Just allowing themselves sufficient light to guide them on the way from
the lantern, they hurried on with as much precipitation as the
intricacies of the passage would allow, nor halted till they had reached
the chamber were hung the portrait which bore so striking and remarkable
a likeness to Varney, the vampyre.

They left the lamp outside the door, so that not even a straggling beam
from it could betray that there were persons on the watch; and then, as
quietly as foot could fall, they took up their station among the
hangings of the antique bedstead, which has been before alluded to in
this work as a remarkable piece of furniture appertaining to that
apartment.

"Do you think," said the admiral, "we've distanced them?"

"Certainly we have. It's unlucky that the blind of the window is down."

"Is it? By Heaven, there's a d----d strange-looking shadow creeping over
it."

Mr. Chillingworth looked almost with suspended breath. Even he could not
altogether get rid of a tremulous feeling, as he saw that the shadow of
a human form, apparently of very large dimensions, was on the outside,
with the arms spread out, as if feeling for some means of opening the
window.

It would have been easy now to have fired one of the pistols direct upon
the figure; but, somehow or another, both the admiral and Mr.
Chillingworth shrank from that course, and they felt much rather
inclined to capture whoever might make his appearance, only using their
pistols as a last resource, than gratuitously and at once to resort to
violence.

"Who should you say that was?" whispered the admiral.

"Varney, the vampyre."

"D----e, he's ill-looking and big enough for anything--there's a noise!"

There was a strange cracking sound at the window, as if a pane of glass
was being very stealthily and quietly broken; and then the blind was
agitated slightly, confusing much the shadow that was cast upon it, as
if the hand of some person was introduced for the purpose of effecting a
complete entrance into the apartment.

"He's coming in," whispered the admiral.

"Hush, for Heaven's sake!" said Mr. Chillingworth; "you will alarm him,
and we shall lose the fruit of all the labour we have already bestowed
upon the matter; but did you not say something, admiral, about lying
under the window and catching him by the leg?"

"Why, yes; I did."

"Go and do it, then; for, as sure as you are a living man, his leg will
be in in a minute."

"Here goes," said