The Diary of Johnathan Harker:"All around me wolves began to howl"



"Then a Caleche with four horses drove up behind me. The horses were coal black and splendid animals. They were driven by a tall man with a long brown beard and a great black hat, which seemed to hide his face from me.I could only see the gleam of a pair of very bright eyes, which seemed red in the lamplight."

"The time seemed interminable as we swept on our way, now almost in complete darkness, for the rolling clouds obscured the moon. We kept on 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."



"I stood close to a great door, old and studded with large iron nails, and set in a projecting doorway of massive stone."

"I heard a heavy step approaching from behind the door and saw through the chinks the gleam of a coming light. Then there was the sound of rattling chains and the clanking of massive bolts drawn back. A key was turned with the loud grating noise of long disuse, and the great door swung back"

"Within stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache.He motioned me in with a courtley gesture saying in excellent English, but with a strange intonation:-
Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will!"
He made no motion of stepping to meet me, but stood like a statue, as though his gesture of welcome had fixed him into stone." "
Count Dracula?" I enquired"
"I am Dracula... And I bid you welcome... Mr Harker... to my house."Next week ... The Vampire Brides
