The Penny Dreadfuls MEGAPACK™

by Oscar Wilde

  “It is; but hasten the search.”

  “Well, I must; though, to confess the truth, I’d sooner handle anything than this.”

  “It is not the most pleasant thing in the world, for there is no knowing what may be the result—what creeping thing has made a home of it.”

  “Don’t mention anything about it.”

  Henry and Charles Holland now began to search the pockets of the clothes of the dead body, in one of which was something hard, that felt like a parcel.

  “What have you got there?” said Chillingworth, as he held his lantern up so that the light fell upon the ghastly object that they were handling.

  “I think it is the prize,” said Charles Holland; “but we have not got it out yet, though I dare say it won’t be long first, if this wind will but hold good for about five minutes, and keep the stench down.”

  They now tore open the packet and pulled out the papers, which appeared to have been secreted upon his person.

  “Be sure there are none on any other part of the body,” said Chillingworth, “because what you do now, you had better do well, and leave nothing to after thought, because it is frequently impracticable.”

  “The advice is good,” said Henry, who made a second search, but found nothing.

  “We had better re-bury him,” said the doctor; “it had better be done cleanly. Well, it is a sad hole for a last resting-place, and yet I do not know that it matters—it is all a matter of taste—the fashion of the class, or the particular custom of the country.”

  There was but little to be said against such an argument, though the custom of the age had caused them to look upon it more as a matter of feeling than in such a philosophical sense as that in which the doctor had put it.

  “Well, there he is now—shovel the earth in, Charles,” said Henry Bannerworth, as he himself set the example, which was speedily and vigorously followed by Charles Holland, when they were not long before the earth was thrown in and covered up with care, and trodden down so that it should not appear to be moved.

  “This will do, I think,” said Henry.

  “Yes; it is not quite the same, but I dare say no one will try to make any discoveries in this place; besides, if the rain continues to come down very heavy, why, it will wash much of it away, and it will make it look all alike.”

  There was little inducement to hover about the spot, but Henry could not forbear holding up the papers to the light of the lantern to ascertain what they were.

  “Are they all right?” inquired the doctor.

  “Yes,” replied Henry, “yes. The Dearbrook estate. Oh! yes; they are the papers I am in want of.”

  “It is singularly fortunate, at least, to be successful in securing them. I am very glad a living person has possession of them, else it would have been very difficult to have obtained it from them.”

  “So it would; but now homeward is the word, doctor; and on my word there is reason to be glad, for the rain is coming on very fast now, and there is no moon at all—we had better step out.”

  They did, for the three walked as fast as the nature of the soil would permit them, and the darkness of the night.

  CHAPTER LXXXIX.

  TELLS WHAT BECAME OF THE SECOND VAMPIRE WHO SOUGHT VARNEY.

  We left the Hungarian nobleman swimming down the stream; he swam slowly, and used but little exertion in doing so. He appeared to use his hands only as a means of assistance.

  The stream carried him onwards, and he aided himself so far that he kept the middle of the stream, and floated along.

  Where the stream was broad and shallow, it sometimes left him a moment or two, without being strong enough to carry him onwards; then he would pause, as if gaining strength, and finally he would, when he had rested, and the water came a little faster, and lifted him, make a desperate plunge, and swim forward, until he again came in deep water, and then he went slowly along with the stream, as he supported himself.

  It was strange thus to see a man going down slowly, and without any effort whatever, passing through shade and through moonlight—now lost in the shadow of the tall trees, and now emerging into that part of the stream which ran through meadows and cornfields, until the stream widened, and then, at length, a ferry-house was to be seen in the distance.

  Then came the ferryman out of his hut, to look upon the beautiful moonlight scene. It was cold, but pure, and brilliantly light. The chaste moon was sailing through the heavens, and the stars diminished in their lustre by the power of the luminous goddess of night.

  There was a small cottage—true, it was somewhat larger than was generally supposed by any casual observer who might look at it. The place was rambling, and built chiefly of wood; but in it lived the ferryman, his wife, and family; among these was a young girl about seventeen years of age, but, at the same time, very beautiful.

  They had been preparing their supper, and the ferryman himself walked out to look at the river and the shadows of the tall trees that stood on the hill opposite.

  While thus employed, he heard a plashing in the water, and on turning towards the quarter whence the sound proceeded for a few yards, he came to the spot where he saw the stranger struggling in the stream.

  “Good God!” he muttered to himself, as he saw the struggle continued; “good God! he will sink and drown.”

  As he spoke, he jumped into his boat and pushed it off, for the purpose of stopping the descent of the body down the stream, and in a moment or two it came near to him. He muttered—

  “Come, come—he tries to swim; life is not gone yet—he will do now, if I can catch hold of him. Swimming with one’s face under the stream doesn’t say much for his skill, though it may account for the fact that he don’t cry out.”

  As the drowning man neared, the ferryman held on by the boat-hook, and stooping down, he seized the drowning man by the hair of the head, and then paused.

  After a time, he lifted him up, and placed him across the edge of the boat, and then, with some struggling of his own, he was rolled over into the boat.

  “You are safe now,” muttered the ferryman.

  The stranger spoke not, but sat or leaned against the boat’s head, sobbing and catching at his breath, and spitting off his stomach the water it might be presumed he had swallowed.

  The ferryman put back to the shore, when he paused, and secured his boat, and then pulled the stranger out, saying—

  “Do you feel any better now?”

  “Yes,” said the stranger; “I feel I am living—thanks to you, my good friend; I owe you my life.”

  “You are welcome to that,” replied the ferryman; “it costs me nothing; and, as for my little trouble, I should be sorry to think of that, when a fellow-being’s life was in danger.”

  “You have behaved very well—very well, and I can do little more now than thank you, for I have been robbed of all I possessed about me at the moment.”

  “Oh! you have been robbed?”

  “Aye, truly, I have, and have been thrown into the water, and thus I have been nearly murdered.”

  “It is lucky you escaped from them without further injury,” said the ferryman; “but come in doors, you must be mad to stand here in the cold.”

  “Thank you; your hospitality is great, and, at this moment, of the greatest importance to me.”

  “Such as we have,” said the honest ferryman, “you shall be welcome to. Come in—come in.”

  He turned round and led the way to the house, which he entered, saying—as he opened the small door that led into the main apartment, where all the family were assembled, waiting for the almost only meal they had had that day, for the ferryman had not the means, before the sun had set, of sending for food, and then it was a long way before it could be found, and then it was late before they could get it—

  “Wife, we have a stranger to sleep with us tonight, and for whom
we must prepare a bed.”

  “A stranger!” echoed the wife—“a stranger, and we so poor!”

  “Yes; one whose life I have saved, and who was nearly drowned. We cannot refuse hospitality upon such an occasion as that, you know, wife.”

  The wife looked at the stranger as he entered the room, and sat down by the fire.

  “I am sorry,” he said, “to intrude upon you; but I will make you amends for the interruption and inconvenience I may cause you; but it is too late to apply elsewhere, and yet I am doubtful, if there were, whether I could go any further.”

  “No, no,” said the ferryman; “I am sure a man who has been beaten and robbed, and thrown into a rapid and, in some parts, deep stream, is not fit to travel at this time of night.”

  “You are lonely about here,” said the stranger, as he shivered by the fire.

  “Yes, rather; but we are used to it.”

  “You have a family, too; that must help to lighten the hours away, and help you over the long evenings.”

  “So you may think, stranger, and, at times, so it is; but when food runs short, it is a long while to daylight, before any more money can be had. To be sure, we have fish in the river, and we have what we can grow in the garden; but these are not all the wants that we feel, and those others are sometimes pinching. However, we are thankful for what we have, and complain but little when we can get no more; but sometimes we do repine—though I cannot say we ought—but I am merely relating the fact, whether it be right or wrong.”

  “Exactly. How old is your daughter?”

  “She is seventeen come Allhallow’s eve.”

  “That is not far hence,” said the stranger. “I hope I may be in this part of the country—and I think I shall—I will on that eve pay you a visit; not one on which I shall be a burden to you, but one more useful to you, and more consonant to my character.”

  “The future will tell us all about that,” said the ferryman; “at present we will see what we can do, without complaining, or taxing anybody.”

  The stranger and the ferryman sat conversing for some time before the fire, and then the latter pointed out to him which was his bed—one made up near the fire, for the sake of its warmth; and then the ferryman retired to the next room, a place which was merely divided by an imperfect partition.

  However, they all fell soundly asleep. The hours on that day had been longer than usual; there was not that buoyancy of spirit; when they retired, they fell off into a heavy, deep slumber.

  From this they were suddenly aroused by loud cries and piercing screams from one of the family.

  So loud and shrill were the cries, that they all started up, terrified and bewildered beyond measure, unable to apply their faculties to any one object.

  “Help—help, father!—help!” shrieked the voice of the young girl whom we have before noticed.

  The ferryman jumped up, and rushed to the spot where his daughter lay.

  “Fanny,” he said—“Fanny, what ails thee—what ails thee? Tell me, my dear child.”

  “Oh!” she exclaimed, almost choked—“oh, father! are we all alone? I am terrified.”

  “What ails thee—what ails thee? Tell me what caused you to scream out in such a manner?”

  “I—I—that is I, father, thought—but no, I am sure it was reality. Where is the stranger?”

  “A light—a light!” shouted the fisherman.

  In another moment a light was brought him, and he discovered the stranger reclining in his bed, but awake, and looking around him, as if in the utmost amazement.

  “What has happened?” he said—“what has happened?”

  “That is more than I know as yet,” the man replied. “Come, Fanny,” he added, “tell me what it is you fear. What caused you to scream out in that dreadful manner?”

  “Oh, father—the vampire!”

  “Great God! what do you mean, Fanny, by that?”

  “I hardly know, father. I was fast asleep, when I thought I felt something at my threat; but being very sound asleep, I did not immediately awake. Presently I felt the sharp pang of teeth being driven into the flesh of my neck—I awoke, and found the vampire at his repast. Oh, God! oh, God! what shall I do?”

  “Stay, my child, let us examine the wound,” said the fisherman, and he held the candle to the spot where the vampire’s teeth had been applied. There, sure enough, were teeth marks, such as a human being’s would make were they applied, but no blood had been drawn therefrom.

  “Come, come, Fanny; so far, by divine Providence, you are not injured; another moment, and the mischief would have been done entire and complete, and you would have been his victim.”

  Then turning to the stranger, he said—

  “You have had some hand in this. No human being but you could come into this place. The cottage door is secured. You must be the vampire.”

  “I!”

  “Yes; who else could?”

  “I!—As Heaven’s my judge—but there, it’s useless to speak of it; I have not been out of my bed. In this place, dark as it is, and less used to darkness than you, I could not even find my way about.—It is impossible.”

  “Get out of your bed, and let me feel,” said the ferryman, peremptorily—“get out, and I will soon tell.”

  The stranger arose, and began to dress himself, and the ferryman immediately felt the bed on which he had been lying; but it was ice cold—so cold that he started upon his legs in an instant, exclaiming with vehemence—

  “It is you, vile wretch! that has attempted to steal into the cottage of the poor man, and then to rob him of his only child, and that child of her heart’s blood, base ingrate!”

  “My friend, you are wrong, entirely wrong. I am not the creature you believe me. I have slept, and slept soundly, and awoke not until your daughter screamed.”

  “Scoundrel!—liar!—base wretch! you shall not remain alive to injure those who have but one life to lose.”

  As he spoke, the ferryman made a desperate rush at the vampire, and seized him by the throat, and a violent struggle ensued, in which the superior strength of the ferryman prevailed, and he brought his antagonist to the earth, at the same time bestowing upon him some desperate blows.

  “Thou shall go to the same element from which I took thee,” said the ferryman, “and there swim or sink as thou wilt until some one shall drag thee ashore, and when they do, may they have a better return than I.”

  As he spoke, he dragged along the stranger by main force until they came to the bank of the river, and then pausing, to observe the deepest part, he said—

  “Here, then, you shall go.”

  The vampire struggled, and endeavoured to speak, but he could not; the grasp at his throat prevented all attempts at speech; and then, with a sudden exertion of his strength, the ferryman lifted the stranger up, and heaved him some distance into the river.

  Then in deep water sank the body.

  The ferryman watched for some moments, and farther down the stream he saw the body again rise upon the current and struggling slightly, as for life—now whirled around and around, and then carried forward with the utmost velocity.

  This continued as far as the moonlight enabled the ferryman to see, and then, with a slow step and clouded brow, he returned to his cottage, which he entered, and closed the door.

  CHAPTER XC.

  DR. CHILLINGWORTH AT THE HALL.—THE ENCOUNTER OF MYSTERY.—THE CONFLICT.—THE RESCUE, AND THE PICTURE.

  There have been many events that have passed rapidly in this our narrative; but more have yet to come before we can arrive at that point which will clear up much that appears to be most mysterious and unaccountable.

  Doctor Chillingworth, but ill satisfied with the events that had yet taken place, determined once more upon visiting the Hall, and there to attempt a discovery of something respecting the mysterious a
partment in which so much has already taken place.

  He communicated his design to no one; he resolved to prosecute the inquiry alone. He determined to go there and await whatever might turn up in the shape of events. He would not for once take any companion; such adventures were often best prosecuted alone—they were most easily brought to something like an explanatory position, one person can often consider matters more coolly than more. At all events, there is more secrecy than under any other circumstances.

  Perhaps this often is of greater consequence than many others; and, moreover, when there is more than one, something is usually overdone. Where one adventurous individual will rather draw back in a pursuit, more than one would induce them to urge each other on.

  In fact, one in such a case could act the part of a spy—a secret observer; and in that case can catch people at times when they could not under any other circumstances be caught or observed at all.

  “I will go,” he muttered; “and should I be compelled to run away again, why, nobody knows anything about it and nobody will laugh at me.”

  This was all very well; but Mr. Chillingworth was not the man to run away without sufficient cause. But there was so much mystery in all this that he felt much interested in the issue of the affair. But this issue he could not command; at the same time he was determined to sit and watch, and thus become certain that either something or nothing was to take place.

  Even the knowledge of that much—that some inexplicable action was still going on—was far preferable to the uncertainty of not knowing whether what had once been going on was still so or not, because, if it had ceased, it was probable that nothing more would ever be known concerning it, and the mystery would still be a mystery to the end of time.

  “It shall be fathomed if there be any possibility of its being discovered,” muttered Chillingworth. “Who would have thought that so quiet and orderly a spot as this, our quiet village, would have suffered so much commotion and disturbance? Far from every cause of noise and strife, it is quite as great a matter of mystery as the vampire business itself.

  “I have been so mixed up in this business that I must go through with it. By the way, of the mysteries, the greatest that I have met with is the fact of the vampire having anything to do with so quiet a family as the Bannerworths.”