Tell me the thesis, so that I may apply your knowledge as you go onAt present I am going in my mind from point to point as a madman, and not a sane one, follows an ideaI feel like a novice lumbering through a bog in a midst, jumping from one tussock to another in the mere blind effort to move on without knowing where I am going "That is a good image," he said"Well, I shall tell youMy thesis is this, I want you to believe "To believe what?" "To believe in things that you cannotI heard once of an American who so defined faith, 'that faculty which enables us to believe things which we know to be untrue' For one, I follow that manHe meant that we shall have an open mind, and not let a little bit of truth check the rush of the big truth, like a small rock does a railway truckWe get the small truth firstGood! We keep him, and we value him, but all the same we must not let him think himself all the truth in the universe "Then you want me not to let some previous conviction inure the receptivity of my mind with regard to some strange matterDo I read your lesson aright?" "Ah, you are my favourite pupil stillIt is worth to teach youNow that you are willing to understand, you have taken the first step to understandYou think then that those so small holes in the children's throats were made by the same that made the holes in Miss Lucy?" "I suppose so He stood up and said solemnly, "Then you are wrongOh, would it were so! But alas! NoIt is worse, far, far worse "In God's name, Professor Van Helsing, what do you mean?" I cried He threw himself with a despairing gesture into a chair, and placed his elbows on the table, covering his face with his hands as he spoke "They were made by Miss Lucy!" CHAPTER 15 DRSEWARD'S DIARY--cont For a while sheer anger mastered meIt was as if he had during her life struck Lucy on the faceI smote the table hard and rose up as I said to him, "DrVan Helsing, are you mad?" He raised his head and looked at me, and somehow the tenderness of his face calmed me at once"Would I were!" he said"Madness were easy to bear compared with truth like thisOh, my friend, why, think you, did I go so far round, why take so long to tell so simple a thing? Was it because I hate you and have hated you all my life? Was it because I wished to give you pain? Was it that I wanted, now so late, revenge for that time when you saved my life, and from a fearful death? Ah no!" "Forgive me," said I He went on, "My friend, it was because I wished to be gentle in the breaking to you, for I know you have loved that so sweet ladyBut even yet I do not expect you to believeIt is so hard to accept at once any abstract truth, that we may doubt such to be possible when we have always believed the 'no' of itIt is more hard still to accept so sad a concrete truth, and of such a one as Miss LucyTonight I go to prove itDare you come with me?" This staggered meA man does not like to prove such a truth, Byron excepted from the category, jealousy "And prove the very truth he most abhorred He saw my hesitation, and spoke, "The logic is simple, no madman's logic this time, jumping from tussock to tussock in a misty shop bog

Her straight, well-formed nose, her finely-cut mouth, and the graceful contour of her head and neck, showed that she must once have been beautiful; but her face was deeply wrinkled with lines of pain, and of proud and bitter enduranceHer complexion was sallow and unhealthy, her cheeks thin, her features sharp, and her whole form emaciatedBut her eye was the most remarkable feature,?so large, so heavily black, overshadowed by long lashes of equal darkness, and so wildly, mournfully despairingThere was a fierce pride and defiance in every line of her face, in every curve of the flexible lip, in every motion of her body; but in her eye was a deep, settled night of anguish,?an expression so hopeless and unchanging as to contrast fearfully with the scorn and pride expressed by her whole demeanor Where she came from, or who she was, Tom did not knowThe first he did know, she was walking by his side, erect and proud, in the dim gray of the dawnTo the gang, however, she was known; for there was much looking and turning of heads, and a smothered yet apparent exultation among the miserable, ragged, half-starved creatures by whom she was surrounded ?Got to come to it, at last,?grad of it!? said one ?He! he! he!? said another; ?you?ll know how good it is, Misse!? ?We?ll see her work!? ?Wonder if she?ll get a cutting up, at night, like the rest of us!? ?I?d be glad to see her down for a flogging, I?ll bound!? said another The woman took no notice of these taunts, but walked on, with the same expression of angry scorn, as if she heard nothingTom had always lived among refined, and cultivated people, and he felt intuitively, from her air and bearing, that she belonged to that class; but how or why she could be fallen to those degrading circumstances, he could not tellThe women neither looked at him nor spoke to him, though, all the way to the field, she kept close at his side Tom was soon busy at his work; but, as the woman was at no great distance from him, he often glanced an eye to her, at her workHe saw, at a glance, that a native adroitness and handiness made the task to her an easier one than it proved to manyShe picked very fast and very clean, and with an air of scorn, as if she despised both the work and the disgrace and humiliation of the circumstances in which she was placed In the course of the day, Tom was working near the mulatto woman who had been bought in the same lot with himselfShe was evidently in a condition of great suffering, and Tom often heard her praying, as she wavered and trembled, and seemed about to fall downTom silently as he came near to her, transferred several handfuls of cotton from his own sack to hers ?O, don?t, don?t!? said the woman, looking surprised; ?it?ll get you into trouble Just then Sambo came upHe seemed to have a special spite against this woman; and, flourishing his whip, said, in brutal, guttural tones, ?What dis yer, Luce,?foolin? a?? and, with the word, kicking the woman with his heavy cowhide shoe, he struck Tom across the face with his whip Tom silently resumed his task; but the woman, before at the last point of exhaustion, fainted ?I?ll bring her to!? said the driver, with a brutal grin?I?ll give her something better than camphire!? and, taking a pin from his coat-sleeve, he buried it to the head in her fleshThe woman groaned, and half rose?Get up, you beast, and work, will yer, or I?ll show yer a trick more!? The woman seemed stimulated, for a few moments, to an unnatural strength, and worked with desperate eagerness ?See that you keep to dat ar,? said the man, ?or yer?ll wish yer?s dead tonight, I reckin!? ?That I do now!? Tom heard her say; and again he heard her say, ?O, Lord, how long! O, Lord, why don?t you help us?? At the risk of all that he might suffer, Tom came forward again, and put all the cotton in his sack into the woman?s ?O, you mustn?t! you donno what they?ll do to ye!? said the woman ?I can bar it!? said Tom, ?better ?n you;? and he was at his place againIt passed in a moment Suddenly, the stranger woman whom we have described, and who had, in the course of her work, come near enough to hear Tom?s last words, raised her heavy black eyes, and fixed them, for a second, on him; then, taking a quantity of cotton from her basket, she placed it in his ?You know nothing about this place,? she said, ?or you wouldn?t have done thatWhen you?ve been here a month, you?ll be done helping anybody; you?ll find it hard enough to take care of your own skin!? ?The Lord forbid, Missis!? said Tom, using instinctively to his field companion the respectful form proper to the high bred with whom he had lived ?The Lord never visits these parts,? said the woman, bitterly, as she went nimbly forward with her work; and again the scornful smile curled her lips But the action of the woman had been seen by the driver, across the field; and, flourishing his whip, he came up to her ?What! what!? he said to the woman, with an air of triumph, ?You a foolin?? Go along! yer under me now,?mind yourself, or yer?ll cotch it!? A glance like sheet-lightning suddenly flashed from those black eyes; and, facing about, with quivering lip and dilated nostrils, she drew herself up, and fixed a glance, blazing with rage and scorn, on the driver ?Dog!? she said, ?touch me, if you dare! I?ve power enough, yet, to have you torn by the dogs, burnt alive, cut to inches! I?ve only to say the word!? ?What de devil you here for, den?? said the man, evidently cowed, and sullenly retreating a step or two?Didn?t mean no harm, Misse Cassy!? ?Keep your distance, then!? said the womanAnd, in truth, the man seemed greatly inclined to attend to something at the other end of the field, and started off in quick time The woman suddenly turned to her work, and labored with a despatch that was perfectly astonishing to shop Tom

"Because I know!" And now we are all scattered, and for many a long day loneliness will sit over our roofs with brooding wingsLucy lies in the tomb of her kin, a lordly death house in a lonely churchyard, away from teeming London, where the air is fresh, and the sun rises over Hampstead Hill, and where wild flowers grow of their own accord So I can finish this diary, and God only knows if I shall ever begin anotherIf I do, or if I even open this again, it will be to deal with different people and different themes, for here at the end, where the romance of my life is told, ere I go back to take up the thread of my life-work, I say sadly and without hope, "FINIS" THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE, 25 SEPTEMBER A HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY The neighborhood of Hampstead is just at present exercised with a series of events which seem to run on lines parallel to those of what was known to the writers of headlines as "The Kensington Horror," or "The Stabbing Woman," or "The Woman in Black During the past two or three days several cases have occurred of young children straying from home or neglecting to return from their playing on the HeathIn all these cases the children were too young to give any properly intelligible account of themselves, but the consensus of their excuses is that they had been with a "bloofer lady It has always been late in the evening when they have been missed, and on two occasions the children have not been found until early in the following morningIt is generally supposed in the neighborhood that, as the first child missed gave as his reason for being away that a "bloofer lady" had asked him to come for a walk, the others had picked up the phrase and used it as occasion servedThis is the more natural as the favourite game of the little ones at present is luring each other away by wilesA correspondent writes us that to see some of the tiny tots pretending to be the "bloofer lady" is supremely funnySome of our caricaturists might, he says, take a lesson in the irony of grotesque by comparing the reality and the pictureIt is only in accordance with general principles of human nature that the "bloofer lady" should be the popular role at these al fresco performancesOur correspondent naively says that even Ellen Terry could not be so winningly attractive as some of these grubby-faced little children pretend, and even imagine themselves, to be There is, however, possibly a serious side to the question, for some of the children, indeed all who have been missed at night, have been slightly torn or wounded in the throatThe wounds seem such as might be made by a rat or a small dog, and although of not much importance individually, would tend to show that whatever animal inflicts them has a system or method of its ownThe police of the division have been instructed to keep a sharp lookout for straying children, especially when very young, in and around Hampstead Heath, and for any stray dog which may be about THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE, 25 SEPTEMBER EXTRA SPECIAL THE HAMPSTEAD HORROR ANOTHER CHILD INJURED THE "BLOOFER LADY" We have just received intelligence that another child, missed last night, was only discovered late in the morning under a furze bush at the Shooter's Hill side of Hampstead Heath, which is perhaps, less frequented than the other partsIt has the same tiny wound in the throat as has been noticed in other casesIt was terribly weak, and looked quite emaciatedIt too, when partially restored, had the common story to tell of being lured away by the "bloofer lady" CHAPTER 14 MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL 23 September-Jonathan is better after a bad nightI am so glad that he has plenty of work to do, for that keeps his mind off the terrible things, and oh, I am rejoiced that he is not now weighed down with the responsibility of his new positionI knew he would be true to himself, and now how proud I am to see my Jonathan rising to the height of his advancement and keeping pace in all ways with the duties that come upon himHe will be away all day till late, for he said he could not lunch at homeMy household work is done, so I shall take his foreign journal, and lock myself up in my room and read it-I hadn't the heart to write last night, that terrible record of Jonathan's upset me soPoor dear! How he must have suffered, whether it be true or only imaginationI wonder if there is any truth in it at allDid he get his brain fever, and then write all those terrible things, or had he some cause for it all? I suppose I shall never know, for I dare not open the subject to himAnd yet that man we saw yesterday! He seemed quite certain of him, poor fellow! I suppose it was the funeral upset him and sent his mind back on some train of thought He believes it all himselfI remember how on our wedding day he said "Unless some solemn duty come upon me to go back to the bitter hours, asleep or awake, mad or sane?" There seems to be through it all some thread of continuityThat fearful Count was coming to LondonIf it should be, and he came to London, with its teeming millions? There may be a solemn duty, and if it come we must not shrink from itI shall get my typewriter this very hour and begin transcribingThen we shall be ready for other eyes if requiredAnd if it be wanted, then, perhaps, if I am ready, poor Jonathan may not be upset, for I can speak for him and never let him be troubled or worried with it at allIf ever Jonathan quite gets over the nervousness he may want to tell me of it all, and I can ask him questions and find out things, and see how I may comfort shop him

It was possible, if not likely, the Professor urged, that the Count might appear in Piccadilly during the day, and that if so we might be able to cope with him then and thereAt any rate, we might be able to follow him in forceTo this plan I strenuously objected, and so far as my going was concerned, for I said that I intended to stay and protect MinaI thought that my mind was made up on the subject, but Mina would not listen to my objectionShe said that there might be some law matter in which I could be usefulThat amongst the Count's papers might be some clue which I could understand out of my experience in TransylvaniaAnd that, as it was, all the strength we could muster was required to cope with the Count's extraordinary powerI had to give in, for Mina's resolution was fixedShe said that it was the last hope for her that we should all work together "As for me," she said, "I have no fearThings have been as bad as they can beAnd whatever may happen must have in it some element of hope or comfortGo, my husband! God can, if He wishes it, guard me as well alone as with any one present So I started up crying out, "Then in God's name let us come at once, for we are losing timeThe Count may come to Piccadilly earlier than we think "Not so!" said Van Helsing, holding up his hand "But why?" I asked "Do you forget," he said, with actually a smile, "that last night he banqueted heavily, and will sleep late?" Did I forget! Shall I ever? can I ever! Can any of us ever forget that terrible scene! Mina struggled hard to keep her brave countenance, but the pain overmastered her and she put her hands before her face, and shuddered whilst she moanedVan Helsing had not intended to recall her frightful experienceHe had simply lost sight of her and her part in the affair in his intellectual effort When it struck him what he said, he was horrified at his thoughtlessness and tried to comfort her "Oh, Madam Mina," he said, "dear, dear, Madam Mina, alas! That I of all who so reverence you should have said anything so forgetfulThese stupid old lips of mine and this stupid old head do not deserve so, but you will forget it, will you not?" He bent low beside her as he spoke She took his hand, and looking at him through her tears, said hoarsely, "No, I shall not forget, for it is well that I rememberAnd with it I have so much in memory of you that is sweet, that I take it all togetherNow, you must all be going soonBreakfast is ready, and we must all eat that we may be strong Breakfast was a strange meal to us allWe tried to be cheerful and encourage each other, and Mina was the brightest and most cheerful of usWhen it was over, Van Helsing stood up and said, "Now, my dear friends, we go forth to our terrible enterpriseAre we all armed, as we were on that night when first we visited our enemy's lairArmed against ghostly as well as carnal attack?" We all assured himNow, Madam Mina, you are in any case quite safe here until the sunsetAnd before then we shall return? if? We shall return! But before we go let me see you armed against personal attackI have myself, since you came down, prepared your chamber by the placing of things of which we know, so that He may not enterNow let me guard yourselfOn your forehead I touch this piece of Sacred Wafer in the name of the Father, the Son, and?" There was a fearful scream which almost froze our hearts to hearAs he had placed the Wafer on Mina's forehead, it had seared it? had burned into the flesh as though it had been a piece of white-hot metalMy poor darling's brain had told her the significance of the fact as quickly as her nerves received the pain of it, and the two so overwhelmed her that her overwrought nature had its voice in that dreadful scream But the words to her thought came shop quickly

Arago 84 54 Biot 100 56 Arago 102 57 Arago 80 54 Biot 88 53 Arago 90 53 Arago 88 53 Arago 92 53 Arago 42 55 Chaix 90 54 Chaix 80 53 Arago Mean of 1318 Observations, 38deg * Sets of Observations made with a six-inch repeating circle, at Maranham Number of Latitude Observer Observations deg alpha Lyrae 8 2 31 42Sabine alpha Lyrae 12 43 Ditto alpha Pavonis 10 44 Ditto alpha Lyrae 12 44 Ditto alpha Cygni 12 42 Ditto alpha Gruris 12 42 Ditto Mean latitude deduced from 66 observations 2deg In comparing these results, although the French observations were more than twenty times as numerous as the English, yet the deviations of the individual sets from the mean are greater One second and three-tenths is the greatest deviation from the mean of the Maranham observations; whilst the greatest deviation of those of Formentera, is two seconds and two-tenths If this mode of comparison should be thought unfair, on account of the greater number of the sets in the French observations, let any six, in succession, of those sets be taken, and compared with the six English sets; and it will be found that in no one instance is the greatest deviation from the mean of the whole of the observations less than in those of MaranhamIt must also be borne in mind, that by the latitude deduced by the mean of 1250 superior culminations of Polaris by the same observers, the latitude of Formentera was found to be 38deg a result differing by 2from the mean of the 1318 inferior culminations given above[This difference cannot be accounted for by any difference in the tables of refraction, as neither the employment of those of Bradley, of Piazzi, of the French, of Groombridge, of Young, of Ivory, of Bessel, or of Carlini, would make a difference of two-tenths of a second These facts alone ought to have awakened the attention of Captain Sabine, and of those who examined and officially pronounced on the merits of his observations; for, supposing the skill of the observers equal, it seems a necessary consequence that "the performance of the six-inch circle is" not merely "fully equal to that of circles of larger dimensions," but that it is decidedly SUPERIOR to one of sixteen inches in diameter This opinion did indeed gain ground for a time; but, fortunately for astronomy, long after these observations were made, published, and rewarded, Captain Kater, having borrowed the same instrument, discovered that the divisions of its level, which Captain Sabine had considered to be equal to one second each, were, in fact, more nearly equal to eleven seconds, each one being 10 This circumstance rendered necessary a recalculation of all the observations made with that instrument: a re-calculation which I am not aware Captain Sabine has ever thought it necessary to publish [Above two hundred sets of observations with this instrument are given in the work alluded to It can never be esteemed satisfactory merely to state the mean results of the corrections arising from this error: for the confidence to be attached to that mean will depend on the nature of the deviations from it This is the more to be regretted, as it bears upon a point of considerable importance to navigation; and if it should have caused any alteration in his opinion as to the comparative merits of great and small instruments, it might have been expected from a gentleman, who was expressly directed by the Board of Longitude, to try the question with an instrument constructed for that especial purpose Finding that this has not been done by the person best qualified for the task, perhaps a few remarks from one who has no pretensions to familiarity with the instrument, may tend towards elucidating this interesting question The following table gives the latitudes as corrected for the error of level: Station Star Latitude Latitude Diffe- by Capt corrected for rence Sabine error of shop level