Dracula’s Brethren

by Richard Dalby

  We continued our journey.

  ‘Ludwig,’ my comrade soon began, ‘such extraordinary things happen in this world that our understandings ought to humiliate themselves in fear and trembling. You know I have never been here before. Well, yesterday I dreamt, and today I see with open eyes the dream of last night rise again before me; look at that landscape – it is the same I beheld when asleep. Here are the ruins of the old château where I was struck down in a fit of apoplexy; this is the path I went along, and there are my four acres of vines. There is not a tree, not a streamlet, not a bush which I cannot recognise as if I had seen them hundreds of times before. When we turn the angle of the road we shall see the village of Welcke at the end of the valley; the second house on the right is the burgomaster’s; it has five windows on the first floor and four below, and the door. On the left of my house – I mean the burgomaster’s – you see a barn and a stable. It is there my cattle are kept. Behind the house is the yard; under a large shed is a two-horse wine-press. So, my dear Ludwig, such as I am you see me resuscitated. The poor burgomaster is looking at you out of my eyes; he speaks to you by my voice, and did I not recollect that before being a burgomaster and a rich sordid proprietor I have been Hippel the bon vivant, I should hesitate to say who I am, for all I see recalls another existence, other habits and other ideas.’

  Everything was in accordance with what Hippel had described. We saw the village at some distance down in a fertile valley between hillsides covered with vines, houses scattered along the banks of the river; the second on the right was the burgomaster’s.

  And Hippel had a vague recollection of every one we met; some seemed so well known to him that he was on the point, of addressing them by name; but the words died away on his lips, and he could not disengage his ideas. Besides, when he noticed the look of indifferent curiosity with which those we met regarded us, Hippel felt he was entirely unknown, and that his face, at all events, sufficed to mask the spirit of the defunct burgomaster.

  We dismounted at an inn which my friend assured me was the best in the village; he had known it long by reputation.

  A second surprise. The mistress of the inn was a fat gossip, a widow of many years’ standing, and whom the defunct burgomaster had once proposed to make his second wife.

  Hippel felt inclined to clasp her in his arms; all his old sympathies awoke in him at once. However, he succeeded in moderating his transports; the real Hippel combated in him the burgomaster’s matrimonial inclinations. So he contented himself with asking her as civilly as possible for a good breakfast and the best wine she had.

  While we were at table, a very natural curiosity prompted Hippel to inquire what had passed in the village since his death.

  ‘Madame,’ said he with a flattering smile, ‘you were doubtless well acquainted with the late burgomaster of Welcke?’

  ‘Do you mean the one that died in a fit of apoplexy about three years ago?’ said she.

  ‘The same,’ replied my comrade, looking inquisitively at her.

  ‘Ah, yes, indeed, I knew him!’ cried the hostess; ‘that old curmudgeon wanted to marry me. If I had known he would have died so soon I would have accepted him. He proposed we should mutually settle all our property on the survivor.’

  My dear Hippel was rather disconcerted at this reply; the burgomaster’s amour propre in him was horribly ruffled. He nevertheless continued his questions.

  ‘So you were not the least bit in love with him, madame?’ he asked.

  ‘How was it possible to love a man as ugly, dirty, repulsive, and avaricious as he was?’

  Hippel got up and walked up to the looking-glass to survey himself. After contemplating his fat and rosy cheeks he smiled contentedly, and sat down before a chicken, which he proceeded to carve.

  ‘After all,’ he said, ‘the burgomaster may have been ugly and dirty; that proves nothing against me.’

  ‘Are you any relation of his?’ asked the hostess in surprise.

  ‘I! I never even saw him. I only made the remark some are ugly, some good-looking; and if one happens to have one’s nose in the middle of one’s face, like your burgomaster, it does not prove any likeness to him.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said the gossip, ‘you have no family resemblance to him whatever.’

  ‘Moreover,’ my comrade added, ‘I am not by any means a miser, which proves I cannot be your burgomaster. Let us have two more bottles of your best wine.’

  The hostess disappeared, and I profited by this opportunity to warn Hippel not to enter upon topics which might betray his incognito.

  ‘What do you take me for, Ludwig?’ cried he in a rage. ‘You know I am no more the burgomaster than you are, and the proof of it is my papers are perfectly regular.’

  He pulled out his passport. The landlady came in.

  ‘Madame,’ said he, ‘did your burgomaster in any way resemble this description?’

  He read out—

  ‘Forehead, medium height; nose, large; lips, thick; eyes, grey; figure, full; hair, brown.’

  ‘Very nearly,’ said the dame, ‘except that the burgomaster was bald.’

  Hippel ran his hand through his hair, and exclaimed—

  ‘The burgomaster was bald, and no one dare to say I am bald.’

  The hostess thought he was mad, but as he rose and paid the bill she made no further remark.

  When we reached the door Hippel turned to me and said abruptly – ‘Let us be off!’

  ‘One moment, my friend,’ I replied; ‘you must first take me to the cemetery where the burgomaster lies.’

  ‘No!’ he exclaimed – ‘no! never! do you want to see me in Satan’s clutches? I stand upon my own tombstone! It is against every law in nature. Ludwig, you cannot mean it?’

  ‘Be calm, Hippel!’ I replied. ‘At this moment you are under the influence of invisible powers; they have enveloped you in meshes so light and transparent that one cannot see them. You must make an effort to burst them; you must release the burgomaster’s spirit, and that can only be accomplished upon his tomb. Would you steal this poor spirit? It would be a flagrant robbery, and I know your scrupulous delicacy too well to suppose you capable of such infamy.’

  These unanswerable arguments settled the matter.

  ‘Well, then, yes,’ said he, ‘I must summon up courage to trample on those remains, a heavy part of which I bear about me. God grant I may not be accused of such a theft! Follow me, Ludwig; I will lead you to the grave.’

  He walked on with rapid steps, carrying his hat in his hand, his hair in disorder, waving his arms about, and taking long strides, like some unhappy wretch about to commit a last act of desperation, and exciting himself not to fail in his attempt.

  We first passed along several lanes, then crossed the bridge of a mill, the wheel of which was gyrating in a sheet of foam; then we followed a path which crossed a field, and at last we arrived at a high wall behind the village, covered with moss and clematis; it was the cemetery.

  In one corner was the ossuary, in the other a cottage surrounded by a small garden.

  Hippel rushed into the room; there he found the gravedigger; all along the walls were crowns of immortelles. The gravedigger was carving a cross, and he was so occupied with his work that he got up quite alarmed when Hippel appeared. My comrade fixed his eyes upon him so sternly that he must have been frightened, for during some seconds he remained quite confounded.

  ‘My good man,’ I began, ‘will you show us the burgomaster’s grave?’

  ‘No need of that,’ cried Hippel; ‘I know it.’

  Without waiting for us he opened the door which led into the cemetery, and set off running like a madman, springing over the graves and exclaiming—

  ‘There it is; there! here we are!’

  He must evidently have been possessed by an evil spirit, for in his course he threw down a cross crowned with roses – a cross on the grave of a little child!

  The gravedigger and I followed him slowly.

  The cemetery w
as large; weeds, thick and dark-green in colour, grew three feet above the soil. Cypresses dragged their long foliage along the ground; but what struck me most at first was a trellis set up against the wall, and covered with a magnificent vine so loaded with fruit that the bunches of grapes were growing one over the other.

  As we went along I remarked to the gravedigger—

  ‘You have a vine there which ought to bring you in something.’

  ‘Oh, sir,’ he began in a whining tone, ‘that vine does not produce me much. No one will buy my grapes; what comes from the dead returns to the dead.’

  I looked the man steadily in the face. He had a false air about him, and a diabolical grin contracted his lips and his cheeks. I did not believe what he said.

  We now stood before the burgomaster’s grave. Opposite there was the stem of an enormous vine, looking very like a boa-constrictor. Its roots, no doubt, penetrated to the coffins, and disputed their prey with the worms. Moreover, its grapes were of a red violet colour, while the others were white, very slightly tinged with pink. Hippel leaned against the vine, and seemed calmer.

  ‘You do not eat these grapes yourself,’ said I to the gravedigger, ‘but you sell them.’

  He grew pale, and shook his head in dissent.

  ‘You sell them at Welcke, and I can tell you the name of the inn where the wine made from them is drunk – it is the Fleur de Lis.’

  The gravedigger trembled in every limb.

  Hippel seized the wretch by the throat, and had it not been for me he would have torn him to pieces.

  ‘Scoundrel!’ he exclaimed, ‘you have been the cause of my drinking the quintessence of the burgomaster, and I have lost my own personal identity.’

  But all on a sudden a bright idea struck him. He turned towards the wall in the attitude of the celebrated Brabançon Männe-Kempis.

  ‘God be praised!’ said he, as he returned to me, ‘I have restored the burgomaster’s spirit to the earth. I feel enormously relieved.’

  An hour later we were on our road again, and my friend Hippel had quite recovered his natural gaiety.

  LOST IN A PYRAMID; OR, THE MUMMY’S CURSE

  Louisa May Alcott

  One of the most popular authors of her day, Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, but spent most of her early life in Boston and in Concord, where she became acquainted with prominent literary figures, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. According to The Louisa May Alcott Encyclopedia (2001), ‘Lost in a Pyramid’ – which ingeniously amalgamates the mummy and vampire themes – was written in late 1868 or the first week of 1869, and was the last of a string of sensational thrillers Alcott wrote prior to the publication of her classic children’s novel Little Women. ‘Lost in a Pyramid’ first appeared in Frank Leslie’s magazine The New World, on the 16th of January 1869, earning Miss Alcott a fee of $25. Becoming lost over the years, it was rediscovered in 1998 by British Egyptologist Dominic Montserrat, who found it buried deep in the periodicals collection of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

  I

  ‘AND what are these, Paul?’ asked Evelyn, opening a tarnished gold box and examining its contents curiously.

  ‘Seeds of some unknown Egyptian plant,’ replied Forsyth, with a sudden shadow on his dark face, as he looked down at the three scarlet grains lying in the white hand lifted to him.

  ‘Where did you get them?’ asked the girl.

  ‘That is a weird story, which will only haunt you if I tell it,’ said Forsyth, with an absent expression that strongly excited the girl’s curiosity.

  ‘Please tell it, I like weird tales, and they never trouble me. Ah, do tell it; your stories are always so interesting,’ she cried, looking up with such a pretty blending of entreaty and command in her charming face, that refusal was impossible.

  ‘You’ll be sorry for it, and so shall I, perhaps; I warn you beforehand, that harm is foretold to the possessor of those mysterious seeds,’ said Forsyth, smiling, even while he knit his black brows, and regarded the blooming creature before him with a fond yet foreboding glance.

  ‘Tell on, I’m not afraid of these pretty atoms,’ she answered, with an imperious nod.

  ‘To hear is to obey. Let me read the facts, and then I will begin,’ returned Forsyth, pacing to and fro with the far-off look of one who turns the pages of the past.

  Evelyn watched him a moment, and then returned to her work, or play, rather, for the task seemed well suited to the vivacious little creature, half-child, half-woman.

  ‘While in Egypt,’ commenced Forsyth, slowly, ‘I went one day with my guide and Professor Niles, to explore the Cheops. Niles had a mania for antiquities of all sorts, and forgot time, danger and fatigue in the ardour of his pursuit. We rummaged up and down the narrow passages, half choked with dust and close air; reading inscriptions on the walls, stumbling over shattered mummy-cases, or coming face to face with some shrivelled specimen perched like a hobgoblin on the little shelves where the dead used to be stowed away for ages. I was desperately tired after a few hours of it, and begged the professor to return. But he was bent on exploring certain places, and would not desist. We had but one guide, so I was forced to stay; but Jumal, my man, seeing how weary I was, proposed to us to rest in one of the larger passages, while he went to procure another guide for Niles. We consented, and assuring us that we were perfectly safe, if we did not quit the spot, Jumal left us, promising to return speedily. The professor sat down to take notes of his researches, and stretching myself on the soft sand, I fell asleep.

  ‘I was roused by that indescribable thrill which instinctively warns us of danger, and springing up, I found myself alone. One torch burned faintly where Jumal had struck it, but Niles and the other light were gone. A dreadful sense of loneliness oppressed me for a moment; then I collected myself and looked well about me. A bit of paper was pinned to my hat, which lay near me, and on it, in the professor’s writing were these words:

  ‘“I’ve gone back a little to refresh my memory on certain points. Don’t follow me till Jumal comes. I can find my way back to you, for I have a clue. Sleep well, and dream gloriously of the Pharaohs. N.N.”

  ‘I laughed at first over the old enthusiast, then felt anxious then restless, and finally resolved to follow him, for I discovered a strong cord fastened to a fallen stone, and knew that this was the clue he spoke of. Leaving a line for Jumal, I took my torch and retraced my steps, following the cord along the winding ways. I often shouted, but received no reply, and pressed on, hoping at each turn to see the old man poring over some musty relic of antiquity. Suddenly the cord ended, and lowering my torch, I saw that the footsteps had gone on.

  ‘“Rash fellow, he’ll lose himself, to a certainty,” I thought, really alarmed now.

  ‘As I paused, a faint call reached me, and I answered it, waited, shouted again, and a still fainter echo replied.

  ‘Niles was evidently going on, misled by the reverberations of the low passages. No time was to be lost, and, forgetting myself, I stuck my torch in the deep sand to guide me back to the clue, and ran down the straight path before me, whooping like a madman as I went. I did not mean to lose sight of the light, but in my eagerness to find Niles I turned from the main passage, and, guided by his voice, hastened on. His torch soon gladdened my eyes, and the clutch of his trembling hands told me what agony he had suffered.

  ‘“Let us get out of this horrible place at once,” he said, wiping the great drops off his forehead.

  ‘“Come, we’re not far from the clue. I can soon reach it, and then we are safe”; but as I spoke, a chill passed over me, for a perfect labyrinth of narrow paths lay before us.

  ‘Trying to guide myself by such landmarks as I had observed in my hasty passage, I followed the tracks in the sand till I fancied we must be near my light. No glimmer appeared, however, and kneeling down to examine the footprints nearer, I discovered, to my dismay, that I had been following the wrong ones, for among those marked
by a deep bootheel, were prints of bare feet; we had had no guide there, and Jumal wore sandals.

  ‘Rising, I confronted Niles, with the one despairing word, “Lost!” as I pointed from the treacherous sand to the fast-waning light.

  ‘I thought the old man would be overwhelmed but, to my surprise, he grew quite calm and steady, thought a moment, and then went on, saying, quietly:

  ‘“Other men have passed here before us; let us follow their steps, for, if I do not greatly err, they lead toward great passages, where one’s way is easily found.”

  ‘On we went, bravely, till a misstep threw the professor violently to the ground with a broken leg, and nearly extinguished the torch. It was a horrible predicament, and I gave up all hope as I sat beside the poor fellow, who lay exhausted with fatigue, remorse and pain, for I would not leave him.

  ‘“Paul,” he said suddenly, “if you will not go on, there is one more effort we can make. I remember hearing that a party lost as we are, saved themselves by building a fire. The smoke penetrated further than sound or light, and the guide’s quick wit understood the unusual mist; he followed it, and rescued the party. Make a fire and trust to Jumal.”

  ‘“A fire without wood?” I began; but he pointed to a shelf behind me, which had escaped me in the gloom; and on it I saw a slender mummy-case. I understood him, for these dry cases, which lie about in hundreds, are freely used as firewood. Reaching up, I pulled it down, believing it to be empty, but as it fell, it burst open, and out rolled a mummy. Accustomed as I was to such sights, it startled me a little, for danger had unstrung my nerves. Laying the little brown chrysalis aside, I smashed the case, lit the pile with my torch, and soon a light cloud of smoke drifted down the three passages which diverged from the cell-like place where we had paused.

  ‘While busied with the fire, Niles, forgetful of pain and peril, had dragged the mummy nearer, and was examining it with the interest of a man whose ruling passion was strong even in death.

  ‘“Come and help me unroll this. I have always longed to be the first to see and secure the curious treasures put away among the folds of these uncanny winding-sheets. This is a woman, and we may find something rare and precious here,” he said, beginning to unfold the outer coverings, from which a strange aromatic odour came.