Creatures of the Night (Boxed Set Edition). Редьярд Джозеф Киплинг

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      The blind was drawn up, and a strong light was thrown into the room. For full two minutes Mr. Chillingworth attentively examined the two small wounds in the neck of Flora. He took a powerful magnifying glass from his pocket, and looked at them through it, and after his examination was concluded, he said—

      "They are very trifling wounds, indeed."

      "But how inflicted?" said Henry.

      "By some insect, I should say, which probably—it being the season for many insects—has flown in at the window."

      "I know the motive," said Flora "which prompts all these suggestions it is a kind one, and I ought to be the last to quarrel with it; but what I have seen, nothing can make me believe I saw not, unless I am, as once or twice I have thought myself, really mad."

      "How do you now feel in general health?"

      "Far from well; and a strange drowsiness at times creeps over me. Even now I feel it."

      She sunk back on the pillows as she spoke and closed her eyes with a deep sigh.

      Mr. Chillingworth beckoned Henry to come with him from the room, but the latter had promised that he would remain with Flora; and as Mrs. Bannerworth had left the chamber because she was unable to control her feelings, he rang the bell, and requested that his mother would come.

      She did so, and then Henry went down stairs along with the medical man, whose opinion he was certainly eager to be now made acquainted with.

      As soon as they were alone in an old-fashioned room which was called the oak closet, Henry turned to Mr. Chillingworth, and said—

      "What, now, is your candid opinion, sir? You have seen my sister, and those strange indubitable evidences of something wrong."

      "I have; and to tell you candidly the truth, Mr. Henry, I am sorely perplexed."

      "I thought you would be."

      "It is not often that a medical man likes to say so much, nor is it, indeed, often prudent that he should do so, but in this case I own I am much puzzled. It is contrary to all my notions upon all such subjects."

      "Those wounds, what do you think of them?"

      "I know not what to think. I am completely puzzled as regards them."

      "But, but do they not really bear the appearance of being bites?"

      "They really do."

      "And so far, then, they are actually in favour of the dreadful supposition which poor Flora entertains."

      "So far they certainly are. I have no doubt in the world of their being bites; but we not must jump to a conclusion that the teeth which inflicted them were human. It is a strange case, and one which I feel assured must give you all much uneasiness, as, indeed, it gave me; but, as I said before, I will not let my judgment give in to the fearful and degrading superstition which all the circumstances connected with this strange story would seem to justify."

      "It is a degrading superstition."

      "To my mind your sister seems to be labouring under the effect of some narcotic."

      "Indeed!"

      "Yes; unless she really has lost a quantity of blood, which loss has decreased the heart's action sufficiently to produce the languor under which she now evidently labours."

      "Oh, that I could believe the former supposition, but I am confident she has taken no narcotic; she could not even do so by mistake, for there is no drug of the sort in the house. Besides, she is not heedless by any means. I am quite convinced she has not done so."

      "Then I am fairly puzzled, my young friend, and I can only say that I would freely have given half of what I am worth to see that figure you saw last night."

      "What would you have done?"

      "I would not have lost sight of it for the world's wealth."

      "You would have felt your blood freeze with horror. The face was terrible."

      "And yet let it lead me where it liked I would have followed it."

      "I wish you had been here."

      "I wish to Heaven I had. If I though there was the least chance of another visit I would come and wait with patience every night for a month."

      "I cannot say," replied Henry. "I am going to sit up to-night with my sister, and I believe, our friend Mr. Marchdale will share my watch with me."

      Mr. Chillingworth appeared to be for a few moments lost in thought, and then suddenly rousing himself, as if he found it either impossible to come to any rational conclusion upon the subject, or had arrived at one which he chose to keep to himself, he said—

      "Well, well, we must leave the matter at present as it stands. Time may accomplish something towards its development, but at present so palpable a mystery I never came across, or a matter in which human calculation was so completely foiled."

      "Nor I—nor I."

      "I will send you some medicines, such as I think will be of service to Flora, and depend upon seeing me by ten o'clock to-morrow morning."

      "You have, of course, heard something," said Henry to the doctor, as he was pulling on his gloves, "about vampyres."

      "I certainly have, and I understand that in some countries, particularly Norway and Sweden, the superstition is a very common one."

      "And in the Levant."

      "Yes. The ghouls of the Mahometans are of the same description of beings. All that I have heard of the European vampyre has made it a being which can be killed, but is restored to life again by the rays of a full moon falling on the body."

      "Yes, СКАЧАТЬ