iny child. When he saw me he held it out to
me, and said, "Are you satisfied now?"

"No," I said, in a way that I felt was aggressive.

"Do you not see the child?"

"Yes, it is a child, but who brought it here? And is it wounded?"

"We shall see," said the Professor, and with one impulse we took our
way out of the churchyard, he carrying the sleeping child.

When we had got some little distance away, we went into a clump of
trees, and struck a match, and looked at the child's throat. It was
without a scratch or scar of any kind.

"Was I right?" I asked triumphantly.

"We were just in time," said the Professor thankfully.

We had now to decide what we were to do with the child, and so
consulted about it. If we were to take it to a police station we
should have to give some account of our movements during the night.
At least, we should have had to make some statement as to how we had
come to find the child. So finally we decided that we would take it
to the Heath, and when we heard a policeman coming, would leave it
where he could not fail to find it. We would then seek our way home
as quickly as we could. All fell out well. At the edge of Hampstead
Heath we heard a policeman's heavy tramp, and laying the child on the
pathway, we waited and watched until he saw it as he flashed his
lantern to and fro. We heard his exclamation of astonishment, and
then we went away silently. By good chance we got a cab near the
'Spainiards,' and drove to town.

I cannot sleep, so I make this entry. But I must try to get a few
hours' sleep, as Van Helsing is to call for me at noon. He insists
that I go with him on another expedition.

27 September.--It was two o'clock before we found a suitable
opportunity for our attempt. The funeral held at noon was all
completed, and the last stragglers of the mourners had taken
themselves lazily away, when, looking carefully from behind a clump of
alder trees, we saw the sexton lock the gate after him. We knew that
we were safe till morning did we desire it, but the Professor told me
that we should not want more than an hour at most. Again I felt that
horrid sense of the reality of things, in which any effort of
imagination seemed out of place, and I realized distinctly the perils
of the law which we were incurring in our unhallowed work. Besides, I
felt it was all so useless. Outrageous as it was to open a leaden
coffin, to see if a woman dead nearly a week were really de