Martin Rattler, R. M. Ballantyne [mystery books to read TXT] 📗

Chapter Ten. 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