Dracula: The Ship to Varna

Van Helsing left a message for Jonathan and Mina: the Count had given up on England and was going home to his castle in Transylvania.At Lloyd’s, where every ship that sails is recorded, the men learned that only one ship had left for the Black Sea: the Czarina Catherine, bound for Varna.The dock workers remembered a tall, thin, pale man in black, with burning eyes and a straw hat that did not suit him.

He had driven a cart to the wharf himself and lifted down a great box that it took several men to carry onto the ship.The captain swore at him in many languages, but just before the ship sailed, a thick fog rose around it and nowhere else on the river.When the fog cleared, the ship went out with the tide, carrying the Count and his last box of earth.

Mina asked whether they really had to follow him, and Van Helsing’s answer grew fierce as he spoke.“Yes, it is necessary!” he said. “He is like a tiger that has tasted human blood: he will never stop hunting, so neither can we.”“And the poison he has given you will change you in time, unless we destroy him first.”

The next morning Van Helsing quietly told Dr. Seward that Mina was changing: her teeth were a little sharper, and she was often strangely silent.Worse, if Mina could see the Count’s thoughts under hypnosis, perhaps the Count could see hers.With heavy hearts, they decided that she must no longer hear their plans.

But before they could tell her, Mina said it herself: “You must tell me nothing, for what I know, he may know.”Then, at dawn, pointing to the red mark on her forehead, she asked to go with them: “When he calls me, I must go. I am safer with you.”Van Helsing agreed, and soon they all set out for Varna, to be waiting when the ship came in.