AN ENEMY IN THE NIGHT--THE VAMPIRE BAT--THE HERMIT DISCOURSES ON
STRANGE, AND CURIOUS, AND INTERESTING THINGS.
Next morning Martin Rattler awoke with a feeling of lightness in his
head, and a sensation of extreme weakness pervading his entire frame.
Turning his head round to the right he observed that a third hammock was
slung across the further end of the hut; which was, no doubt, that in
which the hermit had passed the night. But it was empty now. Martin
did not require to turn his head to the other side to see if Barney
O'Flannagan was there, for that worthy individual made his presence
known, for a distance of at least sixty yards all round the outside of
the hut, by means of his nose, which he was in the habit of using as a
trumpet when asleep. It was as well that Martin did not require to look
round; for he found, to his surprise, that he had scarcely strength to
do so. While he was wondering in a dreamy sort of manner what could be
the matter with him, the hermit entered the hut bearing a small deer
upon his shoulders. Resting his gun in a corner of the room, he
advanced to Martin's hammock.
"My boy," he exclaimed, in surprise, "what is wrong with you?"
"I'm sure I don't know," said Martin, faintly; "I think there is
something wet about my feet."
Turning up the sheet, he found that Martin's feet were covered with
blood! For a few seconds the hermit growled forth a number of
apparently very pithy sentences in Portuguese, in a deep guttural voice,
which awakened Barney with a start. Springing from his hammock with a
bound like a tiger, he exclaimed, "Och! ye blackguard, would ye murther
the boy before me very nose?" and seizing the hermit in his powerful
grasp, he would infallibly have hurled him, big though he was, through
his own doorway, had not Martin cried out, "Stop, stop, Barney. It's
all right; he's done nothing:" on hearing which the Irishman loosened
his hold, and turned towards his friend.
"What's the matter, honey?" said Barney, in a soothing tone of voice, as
a mother might address her infant son. The hermit whose composure had
not been in the slightest degree disturbed, here said--"The poor child
has been sucked by a vampire bat."
"Ochone!" groaned Barney, sitting down on the table, and looking at his
host with a face of horror.
"Yes, these are the worst animals in Brazil for sucking the blood of men
and cattle. I find it quite impossible to keep my mules alive, they are
so bad."
Barney groaned.
"They have killed two cows which I tried to keep here, and one young
horse--a foal you call him, I think; and now I have no cattle remaining,
they are so bad."
Barney groaned again, and the hermit went on to enumerate the wicked
deeds of the vampire-bats, while he applied poultices of certain herbs
to Martin's toe, in order to check the bleeding, and then bandaged it
up; after which he sat down to relate to his visitors, the manner in
which the bat carries on its bloody operations. He explained, first of
all, that the vampire-bats are so large and ferocious that they often
kill horses and cattle by sucking their blood out. Of course they
cannot do this at one meal, but they attack the poor animals again and
again, and the blood continues to flow from the wounds they make long
afterwards, so that the creatures attacked soon grow weak and die. They
attack men, too,--as Martin knew to his cost; and they usually fix upon
the toes and other extremities. So gentle are they in their operations,
that sleepers frequently do not feel the puncture, which they make, it
is supposed, with the sharp hooked nail of their thumb; and the
unconscious victim knows nothing of the enemy who has been draining his
blood until he awakens, faint and exhausted, in the morning.
Moreover, the hermit told them that these vampire-bats have very sharp,
carnivorous teeth, besides a tongue, which is furnished with the curious
organs, by which they suck the lifeblood of their fellow-creatures; that
they have a peculiar, leaf-like, overhanging lip; and that he had a
stuffed specimen of a bat that measured no less than two feet across the
expanded wings, from tip to tip.
"Och, the blood-thirsty spalpeen!" exclaimed Barney, as he rose and
crossed the room to examine the bat in question, which was nailed
against the wall. "Bad luck to them, they've ruined Martin intirely."
"O no," remarked the hermit with a smile. "It will do the boy much
good, the loss of the blood; much good, and he will not be sick at all
to-morrow."
"I'm glad to hear you say so," said Martin, "for it would be a great
bore to be obliged to lie here when I've so many things to see. In fact
I feel better already, and if you will be so kind as to give me a little
breakfast I shall be quite well."
While Martin was speaking, the obliging hermit--who, by the way, was now
habited in a loose short hunting-coat of brown cotton,--spread a
plentiful repast upon his table; to which, having assisted Martin to get
out of his hammock, they all proceeded to do ample justice: for the
travellers were very hungry after the fatigue of the previous day; and
as for the hermit, he looked like a man whose appetite was always sharp
set, and whose food agreed with him.
They had cold meat of several kinds, and a hot steak of venison just
killed that morning, which the hermit cooked while his guests were
engaged with the other viands. There was also excellent coffee, and
superb cream, besides cakes made of a species of coarse flour or meal,
fruits of various kinds, and very fine honey.
"Arrah! ye've the hoith o' livin' here!" cried Barney, smacking his lips
as he held out his plate for another supply of a species of meat which
resembled chicken in tenderness and flavour. "What sort o' bird or
baste may that be, now, av' I may ask ye, Mister--what's yer name?"
"My name is Carlos," replied the hermit, gravely; "and this is the flesh
of the armadillo."
"Arms-what-o?" inquired Barney.
"_Armadillo_," repeated the hermit. "He is very good to eat but very
difficult to catch. He digs down so fast we cannot catch him, and must
smoke him out of his hole."
"Have you many cows?" inquired Martin, as he replenished his cup with
coffee.
"Cows?" echoed the hermit, "I have got no cows."
"Where do you get such capital cream, then?" asked Martin in surprise.
The hermit smiled. "Ah! my friends, that cream has come from a very
curious cow. It is from a cow that grows in the ground."
"Grows!" ejaculated his guests.
"Yes, he grows. I will show him to you one day."
The hermit's broad shoulders shook with a quiet internal laugh. "I will
explain a little of that you behold on my table."
"The coffee I get from the trees. There are plenty of them here. Much
money is made in Brazil by the export of coffee,--very much. The cakes
are made from the mandioca-root which I grow near my house. The root is
dried and ground into flour, which, under the general name _farina_, is
used all over the country. It is almost the only food used by the
Indians and Negroes."
"Then there are Injins and Niggers here, are there?" inquired Barney.
"Yes, a great many. Most of the Negroes are slaves; some of the Indians
too; and the people who are descended from the Portuguese who came and
took the country long ago, they are the masters.--Well, the honey I get
in holes in the trees. There are different kinds of honey here; some of
it is _sour_ honey. And the fruits and roots, the plantains, and
bananas, and yams, and cocoa-nuts, and oranges, and plums, all grow in
the forest and much more besides, which you will see for yourselves if
you stay long here."
"It's a quare country, intirely," remarked Barney, as he wiped his mouth
and heaved a sigh of contentment. Then, drawing his hand over his chin,
he looked earnestly in the hermit's face, and, with a peculiar twinkle
in his eye, said,--"I s'pose ye couldn't favour me with the lind of a
raazor, could ye?"
"No, my friend; I never use that foolish weapon."
"Ah, well, as there's only monkeys and jaguars, and sich like to see me,
it don't much signify; but my moustaches is gittin' mighty long, for
I've been two weeks already without a shave."
Martin laughed heartily at the grave, anxious expression of his
comrade's face. "Never mind, Barney," he said, "a beard and moustache
will improve you vastly. Besides, they will be a great protection
against mosquitoes; for you are such a hairy monster, that when they
grow nothing of your face will be exposed except your eyes and
cheek-bones. And now," continued Martin, climbing into his hammock
again and addressing the hermit, "since you won't allow me to go out
a-hunting to-day, I would like very much if you would tell me something
more about this strange country."
"An' may be," suggested Barney, modestly, "ye won't object to tell us
something about yersilf--how you came for to live in this quare,
solitary kind of a way."
The hermit looked gravely from one to the other, and stroked his beard.
Drawing his rude chair towards the door of the hut he folded his arms,
and crossed his legs, and gazed dreamily forth upon the rich landscape.
Then, glancing again at his guests, he said, slowly; "Yes, I will do
what you ask,--I will tell you my story."
"An', if I might make so bould as to inquire," said Barney, with a
deprecatory smile, while he drew a short black pipe from his pocket,
"have ye got such a thing as 'baccy in them parts?"
The hermit rose, and going to a small box which stood in a corner,
returned with a quantity of cut tobacco in one hand, and a cigar not far
short of a foot long in the other! In a few seconds the cigar was going
in full force, like a factory chimney; and the short black pipe glowed
like a miniature furnace, while its owner seated himself on a low stool,
crossed his arms on his breast, leaned his back against the door-post
and smiled,--as only an Irishman can smile under such circumstances.
The smoke soon formed a thick cloud, which effectually drove the
mosquitoes out of the hut, and though which Martin, lying in his
hammock, gazed out upon the sunlit orange and coffee-trees, and tall
palms with their rich festoons of creeping-plants, and sweet-scented
flowers, that clambered over and round the hut and peeped in at the open
door and windows, while he listened to the hermit who continued for at
least ten minutes to murmur slowly, between the puffs of his cigar,
"Yes, I will do it; I will tell you my story."