last for a considerable time.

"I have heard," said Charles, "that there are many persons whom no noise
will awaken, while the slightest touch rouses them in an instant. I will
try that upon this slumbering being."

As he spoke, he advanced close to Sir Francis Varney, and touched him
slightly with the toe of his boot.

The effect was as startling as it was instantaneous. The vampyre sprang
to his feet, as he had been suddenly impelled up by some powerful
machinery; and, casting his cloak away from his arms, so as to have them
at liberty, he sprang upon Charles Holland, and hurled him to the
ground, where he held him with a giant's gripe, as he cried,--

"Rash fool! be you whom you may. Why have you troubled me to rid the
world of your intrusive existence?"

The attack was so sudden and so terrific, that resistance to it, even if
Charles had had the power, was out of the question. All he could say,
was,--

"Varney, Varney! do you not know me? I am Charles Holland. Will you now,
in your mad rage, take the life you might more easily have taken when I
lay in the dungeon from which you released me?"

The sound of his voice at once convinced Sir Francis Varney of his
identity; and it was with a voice that had some tones of regret in it,
that he replied,--

"And wherefore have you thought proper, when you were once free and
unscathed, to cast yourself into such a position of danger as to follow
me to my haunt?"

"I contemplated no danger," said Charles, "because I contemplated no
evil. I do not know why you should kill me."

"You came here, and yet you say you do not know why I should kill you.
Young man, have you a dozen lives that you can afford to tamper with
them thus? I have, at much chance of imminence to myself, already once
saved you, when another, with a sterner feeling, would have gladly taken
your life; but now, as if you were determined to goad me to an act which
I have shunned committing, you will not let me close my eyes in peace."

"Take your hand from off my throat, Varney, and I will then tell you
what brought me here."

Sir Francis Varney did so.

"Rise," he said--"rise; I have seen blood enough to be sickened at the
prospect of more; but you should not have come here and tempted me."

"Nay, believe me, I came here for good and not for evil. Sir Francis
Varney, hear me out, and then judge for yourself whether you can blame
the perseverance which enabled me to find out this secret place of