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"I was completely ready by half-past eight, although a moment's
consideration of course told me that at least another hour must elapse
before there could be the least chance of my seeing him arrive, for whom
I so anxiously longed. "I can safely say so infatuated was I upon the subject, that no fond
lover ever looked with more nervous anxiety for the arrival of the
chosen object of his heart, than I did for that dead body, upon which I
proposed to exert all the influences of professional skill, to recall
back the soul to its earthly dwelling-place. "At length I heard the sound of wheels. I found that my friend the
hangman had procured a cart, in which he brought the coffin, that being
a much quicker mode of conveyance than by bearers so that about a
quarter past nine o'clock the vehicle, with its ghastly content, stopped
at the door of his house. "In my impatience I ran down stairs to meet that which ninety-nine men
out of a hundred would have gone some distance to avoid the sight of,
namely, a corpse, livid and fresh from the gallows. I, however, heralded
it as a great gift, and already, in imagination I saw myself imitating
the learned Frenchman, who had published such an elaborate treatise on
the mode of restoring life under all sorts of circumstances, to those
who were already pronounced by unscientific persons to be dead. "To be sure, a sort of feeling had come over me at times, knowing as I
did that the French are a nation that do not scruple at all to sacrifice
truth on the altar of vanity, that it might be after all a mere
rhodomontade; but, however, I could only ascertain so much by actually
trying, so the suspicion that such might, by a possibility, be the end
of the adventure, did not deter me. "I officiously assisted in having the coffin brought into the room where
I had prepared everything that was necessary in the conduction of my
grand experiment; and then, when no one was there with me but my friend
the executioner, I, with his help, the one of us taking the head and the
other the feet, took the body from the coffin and laid it upon a table. "Hastily I placed my hand upon the region of the heart, and to my great
delight I found it still warm. I drew off the cap that covered the face,
and then, for the first time, my eyes rested upon the countenance of him
who now calls himself--Heaven only knows why--Sir Francis Varney." "Good God!" said Henry, "are you certain?" "Quite." "It may have been some other rascal like him," said the admiral. "No, I am quite sure now; I have, as I have before mentioned to you,
tried to get out of my own conviction upon the subject, but I have been
actually assured that he is the man by the very hangman himself." "Go on, go on! Your tale certainly is a strange one, and I do not say it
either to compliment you or to cast a doubt upon you, but, except from
the lips of an old, and valued friend, such as you yourself are, I
should not believe it.' "I am not surprised to hear you say that," replied the doctor; "nor
should I be offended even now if you were to entertain a belief that I
might, after all, be mistaken." "No, no; you would not be so positive upon the subject, I well know, if
there was the slightest possibility of an error." "Indeed I should not." "Let us have the sequel, then." "It is this. I was most anxious to effect an immediate resuscitation, if
it were possible, of the hanged man. A little manipulation soon
convinced me that the neck was not broken, which left me at once every
thing to hope for. The hangman was more prudent than I was, and before I
commenced my experiments, he said,--

"'Doctor, have you duly considered what you mean to do with this fellow,
in case you should be successful in restoring him to life?' "'Not I,' said I. "'Well,' he said, 'you can do as you like; but I consider that it is
really worth thinking of.' "I was headstrong on the matter, and could think of nothing but the
success or the non-success, in a physiological point of view, of my plan
for restoring the dead to life; so I set about my experiments without
any delay, and with a completeness and a vigour that promised the most
completely successful results, if success could at all be an ingredient
in what sober judgment would doubtless have denominated a mad-headed and
wild scheme. "For more than half an hour I tried in vain, by the assistance of the
hangman, who acted under my directions. Not the least symptom of
vitality presented itself; and he had a smile upon his countenance, as
he said in a bantering tone,--

"'I am afraid, sir, it is much easier to kill than to restore their
patients with doctors.' "Before I could make him any reply, for I felt that his observation had
a good amount of truth in it, joined to its sarcasm the hanged man
uttered a loud scream, and opened his eyes. "I must own I was myself rather startled; but I for some moments longer
continued the same means which had produced such an effect, when
suddenly he sprang up and laid hold of me, at the same time
exclaiming,--

"'Death, death, where is the treasure?' "I had fully succeeded--too fully; and while the executioner looked on
with horror depicted in his countenance, I fled from the room and the
house, taking my way home as fast as I possibly could. "A dread came over me, that the restored man would follow me if he
should find out, to whom it was he was indebted for the rather
questionable boon of a new life. I packed up what articles I set the
greatest store by, bade adieu to London, and never have I since set foot
within that city." "And you never met the man you had so resuscitated?" "Not till I saw Varney, the vampyre; and, as I tell you, I am now
certain that he is the man." "That is the strangest yarn that ever I heard," said the admiral. "A most singular circumstance," said Henry. "You may have noticed about his countenance," said Dr. Chillingworth, "a
strange distorted look?" "Yes, yes." "Well, that has arisen from a spasmodic contraction of the muscles, in
consequence of his having been hanged. He will never lose it, and it has
not a little contributed to give him the horrible look he has, and to
invest him with some of the seeming outward attributes of the vampyre." "And that man who is now in the hall with him, doctor," said Henry, "is
the very hangman who executed him?" "The same. He tells me that after I left, he paid attention to the
restored man, and completed what I had nearly done. He kept him in his
house for a time, and then made a bargain with him, for a large sum of
money per annum, all of which he has regularly been paid, although he
tells me he has no more idea where Varney gets it, than the man in the
moon." "It is very strange; but, hark! do you not hear the sound of voices in
angry altercation?" "Yes, yes, they have met. Let us approach the windows now. We may chance
to hear something of what they say to each other." CHAPTER LXXVIII. THE ALTERCATION BETWEEN VARNEY AND THE EXECUTIONER IN THE HALL.--THE
MUTUAL AGREEMENT.