had
evidently, as the doctor said, fallen back in the seat in some sort
of fright, for there was a look of fear and horror on his face that
the men said made them shudder. Poor dear old man! Perhaps
he had seen Death with his dying eyes! Lucy is so sweet and
sensitive that she feels influences more acutely than other people
d’o». Just now she was quite upset by a little thing which I did not
’much heed, though I am myself very fond of animals. One of the
men who came up here often to look for the boats was followed
by his dog. The dog is always with him. They are both quiet
persons, and I never saw the man angry, nor heard the dog bark.
During the service the dog would not come to its master, who
was on the seat with us, but kept a few yards off, barking and
howling. Its master spoke to it gently, and then harshly, and then
angrily; but it would neither come nor cease to make a noise. It
was in a sort of fury, with its eyes savage, and all its hairs bris-
tling out like a cat’s tail when puss is on the war-path. Finally
the man, too, got angry, and jumped down and kicked the dog,
and then took it by the scruff of the neck and half dragged and
half threw it on the tombstone on which the seat is fixed. The
moment it touched the stone the poor thing became quiet and
fell