The dust danced more and more quickly. The moonbeams seemed to quiver as they went past me into the dark beyond. Slowly they collected together until I could see dim, ghostly shapes. When I saw that I came completely awake, and ran away from the place, screaming.

The phantom shapes, which were becoming gradually more solid in the moonbeams, were those three terrible women that Dracula had promised to give me to. I fled, and felt somewhat safer in my own room, where there was no moonlight, and the lamp was burning brightly.

After a couple of hours I heard something stirring in the Count's room. Then there was something like a sharp wail but it stopped almost at once. After that there was silence, deep, awful silence, which made me shiver. With a beating heart, I tried to open the door. But I was locked in my prison, and could do nothing. I sat down and simply cried. As I sat I heard a sound in the courtyard outside, the agonised cry of a woman. I rushed to the window, opened it, looked out between the bars.