"Bram Stoker - Dracula" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stoker Bram)

to those horrid three. I felt all over the body, but no sign
could I find of the key. Then I stopped and looked at the Count.
There was a mocking smile on the bloated face which seemed
to drive me mad. This was the being I was helping to transfer
to London, where, perhaps, for centuries to come he might,
amongst its teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood,
and create a new and ever-widening circle of semi-demons
to batten on the helpless.

The very thought drove me mad. A terrible desire
came upon me to rid the world of such a monster.
There was no lethal weapon at hand, but I seized a shovel
which the workmen had been using to fill the cases, and lifting
it high, struck, with the edge downward, at the hateful face.
But as I did so the head turned, and the eyes fell upon me,
with all their blaze of basilisk horror. The sight seemed
to paralyze me, and the shovel turned in my hand and glanced
from the face, merely making a deep gash above the forehead.
The shovel fell from my hand across the box,and as I pulled
it away the flange of the blade caught the edge of the lid
which fell over again, and hid the horrid thing from my sight.
The last glimpse I had was of the bloated face, blood-stained and
fixed with a grin of malice which would have held its own
in the nethermost hell.

I thought and thought what should be my next move, but my brain
seemed on fire,and I waited with a despairing feeling growing
over me. As I waited I heard in the distance a gipsy song
sung by merry voices coming closer, and through their song
the rolling of heavy wheels and the cracking of whips.
The Szgany and the Slovaks of whom the Count had spoken were coming.
With a last look around and at the box which contained
the vile body, I ran from the place and gained the Count's room,
determined to rush out at the moment the door should be opened.
With strained ears, I listened, and heard downstairs the grinding
of the key in the great lock and the falling back of the heavy door.
There must have been some other means of entry, or some one
had a key for one of the locked doors.

Then there came the sound of many feet tramping and dying
away in some passage which sent up a clanging echo.
I turned to run down again towards the vault, where I might
find the new entrance, but at the moment there seemed to come
a violent puff of wind, and the door to the winding stair blew
to with a shock that set the dust from the lintels flying.
When I ran to push it open, I found that it was hopelessly fast.
I was again a prisoner, and the net of doom was closing round
me more closely.

As I write there is in the passage below a sound of many