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.I think I must have fallen asleep and kept dreaming of the incident, for it seemed to be repeated endlessly, and now looking back, it is like a sort of awful nightmare.Once the flame appeared so near the road, that even in the darkness around us I could watch the driver’s motions.He went rapidly to where the blue flame arose—it must have been very faint, for it did not seem to illumine the place around it at all—and gathering a few stones, formed them into some device.Once there appeared a strange optical effect: when he stood between me and the flame he did not obstruct it, for I could see its ghostly figure all the same.This startled me, but as the effect was only momentary, I took it that my eyes deceived me straining through the darkness.Then for a time there were no blue flames, and we sped onwards through the gloom, with the howling of the wolves around us, as though they were following in a moving circle.At last there came a time when the driver went further afield than he had yet gone, and during his absence the horses began to tremble worse than ever and to snort and scream with fright.I could not see any cause for it, for the howling of the wolves had ceased altogether; but just then the moon, sailing through the black clouds, appeared behind the jagged crest of a beetling, pine-clad rock, and by its light I saw around us a ring of wolves, with white teeth and lolling red tongues, with long, sinewy limbs and shaggy hair.They were a hundred times more terrible in the grim silence which held them than ever when they howled.For myself, I felt a sort of paralysis of fear.It is only when a man feels himself face to face with such horrors that he can understand their true import.All at once the wolves began to howl as though the moonlight had had some peculiar effect on them.The horses jumped about and reared, and looked helplessly round with eyes that rolled in a way painful to see; but the living ring of terror encompassed them on every side, and they had perforce to remain within it.I called to the coachman to come, for it seemed to me that our only chance was to try to break out through the ring and to aid his approach.I shouted and beat the side of the calèche, hoping by the noise to scare the wolves from that side, so as to give him a chance of reaching the trap.How he came there, I know not, but I heard his voice raised in a tone of imperious command, and looking towards the sound, saw him stand in the roadway.As he swept his long arms, as though brushing aside some impalpable obstacle, the wolves fell back and back further still.Just then a heavy cloud passed across the face of the moon, so that we were again in darkness.When I could see again the driver was climbing into the calèche, and the wolves had disappeared.This was all so strange and uncanny that a dreadful fear came upon me, and I was afraid to speak or move.The time seemed interminable as we swept on our way, now in almost complete darkness, for the rolling clouds obscured the moon.We kept on ascending, with occasional periods of quick descent, but in the main always ascending.Suddenly I became conscious of the fact that the driver was in the act of pulling up the horses in the courtyard of a vast ruined castle, from whose tall black windows came no ray of light, and whose broken battlements showed a jagged line against the moonlit sky.CHAPTER IIJONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL—(continued)5 May.I must have been asleep, for certainly if I had been fully awake I must have noticed the approach to such a remarkable place.In the gloom the courtyard looked of considerable size, and as several dark ways led from it under great round arches it perhaps seemed bigger than it really is.I have not yet been able to see it by daylight.When the calèche stopped the driver jumped down, and held out his hand to assist me to alight.Again I could not but notice his prodigious strength.His hand actually seemed like a steel vice that could have crushed mine if he had chosen.Then he took out my traps,p and placed them on the ground beside me as I stood close to a great door, old and studded with large iron nails, and set in a projecting doorway of massive stone.I could see even in the dim light that the stone was massively carved, but that the carving had been much worn by time and weather.As I stood, the driver jumped again into his seat and shook the reins; the horses started forward, and trap and all disappeared down one of the dark openings.I stood in silence where I was, for I did not know what to do.Of bell or knocker there was no sign; through these frowning walls and dark window openings it was not likely that my voice could penetrate.The time I waited seemed endless, and I felt doubts and fears crowding upon me
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