In the morning he awakes in an easy chair. A wide hall extends around him. His senses swim. Where was he last night? Was not the master of this castle sitting across from him, in the other straight-backed chair? Were not marvelous foods steaming before him? Did not the master of the castle suck blood out of his hand and neck?

The next night. He flees through the castle like one persecuted. Quickly into his room. No bolt on the door. He hides himself in bed. A looming up of the world of horror, of frenzied murder and death, coming toward him, seizing him by the throat. A struggle. But as if the horror hears the terrified Ellen’s faraway cry for her husband, it returns, slowly, to its sepulchral night.

But it is not exorcised. Its power grows. In the pre-dawn gloom Hutter sees an uncanny carriage in the castle courtyard, a black spectre carrying long, misshapen boxes, rough coffin upon rough coffin. Now he realizes: Ellen is in danger! And with the last of his strength he enacts his escape, down a sheer precipice.

From the east it draws near. In Galicia, in Varna, in Constantinople, wherever the mysterious ship moors, rats appear, and Death rages. The corpses have marks on their necks which no one can explain. The Plague is coming. It is a race between Hutter and his destiny. He hurries from town to town, lashed by fear, as if he could outrun the horror. Only one person is composed: Ellen. Knock has been committed to a madhouse.

The Death breaks out among the ship’s crew. One after the other is wrapped in cloth and dropped into the sea. The captain and mate are finally alone. Then it gushes forth—black, like a terrible upwelling—rats and more rats. And behind them, the Nosferatu. Insanity in his face, the mate jumps overboard. The captain lashes himself to the wheel, and standing thus awaits the unthinkable.

The storm howls through the narrow streets of the little town. The sea stalks the shore like an enraged beast. A shadow overhangs the waves: a sail, a ship coming ever closer.

The storm abates. Noiselessly the ship glides into the harbor. It is still. Rats clamber from its hold. A form with a coffin walks forth.

In the madhouse Knock pulls himself up to the bars of his window, and murmurs: “The Master is near! The Master is near!…”

Hutter arrives that very night. Ellen! Ellen! Finally he presses her to his breast. But then he looks into her eyes: the joy has died away. He doesn’t understand. Has the race not been won? Around her the glow of the room, but Ellen shakes her head, knowing that outside stands a form with poisonous rat’s teeth which has been watching their window for a long time.