Varney the Vampire | Page 6

real, or some dream so like reality
as to nearly overturn the judgment for ever?
The figure has paused again, and half on the bed and half out of it that
young girl lies trembling. Her long hair streams across the entire width
of the bed. As she has slowly moved along she has left it streaming
across the pillows. The pause lasted about a minute--oh, what an age of
agony. That minute was, indeed, enough for madness to do its full work
in.
With a sudden rush that could not be foreseen--with a strange howling
cry that was enough to awaken terror in every breast, the figure seized
the long tresses of her hair, and twining them round his bony hands he
held her to the bed. Then she screamed--Heaven granted her then
power to scream. Shriek followed shriek in rapid succession. The
bed-clothes fell in a heap by the side of the bed--she was dragged by
her long silken hair completely on to it again. Her beautifully rounded
limbs quivered with the agony of her soul. The glassy, horrible eyes of
the figure ran over that angelic form with a hideous
satisfaction--horrible profanation. He drags her head to the bed's edge.
He forces it back by the long hair still entwined in his grasp. With a
plunge he seizes her neck in his fang-like teeth--a gush of blood, and a
hideous sucking noise follows. _The girl has swooned, and the
vampyre is at his hideous repast!_

CHAPTER II
.
THE ALARM.--THE PISTOL SHOT.--THE PURSUIT AND ITS
CONSEQUENCES.
[Illustration]
Lights flashed about the building, and various room doors opened;
voices called one to the other. There was an universal stir and
commotion among the inhabitants.
"Did you hear a scream, Harry?" asked a young man, half-dressed, as
he walked into the chamber of another about his own age.
"I did--where was it?"
"God knows. I dressed myself directly."
"All is still now."
"Yes; but unless I was dreaming there was a scream."
"We could not both dream there was. Where did you think it came
from?"
"It burst so suddenly upon my ears that I cannot say."
There was a tap now at the door of the room where these young men
were, and a female voice said,--
"For God's sake, get up!"
"We are up," said both the young men, appearing.
"Did you hear anything?"
"Yes, a scream."
"Oh, search the house--search the house; where did it come from--can
you tell?"
"Indeed we cannot, mother."
Another person now joined the party. He was a man of middle age, and,
as he came up to them, he said,--
"Good God! what is the matter?"
Scarcely had the words passed his lips, than such a rapid succession of
shrieks came upon their ears, that they felt absolutely stunned by them.
The elderly lady, whom one of the young men had called mother,
fainted, and would have fallen to the floor of the corridor in which they
all stood, had she not been promptly supported by the last comer, who

himself staggered, as those piercing cries came upon the night air. He,
however, was the first to recover, for the young men seemed paralysed.
"Henry," he cried, "for God's sake support your mother. Can you doubt
that these cries come from Flora's room?"
The young man mechanically supported his mother, and then the man
who had just spoken darted back to his own bed-room, from whence he
returned in a moment with a pair of pistols, and shouting,--
"Follow me, who can!" he bounded across the corridor in the direction
of the antique apartment, from whence the cries proceeded, but which
were now hushed.
That house was built for strength, and the doors were all of oak, and of
considerable thickness. Unhappily, they had fastenings within, so that
when the man reached the chamber of her who so much required help,
he was helpless, for the door was fast.
"Flora! Flora!" he cried; "Flora, speak!"
All was still.
"Good God!" he added; "we must force the door."
"I hear a strange noise within," said the young man, who trembled
violently.
"And so do I. What does it sound like?"
"I scarcely know; but it nearest resembles some animal eating, or
sucking some liquid."
"What on earth can it be? Have you no weapon that will force the door?
I shall go mad if I am kept here."
"I have," said the young man. "Wait here a moment."
He ran down the staircase, and presently returned with a small, but
powerful, iron crow-bar.
"This will do," he said.
"It will, it will.--Give it to me."
"Has she not spoken?"
"Not a word. My mind misgives me that something very dreadful must
have happened to her."
"And that odd noise!"
"Still goes on. Somehow, it