Today he is a drawn, haggard old man, whose white hair matches well with the hollow burning eyes and grief-written lines of his faceHis energy is still intactIn fact, he is like a living flameThis may yet be his salvation, for if all go well, it will tide him over the despairing periodHe will then, in a kind of way, wake again to the realities of lifePoor fellow, I thought my own trouble was bad enough, but his? !
The Professor knows this well enough, and is doing his best to keep his mind activeWhat he has been saying was, under the circumstances, of absorbing interestSo well as I can remember, here it is:
"I have studied, over and over again since they came into my hands, all the papers relating to this monster, and the more I have studied, the greater seems the necessity to utterly stamp him outAll through there are signs of his advanceNot only of his power, but of his knowledge of itAs I learned from the researches of my friend Arminius of Buda-Pesth, he was in life a most wonderful manSoldier, statesman, and alchemist--which latter was the highest development of the science knowledge of his timeHe had a mighty brain, a learning beyond compare, and a heart that knew no fear and no remorseHe dared even to attend the Scholomance, and there was no branch of knowledge of his time that he did not essay
"Well, in him the brain powers survived the physical deathThough it would seem that memory was not all completeIn some faculties of mind he has been, and is, only a childBut he is growing, and some things that were childish at the first are now of man's statureHe is experimenting, and doing it wellAnd if it had not been that we have crossed his path he would be yet, he may be yet if we fail, the father or furtherer of a new order of beings, whose road must lead through Death, not Life
Harker groaned and said, "And this is all arrayed against my darling! But how is he experimenting? The knowledge may help us to defeat him!"
"He has all along, since his coming, been trying his power, slowly but surelyThat big child-brain of his is workingWell for us, it is as yet a child-brainFor had he dared, at the first, to attempt certain things he would long ago have been beyond our powerHowever, he means to succeed, and a man who has centuries before him can afford to wait and to go slowFestina lente may well be his motto
"I fail to understand," said Harker wearily"Oh, do be more plain to me! Perhaps grief and trouble are dulling my brain
The Professor laid his hand tenderly on his shoulder as he spoke, "Ah, my child, I will be plainDo you not see how, of late, this monster has been creeping into knowledge experimentallyHow he has been making use of the zoophagous patient to effect his entry into friend John's homeFor your Vampire, though in all afterwards he can come when and how he will, must at the first make entry only when asked thereto by an inmateBut these are not his most important experimentsDo we not see how at the first all these so great boxes were moved by othersHe knew not then but that must be soBut all the time that so great child-brain of his was growing, and he began to consider whether he might not himself move the boxAnd then, when he found that this be all right, he try to move them all aloneAnd so he progress, and he scatter these graves of himAnd none but he know where they are hidden
"He may have intend to bury them deep in the
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