nted with the warmth of life. Her
eyes were open; no cadaverous smell exhaled from the coffin. The two
medical men, one officially present, the other on the part of the
promoter of the inquiry, attested the marvelous fact that there was a
faint but appreciable respiration, and a corresponding action of the
heart. The limbs were perfectly flexible, the flesh elastic; and the
leaden coffin floated with blood, in which to a depth of seven inches,
the body lay immersed.

Here then, were all the admitted signs and proofs of vampirism. The
body, therefore, in accordance with the ancient practice, was raised,
and a sharp stake driven through the heart of the vampire, who uttered a
piercing shriek at the moment, in all respects such as might escape from
a living person in the last agony. Then the head was struck off, and a
torrent of blood flowed from the severed neck. The body and head was
next placed on a pile of wood, and reduced to ashes, which were thrown
upon the river and borne away, and that territory has never since been
plagued by the visits of a vampire.

My father has a copy of the report of the Imperial Commission, with the
signatures of all who were present at these proceedings, attached in
verification of the statement. It is from this official paper that I
have summarized my account of this last shocking scene.

XVI

_Conclusion_

I write all this you suppose with composure. But far from it; I cannot
think of it without agitation. Nothing but your earnest desire so
repeatedly expressed, could have induced me to sit down to a task that
has unstrung my nerves for months to come, and reinduced a shadow of the
unspeakable horror which years after my deliverance continued to make my
days and nights dreadful, and solitude insupportably terrific.

Let me add a word or two about that quaint Baron Vordenburg, to whose
curious lore we were indebted for the discovery of the Countess
Mircalla's grave.

He had taken up his abode in Gratz, where, living upon a mere pittance,
which was all that remained to him of the once princely estates of his
family, in Upper Styria, he devoted himself to the minute and laborious
investigation of the marvelously authenticated tradition of Vampirism.
He had at his fingers' ends all the great and little works upon
the subject.

"Magia Posthuma," "Phlegon de Mirabilibus," "Augustinus de cura pro
Mortuis," "Philosophicae et Christianae Cogitationes de Vampiris," by
John Christofe