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Charles, therefore, did not keep so close upon the heels of the vampyre as to excite any suspicions of his intention to follow him; but he waited by the garden paling long enough not only for Varney to get some distance off, but long enough likewise to know that the pistol which had been fired at the doctor had produced no real bad effects, except singing some curious tufts of hair upon the sides of his face, which the doctor was pleased to call whiskers.
"I can afford to do that," he said, with a smile. "You should have fired, sir, according to custom," said the admiral; "this is not the proper thing." "What, fire at your friend?" "Oh, that's all very well! You are my friend for a time, vampyre as you are, and I intend you shall fire." "If Mr.
"Did you address those observations to me," he said, at length, "you blood-sucking vagabond?" "Eh?" said Sir Francis Varney, looking over the admiral's head, as if he saw something interesting on the wall beyond. "My dear admiral," said Mr. Chillingworth, "come away." "I'll see you d d first!" said the admiral. "Now, Mr. Vampyre, no shuffling; did you address those observations to me?"
"I saw him go in, and he looks thinner and more horrid than ever. I am sure he wants a dollop of blood from somebody." "I shouldn't wonder." "Now there is Mrs. Philpots, you know, sir; she's rather big, and seems most ready to burst always; I shouldn't wonder if the vampyre came to her to-night." "Wouldn't you?" said Mrs.
"They say that only way of destroying a vampyre is to fix him to the earth with a stake, so that he cannot move, and then, of course, decomposition will take its course, as in ordinary cases." "Fire would consume him, and be a quicker process," said Henry. "But these are fearful reflections, and, for the present, we will not pursue them.
Sir Francis Varney, probably, had Tom Eccles not gone off so rapidly, would have yet taken another thought, and gone in another direction than that which led him to the ruins, and Tom, if he had had his senses fully about him, as well as all his powers of perception, would have seen that the progress of the vampyre was very slow, while he continued to converse with Marchdale, and that it was only when he went off at good speed that Sir Francis Varney likewise thought it prudent to do so.
That this was the means by which Varney, the vampyre, had obtained the key, by the aid of which Charles had seen him effect so immediate an entrance to the house, there could be no doubt. "How long ago were you served that trick?" he said. "About two days ago, sir." "Well, it only shows how, when one person acts wrongly, another is at once suspected of a capability to do so likewise.
"It seems but too probable," said Henry. "Let us endeavour to trace the footsteps. Oh! Flora, Flora, what terrible news this will be to you." "A horrible supposition comes across my mind," said George. "What if he met the vampyre?" "It may have been so," said Marchdale, with a shudder. "It is a point which we should endeavour to ascertain, and I think we may do so." "How!"
"If you were to continue my victim from year to year, the energies of life would slowly waste away, and, till like some faint taper's gleam, consuming more sustenance than it received, the veriest accident would extinguish your existence, and then, Flora Bannerworth, you might become a vampyre." "Oh! horrible! most horrible!"
Philpots scarcely anticipated creating so much confusion, but when they found that the whole place was in an uproar, and that a tumultuous assemblage of persons called aloud for vengeance upon Varney, the vampyre, they made their way home again in no small fright.
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