But Hal, in the warm comfort of the sun, was fast asleep.
Chapter 10
Mystery of the Vampire Bat
There was not much sleep that night.
The camp had visitors. Not Jivaro Indians — though they were half expected. The visitors were of a much more strange and horrifying sort.
Roger, already covered with mementoes of his bout with the army ants, again proved to be an appetizing morsel. Some people are possessed of a chemical composition that attracts hungry creatures. Roger unfortunately belonged in this group.
They had not been in their hammocks more than an hour when Roger woke. He could not tell what had wakened him. There was a slight pain in the big toe of his right foot. He put his hand on it and felt something wet.
He turned on his flashlight. His hand was smeared with blood, and so was the toe. The blood continued to pour out of a hole about an eighth of an inch in diameter that was as neatly bored as if it had been made with a gimlet.
‘Hey! Ym being eaten alive,’ he yelled.
Hal woke from a dream that cannibals were making a meal of his younger brother. He was a little disgusted when he saw the hole.
‘You probably cut your foot on a thorn.’
‘Don’t be a dope. There are no thorns here. Besides, why does it keep on bleeding?’
Dad spoke from his hammock. ‘Listen!’
Somewhere above was a canopy of beating wings, hundreds of them.
Suddenly Hal remembered the bats of the caverns.
‘Oh, no!’ he exclaimed. ‘This is too good to be true.’
‘What’s good about it?’ retorted Roger, sopping blood with his handkerchief.
They must be vampire bats. The London Zoo will pay two thousand dollars for one.’
‘I must see that,’ said dad, struggling to get out of his hammock.
‘Stay where you are. I’ll bring it to you,’ and Hal took hold of the pedal specimen and nearly dragged Roger out of his hammock in order to show dad the punctured foot.
‘What am I, a guinea pig?’ wailed Roger, but no one was paying much attention to his complaints.
Think of it, dad,’ Hal cried. ‘If we could only get one! You remember what Dr Ditmars told us— the one he got was the first ever exhibited in the Bronx Zoo. And it died after only a few months. And the London Zoo has never had one.’
‘Bandage his toe until it stops bleeding,’ dad said, Then put on iodine. You’ll live,’ he assured Roger.
‘But how are we going to catch one?’ wondered Hal. ‘Of course we could wait until one bites Roger again and then grab it.’
Roger glared at his brother. ‘Be your own guinea pig,’ he snapped. And when his toe was bandaged he covered himself completely with his blanket, face and feet included. ‘Now let the ugly little beasts try to get at me.’
If it was a dare, it was soon taken up. The camp was quiet only a few minutes before there was another yelp from Roger.
The boy had forgotten to put the blanket under him as well as over. An exploring bat had discovered a slight rip in the seat of his trousers and had bitten him through the meshes of the hammock. But, again, the visitor had escaped.
Despairing of making a meal on Roger, the greedy little monsters were turning their attention to dad and Hal. Dad had already had a caller. Before it could make an incision he grabbed at it, but it was off and away before his fingers closed.
Hal got a small hand net from the kit.
‘Now I’m going to set a trap for them.’
‘What will you use for bait?’
‘Me,’ laughed Hal, a little uneasily. ‘If William Beebe could do it, I can.’
Beebe, the well-known naturalist, had deliberately exposed his arm and waited for a vampire to bite him. The creature landed lightly and began to make an opening. Beebe’s imagination played tricks with him and he thought he felt blood flowing. He tried to seize the bat but it eluded him. Examining the arm, he found that he had interrupted the bat too soon — only a slight scratch had been made and there was no blood.
Hal determined that he was going to stick it out, no matter how it felt. The methods of the vampire bat had always been a dark mystery that was only now beginning to be cleared up by such men as Ditmars and Beebe.
The vampire had always been called a ‘bloodsucking bat’. Ditmars had proved that it does not suck blood, but laps it up as a cat laps milk. There had been legends that the bat fans its victims to sleep with its wings. Others had it that the bat hovers over the body instead of alighting when it bites.
Hal would find out whether these stories were true. He stretched out his bare arm and lay very still. For a long time nothing happened.
Then the beat of wings seemed to come closer. Finally he felt a very light pressure on his chest, as if a bat had landed there. It was as light as a breath and if he had been asleep he would never have noticed it.
There was no sensation for a while. He could hardly bear the suspense. He wanted to leap up and beat the air to drive away the loathsome creature that wheeled around him.
Then he was aware of a slight tickling on his wrist. That was the only sign that a landing had been made there. He was not even sure he felt it.
But the tickling now seemed to be going up his
arm to the elbow. Or it might be just the night breeze blowing over his arm. He couldn’t be sure.
For a while there was nothing. Then his arm, near the elbow, had a slight tingling sensation as if it were going to sleep. This discovery excited Hal greatly. Scientists had often speculated as to how a bat could cut a hole without the victim feeling it. It was believed possible that the bat’s saliva contained a local anaesthetic which numbed the spot where the bite was to be made. What Hal felt seemed to bear out this idea.
Like Beebe, Hal imagined that the hole was cut and the blood was flowing. He resolutely lay still. There was one thing sure — the actual cutting of the hole could not be felt, nor the lapping up of the blood. Or else the bat had flown away. He couldn’t tell.
Perhaps he was just fancying the whole thing. But no, now he could really feel something — the very faint sensation of warm blood flowing down over the part of the arm that had not been drugged.
He felt he had learned enough for one lesson. He must capture the little blood drinker before it satisfied itself and flew away.
With all the force at his command he swung the net across his body and down upon his elbow, then twisted the handle smartly so that anything caught in the net could not escape.
He reached for his flashlight. Yes, he had not been just imagining things. His arm was a gory sight. He did not bother with it but looked at the net. A devilish-looking creature struggled in its meshes.
‘I’ve got it!’ he yelled. ‘I’ve got! Dad, look!’
An extraordinary face leered out of the net. Hal thought he had never seen a face more evil — except one, and his memory went back for an instant to the face of the man who had followed him that night in Quito.
The old legend that had given birth to the name of this creature came back to his mind. ‘Vampires’ were supposed to be ghosts that came out of their graves at night to suck the blood of human beings. This superstition had been the basis of that terrible play, Dracula.
Certainly this bat embodied all the horror of the old legend. It was a thing of the night, dark, sinister, with beady eyes full of hate peering out through overhanging fur. The ears were pointed like those generally pictured on Satan himself. The nose was flat and the under-jaw projected like a prize fighter’s.
‘Looks like a cross between the devil and a bulldog,’John Hunt whispered, for the face seemed too dreadful to be spoken of aloud.
But they were yet to see the worst. The bat opened its mouth in a vicious snarl. The long nimble tongue with which it had been lapping up its dinner was covered with blood. The beast seemed very short on teeth, but those it had were terribly efficient. There were two long canines, one on each side.
But the really a
mazing teeth, the ones that had given the vampire its fabulous reputation, were in the front of the upper jaw. They were twin incisors, slightly curved and as sharp as needles. It was with
these lances that the bat made its deep but painless incisions.
Besides blood, there was a sort of watery mucus in the mouth. If he ever got this bat to a laboratory he would have that secretion analysed to see if it contained any narcotic agent that puts the flesh to sleep, or anything that prevents blood from clotting.
He looked at his arm. The blood was still running from the hole. His father staunched it by tying a handkerchief tightly around it.
That was what often caused death, especially to small animals — not the bite of the vampire, but the continued flow of blood after the bat had finished feeding. Blood ordinarily clots in a short time. Did the saliva of the bat contain a chemical that prevented clotting?
That was something to find out.
The bat beat its wings, but the net was strong. While no stories could have overstated the ugliness of this creature, its size had been exaggerated. It had been confused with the great fruit bat which may measure two or three feet between wing tips. The span of this bat was only twelve inches and its body was about four inches long.
‘Little, but oh my!’ came from Roger.
If they could ever get this thing home, how many thousands of people would look at it with the same wonder and awe with which they were gazing at it now! Here was a creature barely known to science — at least the Hunts did not know of a zoo or animal collection in the world that now possessed a specimen. But could they get it back alive?’
Hal had a distressing thought.
‘How are we going to feed it?’
1 was wondering about that myself,’ his father admitted. It has to have about half a cup of fresh blood every day.’
They looked at each other, puzzled. Then Hal turned his gaze upon Roger.
‘Not me!’ cried Roger. He was really ready to believe that he was about to be offered up, a living sacrifice, to science. With an iodined hole in his toe and another in his rear, he felt that he had done enough for the advancement of knowledge.
‘We won’t call upon you,’ his father assured him.
‘Except in case of emergency,’ Hal qualified. ‘And if you don’t want that to happen you’d better unlimber your .22 and get at least one warmblooded animal per day for Vamp.’
The idea cheered Roger considerably. He loved to use his gun and only wanted a good excuse. This was it. He could hardly wait until morning.
Vamp spent the rest of the night in the net. In the morning, she — for in spite of her lack of feminine beauty she was identified as a member of the fair sex — was transferred to a cage that Hal had made from strips of bamboo.
Roger, who usually could think of nothing in the morning except eating, was off before breakfast into the wood with his Mossberg. It was a 15-shot automatic equipped with a scope. It was loaded with high-speed Long Rifle cartridges. Although the gun was light and its calibre was only .22, he had killed a big puma with it in Colorado.
Now he secretly hoped to get a shot at a tigre. But after an hour of stalking, all he came upon was a ratlike capyvara, and a little one at that. The capyvara, when full grown, is three feet long and the world’s largest rodent.
This one was no bigger than a wharf rat. He almost scorned to bother with it. But, thinking of Vamp, and his own breakfast, he let fly.
The result was rather astonishing. The little capyvara seemed to emit a roar that shook the forest as it fell over dead. Roger was paralysed with surprise. Then there was a flash of black and yellow in the bushes behind the capyvara and the disappointed tigre that had been stalking it bounded away through the brush.
When Roger saw the size, power and grace of the big animal he changed his mind about wanting to meet it with a .22.
Thankful that he had not wounded it and brought it tumbling out upon him, he took up the little rodent and walked back to camp, with frequent glances behind him.
Breakfast was served to Vamp inside her cage which was shrouded in cloth in order to make it as dark as the caverns that had been her home during daylight hours.
After a time Hal peeked in but the cautious Vamp was still hanging upside down at the top of her cage.
The three explorers had their own breakfast. Then Hal took another look. The bat was poised like a great spider over the rodent and was feeding greedily but, disturbed by the light, immediately retreated again to the top of the cage.
In that flash, Hal had seen enough. It was true. The vampire was not a bloodsucker as most scientists supposed it to be. Its mouth had not touched the wound. He had seen its long, bluish-pink tongue darting out and in at the rate of about four times a second. The movement was so rapid that a continuous column of fluid spanned the gap from wound to mouth. It was the technique of a cat or dog, but at high speed.
And to think that this operation could be carried on so gently that a sleeping victim was not wakened, and one wide awake scarcely knew what was going on!
Late in that day’s journey another prize was added to the animal-collector’s bag. Like the vampire, it was small in size but large in value. But it was quite unlike the bat in appearance. It was as lovely as the other creature was ugly.
Camp was being made for the night when Hal spied the little creature in a branch of a tree. It was only two or three inches long, except for the tail, and could not weigh more than four ounces. It was covered with soft, golden hair except around the eyes and mouth. There the skin was white and the little fellow looked as if he had kissed a flour barrel and were wearing a large pair of white spectacles. ‘It’s a pigmy marmoset,’ Hal called to his father. John Hunt had already been made comfortable in his hammock. He was gradually recovering from the effect of the curare.
‘Get it with the blowpipe,’ he advised Hal. Roger ran to the boat and got a blowgun that had been presented to them by the Jivaro chief. He
brought also a quiver full of darts and a small bottle of curare.
Hal dipped the point of a dart into the curare so that it picked up only the slightest touch of the poison. Then he fitted the dart in the near end of the seven-foot-long bamboo tube. The butt end of the dart was wrapped in the cotton from the kapok tree, making a ball just the right size to fit snugly in the bore of the gun.
Hal raised the blowpipe, put his lips to the mouthpiece, and blew hard.
Fortunately the pigmy, as curious as most monkeys, was sitting very still, taking a keen interest in the proceedings. It made a perfect target. Even so, Hal expected to miss, for he was not adept with the blowpipe — but the dart struck the little fellow in the side.
He chattered excitedly, pulled it out, and threw it away. He started to climb through the tree. But the poison acted fast. He paused, tottered a little, and then fell. He did not check himself with his tail, for the marmoset is not prehensile.
Hal picked him out of the grass. Roger knew his role in this little drama and had the salt ready. Some of it was rubbed into the wound.
‘He’s just numbed a little,’ Hal said.
The marmoset began to stir in Hal’s hands. Its eyes opened. At first dull, they gradually brightened. The golden plume of a tail began to switch about and some tentative remarks came from the funny white lips under the white-ringed eyes.
Roger was delighted. ‘Feeling better, Specs?’ And it was so that the little fellow got his name.
‘I think we’ll find Specs a very interesting companion,’ John Hunt said. ‘Perhaps sometimes a little too interesting. The marmoset is one of the liveliest, most alert, and most curious of all the monkeys. Of course most of the varieties are larger than this one. The pigmy marmoset is the smallest monkey in the world. That’s a point of distinction that should make it interesting to any collector. Do you know, Hal, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a new variety of the pigmy. If he is, they may give him your name, added to his own. Then he’ll be Hapale pygmaeus hunti.’
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‘Well, to us.’ said Hal, ‘he’ll just be Specs Hunt.’
Specs Hunt came to realize very quickly that he was a member of the Hunt family, and demanded all the privileges pertaining thereto. He was a gentle little fellow, made chirps like a bird, but leaps like an acrobat, and was all over everything all the time. He did not seem to have a streak of the meanness that sometimes characterizes a monkey. He was mischievous in a merry way, but handled himself with such squirrel-like lightness that he rarely upset or broke anything.
His greatest delight was to play with Charlie’s long black hair. He would leap out of it at Nosey, the tapir, and land upon his back. But when Nosey tumbled overboard for a bath, taking Specs with him, Specs was loud in disapproval and would clamber back into the boat and make straight for Roger whom he had adopted as his special guardian.
He would climb inside Roger’s shirt and lie there wet and cool against his skin until he dried.
It was going to be hard to part with Specs.
Chapter 11
Noah’s Ark on the Amazon
‘The Amazon!’ cried Hal, as the canoe swept around a curve and pointed its nose out into a far greater river, broad, swirling, and full of brown humps like lions’ heads with manes flowing — mounds of water that hinted the power and speed of the current.
For five days they had followed the mysterious dotted line. When a new map was made that line would be solid. Hal completed his pencilled map by marking the juncture with the Amazon. Then he put the map carefully away in a waterproof bottle and placed the bottle in the waterproof medicine box. That map was one of the expedition’s most cherished possessions.
The Amazon, greatest river on earth! Roger and his father were as excited as Hal. The other passengers seemed to share the excitement, or it may have been that they were only disturbed by the rolling and pitching of the little canoe.
The tapir whinnied, the marmoset chirped, and even the sleepy vampire in her dark cage squeaked in alarm. Only Charlie took the whole thing calmly. Hanging from his thwart, the mummified hero did not even deign to open his eyes. He merely nodded gravely.
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