The Penny Dreadfuls MEGAPACK™ (173 page)

“‘Yes,’ he said; ‘I see nothing to prevent it. Not one soul has offered to claim even common companionship with him—far less kindred. I think if you put in your claim as a cousin, who will bear the expense of his decent burial, you will have every chance of getting possession of the body.’

“I did not hesitate, but, on the morning before the execution, I called upon one of the sheriffs.

“I told him that the condemned man, I regretted to say, was related to me; but as I knew nothing could be done to save him on the trial, I had abstained from coming forward; but that as I did not like the idea of his being rudely interred by the authorities, I had come forward to ask for the body, after the execution should have taken place, in order that I might, at all events, bestow upon it, in some sequestered spot, a decent burial, with all the rites of the church.

“The sheriff was a man not overburthened with penetration. He applauded my pious feelings, and actually gave me, without any inquiry, a written order to receive the body from the hands of the hangman, after it had hung the hour prescribed by the law.

“I did not, as you may well suppose, wish to appear more in the business than was absolutely necessary; but I gave the executioner the sheriff’s order for the body, and he promised that he would get a shell ready to place it in, and four stout men to carry it at once to his house, when he should cut it down.

“‘Good!’ I said; ‘and now as I am not a little anxious for the success of my experiment, do you not think that you can manage so that the fall of the criminal shall not be so sudden as to break his neck?’

“‘I have thought of that,’ he said, ‘and I believe that I can manage to let him down gently, so that he shall die of suffocation, instead of having his neck put out of joint. I will do my best.”

“‘If you can but succeed in that,’ said I, for I was quite in a state of mania upon the subject, ‘I shall be much indebted to you, and will double the amount of money which I have already promised.’

“This was, as I believed it would be, a powerful stimulus to him to do all in his power to meet my wishes, and he took, no doubt, active measures to accomplish all that I desired.

“You can imagine with what intense impatience I waited the result. He resided in an old ruinous looking house, a short distance on the Surrey side of the river, and there I had arranged all my apparatus for making experiments upon the dead man, in an apartment the windows of which commanded a view of the entrance.”

“I was completely ready by half-past eight, although a moment’s consideration of course told me that at least another hour must elapse before there could be the least chance of my seeing him arrive, for whom I so anxiously longed.

“I can safely say so infatuated was I upon the subject, that no fond lover ever looked with more nervous anxiety for the arrival of the chosen object of his heart, than I did for that dead body, upon which I proposed to exert all the influences of professional skill, to recall back the soul to its earthly dwelling-place.

“At length I heard the sound of wheels. I found that my friend the hangman had procured a cart, in which he brought the coffin, that being a much quicker mode of conveyance than by bearers so that about a quarter past nine o’clock the vehicle, with its ghastly content, stopped at the door of his house.

“In my impatience I ran down stairs to meet that which ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have gone some distance to avoid the sight of, namely, a corpse, livid and fresh from the gallows. I, however, heralded it as a great gift, and already, in imagination I saw myself imitating the learned Frenchman, who had published such an elaborate treatise on the mode of restoring life under all sorts of circumstances, to those who were already pronounced by unscientific persons to be dead.

“To be sure, a sort of feeling had come over me at times, knowing as I did that the French are a nation that do not scruple at all to sacrifice truth on the altar of vanity, that it might be after all a mere rhodomontade; but, however, I could only ascertain so much by actually trying, so the suspicion that such might, by a possibility, be the end of the adventure, did not deter me.

“I officiously assisted in having the coffin brought into the room where I had prepared everything that was necessary in the conduction of my grand experiment; and then, when no one was there with me but my friend the executioner, I, with his help, the one of us taking the head and the other the feet, took the body from the coffin and laid it upon a table.

“Hastily I placed my hand upon the region of the heart, and to my great delight I found it still warm. I drew off the cap that covered the face, and then, for the first time, my eyes rested upon the countenance of him who now calls himself—Heaven only knows why—Sir Francis Varney.”

“Good God!” said Henry, “are you certain?”

“Quite.”

“It may have been some other rascal like him,” said the admiral.

“No, I am quite sure now; I have, as I have before mentioned to you, tried to get out of my own conviction upon the subject, but I have been actually assured that he is the man by the very hangman himself.”

“Go on, go on! Your tale certainly is a strange one, and I do not say it either to compliment you or to cast a doubt upon you, but, except from the lips of an old, and valued friend, such as you yourself are, I should not believe it.’

“I am not surprised to hear you say that,” replied the doctor; “nor should I be offended even now if you were to entertain a belief that I might, after all, be mistaken.”

“No, no; you would not be so positive upon the subject, I well know, if there was the slightest possibility of an error.”

“Indeed I should not.”

“Let us have the sequel, then.”

“It is this. I was most anxious to effect an immediate resuscitation, if it were possible, of the hanged man. A little manipulation soon convinced me that the neck was not broken, which left me at once every thing to hope for. The hangman was more prudent than I was, and before I commenced my experiments, he said—

“‘Doctor, have you duly considered what you mean to do with this fellow, in case you should be successful in restoring him to life?’

“‘Not I,’ said I.

“‘Well,’ he said, ‘you can do as you like; but I consider that it is really worth thinking of.’

“I was headstrong on the matter, and could think of nothing but the success or the non-success, in a physiological point of view, of my plan for restoring the dead to life; so I set about my experiments without any delay, and with a completeness and a vigour that promised the most completely successful results, if success could at all be an ingredient in what sober judgment would doubtless have denominated a mad-headed and wild scheme.

“For more than half an hour I tried in vain, by the assistance of the hangman, who acted under my directions. Not the least symptom of vitality presented itself; and he had a smile upon his countenance, as he said in a bantering tone—

“‘I am afraid, sir, it is much easier to kill than to restore their patients with doctors.’

“Before I could make him any reply, for I felt that his observation had a good amount of truth in it, joined to its sarcasm the hanged man uttered a loud scream, and opened his eyes.

“I must own I was myself rather startled; but I for some moments longer continued the same means which had produced such an effect, when suddenly he sprang up and laid hold of me, at the same time exclaiming—

“‘Death, death, where is the treasure?’

“I had fully succeeded—too fully; and while the executioner looked on with horror depicted in his countenance, I fled from the room and the house, taking my way home as fast as I possibly could.

“A dread came over me, that the restored man would follow me if he should find out, to whom it was he was indebted for the rather questionable boon of a new life. I packed up what articles I set the greatest store by, bade adieu to London, and never have I since set foot within that city.”

“And you never met the man you had so resuscitated?”

“Not till I saw Varney, the vampire; and, as I tell you, I am now certain that he is the man.”

“That is the strangest yarn that ever I heard,” said the admiral.

“A most singular circumstance,” said Henry.

“You may have noticed about his countenance,” said Dr. Chillingworth, “a strange distorted look?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Well, that has arisen from a spasmodic contraction of the muscles, in consequence of his having been hanged. He will never lose it, and it has not a little contributed to give him the horrible look he has, and to invest him with some of the seeming outward attributes of the vampire.”

“And that man who is now in the hall with him, doctor,” said Henry, “is the very hangman who executed him?”

“The same. He tells me that after I left, he paid attention to the restored man, and completed what I had nearly done. He kept him in his house for a time, and then made a bargain with him, for a large sum of money per annum, all of which he has regularly been paid, although he tells me he has no more idea where Varney gets it, than the man in the moon.”

“It is very strange; but, hark! do you not hear the sound of voices in angry altercation?”

“Yes, yes, they have met. Let us approach the windows now. We may chance to hear something of what they say to each other.”

CHAPTER LXXVIII.

THE ALTERCATION BETWEEN VARNEY AND THE EXECUTI
ONER IN THE HALL.—THE MUTUAL AGREEMENT.

There was certainly a loud wrangling in the Hall, just as the doctor finished his most remarkable revelation concerning Sir Francis Varney, a revelation which by no means attacked the fact of his being a vampire or not; but rather on the contrary, had a tendency to confirm any opinion that might arise from the circumstance of his being restored to life after his execution, favourable to that belief.

They all three now carefully approached the windows of the Hall, to listen to what was going on, and after a few moments they distinctly heard the voice of the hangman, saying in loud and rather angry accents—

“I do not deny but that you have kept your word with me—our bargain has been, as you say, a profitable one: but, still I cannot see why that circumstance should give you any sort of control over my actions.”

“But what do you here?” said Varney, impatiently.

“What do you?” cried the other.

“Nay, to ask another question, is not to answer mine. I tell you that I have special and most important business in this house; you can have no motive but curiosity.”

“Can I not, indeed? What, too, if I have serious and important business here?”

“Impossible.”

“Well, I may as easily use such a term as regards what you call important business, but here I shall remain.”

“Here you shall not remain.”

“And will you make the somewhat hazardous attempt to force me to leave?”

“Yes, much as I dislike lifting my hand against you, I must do so; I tell you that I must be alone in this house. I have most special reasons—reasons which concern my continued existence.

“Your continued existence you talk of.—Tell me, now, how is it that you have acquired so frightful a reputation in this neighbourhood? Go where I will, the theme of conversation is Varney, the vampire! and it is implicitly believed that you are one of those dreadful characters that feed upon the life-blood of others, only now and then revisiting the tomb to which you ought long since to have gone in peace.”

“Indeed!”

“Yes; what, in the name of all that’s inexplicable, has induced you to enact such a character?”

“Enact it! you say. Can you, then, from all you have heard of me, and from all you know of me, not conceive it possible that I am not enacting any such character? Why may it not be real? Look at me. Do I look like one of the inhabitants of the earth?”

“In sooth, you do not.”

“And yet I am, as you see, upon it. Do not, with an affected philosophy, doubt all that may happen to be in any degree repugnant to your usual experiences.”

“I am not one disposed to do so; nor am I prepared to deny that such dreadful beings may exist as vampires. However, whether or not you belong to so frightful a class of creatures, I do not intend to leave here; but, I will make an agreement with you.”

Varney was silent; and after a few moments’ pause, the other exclaimed—

“There are people, even now, watching the place, and no doubt you have been seen coming into it.”

“No, no, I was satisfied no one was here but you.”

“Then you are wrong. A Doctor Chillingworth, of whom you know something, is here; and him, you have said, you would do no harm to, even to save your life.”

“I do know him. You told me that it was to him that I was mainly indebted for my mere existence; and although I do not consider human life to be a great boon, I cannot bring myself to raise my hand against the man who, whatever might have been the motives for the deed, at all events, did snatch me from the grave.”

“Upon my word,” whispered the admiral, “there is something about that fellow that I like, after all.”

“Hush!” said Henry, “listen to them. This would all have been unintelligible to us, if you had not related to us what you have.”

“I have just told you in time,” said Chillingworth, “it seems.”

“Will you, then,” said the hangman, “listen to proposals?”

“Yes,” said Varney.

“Come along, then, and I will show you what I have been about; and I rather think you have already a shrewd guess as to my motive. This way—this way.”

They moved off to some other part of the mansion, and the sound of their voices gradually died away, so that after all, the friends had not got the least idea of what that motive was, which still induced the vampire and the hangman, rather than leave the other on the premises, to make an agreement to stay with each other.

“What’s to be done now?” said Henry.

“Wait,” said Dr. Chillingworth, “wait, and watch still. I see nothing else that can be done with any degree of safety.”

“But what are we to wait for?” said the admiral.

“By waiting, we shall, perhaps, find out,” was the doctor’s reply; “but you may depend that we never shall by interfering.”