Page 268 - DRACULA

Dracula

Presently we both began to be conscious that the heat
was beginning to be of some effect. Lucy’s heart beat a
trifle more audibly to the stethoscope, and her lungs had a
perceptible movement. Van Helsing’s face almost beamed,

and as we lifted her from the bath and rolled her in a hot
sheet to dry her he said to me, ‘The first gain is ours!
Check to the King!’
We took Lucy into another room, which had by now
been prepared, and laid her in bed and forced a few drops
of brandy down her throat. I noticed that Van Helsing tied
a soft silk handkerchief round her throat. She was still
unconscious, and was quite as bad as, if not worse than,
we had ever seen her.
Van Helsing called in one of the women, and told her
to stay with her and not to take her eyes off her till we
returned, and then beckoned me out of the room.
‘We must consult as to what is to be done,’ he said as
we descended the stairs. In the hall he opened the dining
room door, and we passed in, he closing the door carefully
behind him. The shutters had been opened, but the blinds
were already down, with that obedience to the etiquette
of death which the British woman of the lower classes
always rigidly observes. The room was, therefore, dimly
dark. It was, however, light enough for our purposes. Van

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