By the time this short dialogue had been uttered, the rest of the party
had come up, and Varney was, so far as regarded numbers, a prisoner. "Well, gentlemen," he said, with that strange contortion of countenance
which, now they all understood, arose from the fact of his having been
hanged, and restored to life again. "Well, gentlemen, now that you have
beleaguered me in such a way, may I ask you what it is about?" "If you will step aside with me, Sir Francis Varney, for a moment," said
Dr. Chillingworth, "I will make to you a communication which will enable
you to know what it is all about." "Oh, with pleasure," said the vampyre. "I am not ill at present; but
still, sir, I have no objection to hear what you have to say." He stepped a few paces on one side with the doctor, while the others
waited, not without some amount of impatience for the result of the
communication. All that they could hear was, that Varney said,
suddenly--

"You are quite mistaken." And then the doctor appeared to be insisting upon something, which the
vampyre listened to patiently; and, at the end, burst out with,--

"Why, doctor, you must be dreaming." At this, Dr. Chillingworth at once left him, and advancing to his
friends, he said,--

"Sir Francis Varney denies in toto all that I have related to you
concerning him; therefore, I can say no more than that I earnestly
recommend you, before you let him go, to see that he takes nothing of
value with him." "Why, what can you mean?" said Varney. "Search him," said the doctor; "I will tell you why, very shortly." "Indeed--indeed!" said Sir Francis Varney. "Now, gentlemen, I will give
you a chance of behaving justly and quietly, so saving yourself the
danger of acting otherwise. I have made repeated offers to take this
house, either as a tenant or as a purchaser, all of which offers have
been declined, upon, I dare say, a common enough principle, namely, one
which induces people to enhance the value of anything they have for
disposal, if it be unique, by making it difficult to come at. Seeing
that you had deserted the place, I could make no doubt but that it was
to be had, so I came here to make a thorough examination of its
interior, to see if it would suit me. I find that it will not;
therefore, I have only to apologise for the intrusion, and to wish you a
remarkably good evening." "That won't do," said the doctor. "What won't do, sir?" "This excuse will not do, Sir Francis Varney. You are, although you deny
it, the man who was hanged in London some years ago for a highway
robbery." Varney laughed, and held up his hands, exclaiming,--

"Alas! alas! our good friend, the doctor, has studied too hard; his
wits, probably, at the best of times, none of the clearest, have become
hopelessly entangled." "Do you deny," said Henry, "then, that you are that man?" "Most unequivocally." "I assert it," said the doctor, "and now, I will tell you all, for I
perceive you hesitate about searching, Sir Francis Varney, I tell you
all why it is that he has such an affection for Bannerworth Hall." "Before you do," said Varney, "there is a pill for you, which you may
find more nauseous and harder of digestion, than any your shop can
furnish." As Varney uttered these words, he suddenly drew from his pocket a
pistol, and, levelling it at the unfortunate doctor, he fired it full at
him. The act was so sudden, so utterly unexpected, and so stunning, that it
was done before any one could move hand or foot to prevent it. Henry
Bannerworth and his brother were the furthest off from the vampyre; and,
unhappily, in the rush which they, as soon us possible, made towards
him, they knocked down the admiral, who impeded them much; and, before
they could spring over, or past him, Sir Francis Varney was gone. So sudden, too, had been his departure, that they had not the least idea
in which direction he had gone; so that to follow him would have been a
work of the greatest possible difficulty. Notwithstanding, however, both the difficulty and the danger, for no
doubt the vampyre was well enough armed, Henry and his brother both
rushed after the murderer, as they now believed him to be, in the route
which they thought it was most probable he would take, namely, that
which led towards the garden gate. They reached that spot in a few moments, but all was profoundly still. Not the least trace of any one could be seen, high or low, and they were
compelled, after a cursory examination, to admit that Sir Francis Varney
had again made his escape, despite the great odds that were against him
in point of numbers. "He has gone," said Henry. "Let us go back, and see into the state of
poor Dr. Chillingworth, who, I fear, is a dead man." They hurried back to the spot, and there they found the admiral looking
as composed as possible, and solacing himself with a pinch of snuff, as
he gazed upon the apparently lifeless form at his feet. "Is he dead?" said Henry. "I should say he was," replied the admiral; "such a shot as that was
don't want to be repeated. Well, I liked the doctor with all his faults. He only had one foolish way with him, and that was, that he shirked his
grog." "This is an awful catastrophe," said Henry, as he knelt down by the side
of the body. "Assist me, some of you. Where is Charles?" "I'll be hanged," said the admiral, "if I know. He disappeared
somewhere." "This is a night of mystery as well as terror. Alas! poor Dr.
Chillingworth! I little thought that you would have fallen a victim to
the man whom you preserved from death. How strange it is that you should
have snatched from the tomb the very individual who was, eventually, to
take your own life." The brothers gently raised the body of the doctor, and carried it on to
the glass plot, which was close at hand. "Farewell, kind and honest-hearted Chillingworth," said Henry; "I shall,
many and many a time, feel your loss; and now I will rest not until I
have delivered up to justice your murderer. All consideration, or
feeling, for what seemed to be latent virtues in that strange and
inexplicable man, Varney, shall vanish, and he shall reap the
consequences of the crime he has now committed." "It was a cold blooded, cowardly murder," said his brother. "It was; but you may depend the doctor was about to reveal something to
us, which Varney so much dreaded, that he took his life as the only
effectual way, at the moment, of stopping him." "It must be so," said Henry. "And now," said the admiral, "it's too late, and we shall not know it at
all. That's the way. A fellow saves up what he has got to tell till it
is too late to tell it, and down he goes to Davy Jones's locker with all
his secrets aboard." "Not always," said Dr. Chillingworth, suddenly sitting bolt
upright--"not always." Henry and his brother started back in amazement, and the admiral was so
taken by surprise, that had not the resuscitated doctor suddenly
stretched out his hand and laid hold of him by the ankle, he would have
made a precipitate retreat. "Hilloa! murder!"