the regiment in which I was Cornet died from this languor, and several more were attacked and must have perished had not a Corporal of our regiment put a stop to these maladies by resorting to the remedial ceremonies which are practised by the local people. These are very unusual, and although they are considered an infallible cure I cannot remember even to have seen these in any Rituale.
“They select a young lad who is a pure maiden, that is to say, who, as they believe, had never performed the sexual act. He is set upon a young stallion who has not yet mounted his first mare, who has never stumbled, and who must be coal-black without a speck of white; the stud is ridden into the cemetery in and out among the graves and that grave over which the steed in spite of the blows they deal him pretty handsomely refuses to pass is where the Vampire lies.[100] The tomb is opened and they find a sleek, fat corpse, as healthily-coloured as though the man were quietly and happily sleeping in calm repose. With one single blow of a sharp spade they cut off the head, whereupon there gush forth warm streams of blood in colour rich red, and filling the whole grave. It would assuredly be supposed that they had just decapitated a stalwart fine fellow of most sanguine habit and complexion. When this business is done, they refill the grave with earth and then the ravages of the disease immediately cease whilst those who are suffering from this marasmus gradually recover their strength just as convalescents recuperating after a long illness, who have wasted and withered. This is exactly what occurred in the case of our young officers who had sickened. As the Colonel of the regiment, the Captain and Lieutenant were all absent, I happened to be in command just then and I was heartily vexed to find that the Corporal had arranged the affair without my knowledge. I was within an ace of ordering him a severe military punishment, and these are common enough in the Imperial service. I would have given the world to have been present at the exhumation of the Vampire, but after all it is too late for that now.”
It has already been remarked that in a cemetery there were often found to be a number of small passages of the size of a man’s finger pierced through the earth, and it was considered that the presence of such a soupirail in a grave was a certain
