"I am glad you like it." "Oh, I could not help liking it. The least said and the most to the
purpose, always pleases me best; and this explains nothing, and demands
all you want--which is a fight; so it's all right, you see, and nothing
can be possibly better." Charles did glance in his uncle's face, for he suspected, from the
manner in which these words were uttered, that the old man was amusing
himself a little at his expense. The admiral, however, looked so
supernaturally serious that Charles was foiled. "I repeat, it's a capital letter," he said. "Yes, you said so." "Well, what are you staring at?" "Oh, nothing." "Do you doubt my word?" "Not at all, uncle; only I thought there was a degree of irony in the
manner in which you spoke." "None at all, my boy. I never was more serious in all my life." "Very good. Then you will remember that I leave my honour in this affair
completely in your hands." "Depend upon me, my boy." "I will, and do." "I'll be off and see the fellow at once." The admiral bustled out of the room, and in a few moments Charles heard
him calling loudly,--

"Jack--Jack Pringle, you lubber, where are you?--Jack Pringle, I say." "Ay, ay, sir," said Jack, emerging from the kitchen, where he had been
making himself generally useful in assisting Mrs. Bannerworth, there
being no servant in the house, to cook some dinner for the family. "Come on, you rascal, we are going for a walk." "The rations will be served out soon," growled Jack. "We shall be back in time, you cormorant, never fear. You are always
thinking of eating and drinking, you are, Jack; and I'll be hanged if I
think you ever think of anything else. Come on, will you; I'm going on
rather a particular cruise just now, so mind what you are about." "Aye, aye, sir," said the tar, and these two originals, who so perfectly
understood each other, walked away, conversing as they went, and their
different voices coming upon the ear of Charles, until distance
obliterated all impression of the sound. Charles paced to and fro in the room where he had held this brief and
conclusive conversation with his uncle. He was thoughtful, as any one
might well be who knew not but that the next four-and-twenty hours would
be the limit of his sojourn in this world. "Oh, Flora--Flora!" he at length said, "how happy we might to have been
together--how happy we might have been! but all is past now, and there
seems nothing left us but to endure. There it but one chance, and that
is in my killing this fearful man who is invested with so dreadful an
existence. And if I do kill him in fair and in open fight, I will take
care that his mortal frame has no power again to revisit the glimpses of
the moon." It was strange to imagine that such was the force of many concurrent
circumstances, that a young man like Charles Holland, of first-rate
abilities and education, should find it necessary to give in so far to a
belief which was repugnant to all his best feelings and habits of
thought, as to be reasoning with himself upon the best means of
preventing the resuscitation of the corpse of a vampyre. But so it was. His imagination had yielded to a succession of events which very few
persons indeed could have held out against. "I have heard and read," he said, as he continued his agitated and
uneasy walk, "of how these dreadful beings are to be in their graves. I
have heard of stakes being driven through the body so as to pin it to
the earth until the gradual progress of decay has rendered its
revivification a thing of utter and total impossibility. Then, again,"
he added, after a slight pause, "I have heard of their being burned, and
the ashes gathered to the winds of Heaven to prevent them from ever
again uniting or assuming human form." [Illustration]

These were disagreeable and strange fancies, and he shuddered while he
indulged in them. He felt a kind of trembling horror come over him even
at the thought of engaging in conflict with a being, who perhaps, had
lived more than a hundred years. "That portrait," he thought, "on the panel, is the portrait of a man in
the prime of life. If it be the portrait of Sir Francis Varney, by the
date which the family ascribe to it he must be nearly one hundred and
fifty years of age now." This was a supposition which carried the imagination to a vast amount of
strange conjectures. "What changes he must have witnessed about him in that time," thought
Charles. "How he must have seen kingdoms totter and fall, and how many
changes of habits, of manners, and of customs must he have become a
spectator of. Renewing too, ever and anon, his fearful existence by such
fearful means." This was a wide field of conjecture for a fertile imagination, and now
that he was on the eve of engaging with such a being in mortal combat,
on behalf of her he loved, the thoughts it gave rise to came more
strongly and thickly upon him than ever they had done before. "But I will fight him," he suddenly said, "for Flora's sake, were he a
hundred times more hideous a being than so many evidences tend to prove
him. I will fight with him, and it may be my fate to rid the world of
such a monster in human form." Charles worked himself up to a kind of enthusiasm by which he almost
succeeded in convincing himself that, in attempting the destruction of
Sir Francis Varney, he was the champion of human nature. It would be aside from the object of these pages, which is to record
facts as they occurred, to enter into the metaphysical course of
reasoning which came across Charles's mind; suffice it to say that he
felt nothing shaken as regarded his resolve to meet Varney the Vampyre,
and that he made up his mind the conflict should be one of life or
death. "It must be so," he said. "It must be so. Either he or I must fall in
the fight which shall surely be." He now sought Flora, for how soon might he now be torn from her for ever
by the irresistible hand of death. He felt that, during the few brief
hours which now would only elapse previous to his meeting with Sir
Francis Varney, he could not enjoy too much of the society of her who
reigned supreme in his heart, and held in her own keeping his best
affections. But while Charles is thus employed, let us follow his uncle and Jack
Pringle to the residence of Varney, which, as the reader is aware, was
so near at hand that it required not many minutes' sharp walking to
reach it. The admiral knew well he could trust Jack with any secret, for long
habits of discipline and deference to the orders of superiors takes off
the propensity to blabbing which, among civilians who are not accustomed
to discipline, is so very prevalent. The old man therefore explained to
Jack what he meant to do, and it received Jack's full approval; but as
in the enforced detail of other matters it must come out, we will not
here prematurely enter into the admiral's plans.