inging 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 life-blood of their fellow-creatures; that
they have a pe