studied, the greater seems
the necessity to utterly stamp him out. All through there are signs of his
advance; not only of his power, but of his knowledge of it. As I learned from
the researches of my friend Arminius of Buda-Pesth, he was in life a most
wonderful man. Soldier, statesman, and alchemist - which latter was the highest
development of the science-knowledge of his time. He had a mighty brain, a
learning beyond compare, and a heart that knew no fear and no remorse. He 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
death; though it would seem that memory was not all complete. In some faculties
of mind he has been, and is, only a child; but he is growing, and some things
that were childish at the first are now of man's stature. He is experimenting,
and doing it well; and 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
surely; that big child-brain of his is working. Well for us, it is, as yet, a
child-brain; for had he dared, at the first, to attempt certain things he would
long ago have been beyond our power. However, he means to succeed, and a man who
has centuries before him can afford to wait and to go slow. Festina 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 plain. Do you not see how, of late, this monster
has been creeping into knowledge experimentally. How he has been making use of
the zoophagous patient to effect his entry into friend John's home; for 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 inmate