The morning was quickening in the east when we emerged from the front.
Dr. Van Helsing had taken the key of the hall door from the bunch, and
locked the door in orthodox fashion, putting the key into his pocket
when he had done.
"So far," he said, "our night has been eminently successful. No harm
has come to us such as I feared might be and yet we have ascertained
how many boxes are missing. More than all do I rejoice that this, our
first, and perhaps our most difficult and dangerous, step has been
accomplished without the bringing thereinto our most sweet Madam Mina
or troubling her waking or sleeping thoughts with sights and sounds
and smells of horror which she might never forget. One lesson, too,
we have learned, if it be allowable to argue a particulari, that the
brute beasts which are to the Count's command are yet themselves not
amenable to his spiritual power, for look, these rats that would come
to his call, just as from his castle top he summon the wolves to your
going and to that poor mother's cry, though they come to him, they run
pell-mell from the so little dogs of my friend Arthur. We have other
matters before us, other dangers, other fears, and that monster . . .
He has not used his power over the brute world for the only or the
last time tonight. So be it that he has gone elsewhere. Good! It
has given us opportunity to cry 'check' in some ways in this chess
game, which we play for the stake of human souls. And now let us go
home. The dawn is close at hand, and we have reason to be content
with our first night's work. It may be ordained that we have many
nights and days to follow, if full of peril, but we must go on, and
from no danger shall we shrink."
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