CHAPTER III
THE VAMPIRES
After breakfast, Professor Amandus Ditson called the party together fora conference in a wide, cool veranda on the ground floor.
"I should like to outline to you my plan of our expedition," heannounced precisely.
Jud gave an angry grunt. The old adventurer, who had been a hero amongprospectors and trappers in the Far North, was accustomed to beconsulted in any expedition of which he was a member.
"It seems to me, Professor Ditson," he remarked aggressively, "thatyou're pretty uppity about this trip. Other people here have hadexperience in treasure-huntin'."
"Meaning yourself, I presume," returned Professor Ditson, acidly.
"Yes, sir!" shouted Jud, thoroughly aroused, "that's exactly who I domean. I know as much about--_ouch!_" The last exclamation came when Judbrought down his open hand for emphasis on the side of his chair andincidently on a lurid brown insect nearly three inches in length, withenormous nippers and a rounded body ending in what looked like a longsting. Jud jerked his hand away and gazed in horror at his threateningseat-mate.
"I believe I'm stung," he murmured faintly, gazing anxiously at hishand. "What is it?"
"It would hardly seem to me," observed Professor Ditson, scathingly,"that a man who is afraid of a harmless arachnid like a whip-scorpion,and who nearly falls out of a canoe at the sight of a manta-raydisporting itself, would be the one to lead an expedition through theunexplored wilds of South America. We are going into a country," he wenton more earnestly, "where a hasty step, the careless touching of a tree,or the tasting of a leaf or fruit may mean instant death, to say nothingof the dangers from some of the larger carnivora and wanderingcannibals. I have had some experience with this region," he went on,"and if there is no objection, I will outline my plan."
There was none. Even Jud, who had removed himself to another chair withgreat rapidity, had not a word to say.
"I propose that we take a steamer by the end of this week to Manaos, athousand miles up the Amazon," continued the professor. "In themeantime, we can do some hunting and collecting in this neighborhood.After we reach Manaos we can go by boat down the Rio Negros until westrike the old Slave Trail which leads across the Amazon basin and upinto the highlands of Peru."
"Who made that trail?" inquired Will, much interested.
"It was cut by the Spanish conquerors of Peru nearly four hundred yearsago," returned the scientist. "They used to send expeditions down intothe Amazon region after slaves to work their mines. Since then," he wenton, "it has been kept open by the Indians themselves, and, as far as Iknow, has not been traversed by a white man for centuries. I learned thesecret of it many years ago, while I was living with one of the wildertribes," he finished.
The professor's plan was adopted unanimously, Jud not voting.
Then followed nearly a week of wonderful hunting and collecting. EvenJud, who regarded everything with a severe and jaundiced eye, could notconceal his interest in the multitude of wonderful new sights, sounds,and scents which they experienced every day. As for Will, he lived inthe delightful excitement which only a bird-student knows who findshimself surrounded by a host of unknown and beautiful birds. Some ofthem, unlike good children, were heard but not seen. Once, as theypushed their way in single file along a little path which wound throughthe jungle, there suddenly sounded, from the dark depths beyond, ashriek of agony and despair. In a moment it was taken up by anothervoice and another and another, until there were at least twentyscreamers performing in chorus.
"It's only the ypicaha rail," remarked the professor, indifferently.
Hen Pine, who was in the rear with Will, shook his head doubtfully.
"Dis ol' jungle," he whispered, "is full o' squallers. De professor hecall 'em birds, but dey sound more like ha'nts to me."
Beyond the rail colony they heard at intervals a hollow, mysterious cry.
"That," explained Pinto, "is the Witch of the Woods. No one ever seesher unless she is answered. Then she comes and drives mad the one whocalled her."
"Nice cheery place, this!" broke in Jud.
"The alleged witch," remarked Professor Ditson severely, "happens to bethe little waterhen."
Later they heard a strange, clanging noise, which sounded as if some onehad struck a tree with an iron bar, and at intervals from the deepestpart of the forest there came a single, wild, fierce cry. Even ProfessorDitson could not identify these sounds.
"Dem most suttinly is ha'nts," volunteered Hen. "I know 'em. Youwouldn't catch dis chile goin' far alone in dese woods."
One of the smaller birds which interested Will was the many-coloredknight, which looked much like one of the northern kinglets. His littlebody, smaller than that of a house-wren, showed seven colors--black,white, green, blue, orange, yellow, and scarlet, and he had a blue crownand a sky-blue eye. Moreover, his nest, fastened to a single rush, was amarvel of skill and beauty, being made entirely of soft bits of dry,yellow sedge, cemented together with gum so smoothly that it looked asif it had been cast in a mold. Then there was the Bienteveo tyrant, abird about nine inches long, which caught fish, flies, and game, and fedon fruit and carrion indiscriminately. It was entirely devoted to itsmate, and whenever a pair of tyrants were separated, they wouldconstantly call back and forth to each other reassuringly, even whenthey were hunting. When they finally met again, they would perch closeto each other and scream joyously at being reunited. Another bird of thesame family, the scarlet tyrant, all black and scarlet, was so brilliantthat even the rainbow-hued tanagers seemed pale and the jeweledhumming-bird sad-colored in the presence of "coal-o'-fire," as theIndians have named this bird.
Jud was more impressed with the wonders of the vegetable kingdom.Whenever he strayed off the beaten path or tried to cut his way througha thicket, he tangled himself in the curved spines of thepull-and-haul-back vine, a thorny shrub which lives up to its name, orwas stabbed by the devil-plant, a sprawling cactus which tries quitesuccessfully to fill up all the vacant spaces in the jungle where itgrows. Each stem of this well-named shrub had three or four angles, andeach angle was lined with thorns an inch or more in length, so sharp andstrong that they pierced Jud's heavy hunting-boots like steel needles.If it had not been for Hen, who was a master with the machete, Jud neverwould have broken loose from his entanglements. Beyond the cactus, theold trapper came to a patch of poor-man's plaster, a shrub withattractive yellow flowers, but whose leaves, which broke off at a touch,were covered on the under side with barbed hairs, which caught and clungto any one touching them. The farther Jud went, the more he becameplastered with these sticky leaves, until he began to look like somehuge chrysalis. The end came when he tripped on a network of invisiblewires, the stems of species of smilax and morning-glory, and rolled overand over in a thicket of the plasters. When at last he gained his feet,he looked like nothing human, but seemed only a walking mass of greenleaves and clinging stems.
"Yah, yah, yah!" roared Hen. "Mars' Jud he look des like Br'er Rabbitdid when he spilled Br'er Bear's bucket o' honey over hisself an' rolledin leafs tryin' to clean hisself. Mars' Jud sure look like degrand-daddy ob all de ha'nts in dese yere woods."
"Shut up, you fool darky," said Jud, decidedly miffed. "Come and helpunwrap me. I feel like a cigar."
Hen laughed so that it was with difficulty that he freed Jud, prancingwith impatience, from his many layers of leaves. Later on, Hen showedhimself to be an even more present help in trouble. The two werefollowing a path a short distance away from the rest of the party, withJud in the lead. Suddenly the trapper heard the slash of the negro'smachete just behind him, and turned around to see him cutting the headfrom a coiled rattlesnake over which Jud had stepped. If Jud had stoppedor touched the snake with either foot, he would most certainly have beenbitten, and it spoke well for Hen's presence of mind that he keptperfectly quiet until the danger was over. This South Americanrattlesnake had a smaller head and rougher scales than any of thethirteen North American varieties, and was nearly six feet in le
ngth.Professor Ditson was filled with regret that it had not been caughtalive.
"Never kill a harmless snake," he said severely to Hen, "withoutconsulting me. I would have been glad to have added this specimen to thecollection of the Zoological Gardens."
"Harmless!" yelled Jud, much incensed. "A rattlesnake harmless! How doyou get that way?"
"He didn't do you any harm, did he?" retorted the professor, acidly. "Itis certainly ungrateful of you to slander a snake just after he hassaved your life."
"How did he save my life?" asked Jud.
"By not biting you," returned Professor Ditson, promptly.
A little later poor Jud had a hair-raising experience with anothersnake. He had shot a carancha, that curious South American hawk whichwails and whines when it is happy, and, although a fruit-eater with weakclaws and only a slightly hooked beak, attacks horses and kills lambs.Jud had tucked his specimen into a back pocket of his shooting-jacketand was following a little path which led through an open space in thejungle. He had turned over his shot-gun to Joe, and was trying his bestto keep clear of any more tangling vines, when suddenly right beside hima great dark snake reared its head until its black glittering eyeslooked level into Jud's, and its flickering tongue was not a foot fromhis face. With a yell, Jud broke the world's record for theback-standing broad-jump and tore down the trail shouting, "Bushmaster!bushmaster!" at the top of his voice. As he ran he suddenly felt a sharppain in his back.
"He's got me!" he called back to Hen Pine, who came hurrying after him."Ouch! There he goes again!" and he plunged headlong into a patch ofpull-and-haul-back vine, which anchored him until Hen came up.
"Dat ain't no bushmaster, Mars' Jud," the latter called soothingly. "Datwas only a trail-haunting blacksnake. He like to lie next to a path an'stick up his ol' head to see who's comin', kin' o' friendly like."
"Friendly nothin'!" groaned Jud. "He's just bit me again."
As soon as Hen laid hold of Jud's jacket he found out what was thematter. The hawk had only been stunned by Jud's shot and, coming to lifeagain, had promptly sunk his claws into the latter's back, and Jud hadmistaken the bird's talons for the fangs of the bushmaster. ProfessorDitson, who had hurried up, was much disappointed.
"If you ever meet a bushmaster, you'll learn the difference between itand a harmless blacksnake," he observed. "Probably, however," he went onthoughtfully, "it will be too late to do you much good."
"Why do all the snakes in South America pick on me?" complained Jud."There don't seem to be nothin' here but snakes an' thorns."
It was Pinto who gave the old trapper his first favorable impression ofthe jungle. They had reached a deserted bungalow in the heart of thewoods, which Professor Ditson had once made his headquarters a number ofyears before. There they planned to have lunch and spend the night. Atthe meal Jud showed his usual good appetite in spite of his misfortunes,but he complained afterward to Hen, who had attached himself speciallyto the old man, about the absence of dessert.
"I got a kind of a sweet tooth," he said. "You ain't got a piece of piehandy, have you?"
"No sah, no sah," replied Hen, regretfully. "You's about three thousandmiles south ob de pie-belt."
"Wait," broke in Pinto, who had been listening. "Wait a minute; I getyou something sweet," and he led the way to an enormous tree withreddish, ragged bark. Some distance up its trunk was a deep hollow, outof which showed a spout of dark wax nearly two feet long. In and out ofthis buzzed a cloud of bees.
"I get you!" shouted Jud, much delighted, "a bee-tree! Look out, boy,"he went on, as the Indian, clinging to the ridges of the bark with hisfingers and toes, began to climb. "Those bees'll sting you to death."
"South American bees hab no sting," explained Hen, as Pinto reached thewax spout, and, breaking it off, thrust his hand fearlessly through thecloud of bees into the store of honey beyond. A moment later, and he wasback again, laden with masses of dripping honeycomb, the cells of which,instead of being six-sided, as with our northern bees, resembled eachone a little bottle. The honey was clear and sweet, yet had a curioustart flavor. While Jud was sampling a bit of honeycomb, Pinto borrowedHen's machete and cut a deep gash through the rough red bark of thetree. Immediately there flowed out from the cut the same thick, milkyjuice which they had seen at their first breakfast in South America. TheIndian cut a separate gash for each one of the party, and they allfinished their meal with draughts of the sweet, creamy juice.
"It sure is a land flowing with milk an' honey," remarked Jud, at last,after he had eaten and drunk all that he could hold.
"This vegetable milk is particularly rich in gluten," observed ProfessorDitson, learnedly.
"I guess it'd gluten up a fellow's stomach all right if he drank toomuch of it," remarked Jud, smacking his lips over the sweet, stickytaste which the juice of the cow-tree left in his mouth.
After lunch, most of the party retired to their hammocks in the cooldark of the house for the siesta which South American travelers find anindispensable part of a tropical day. Only the scientist and Will stayedawake to catch butterflies through the scented silence of the forestwhere the air, filled with the steam and perfume of a green blaze ofgrowth, had the wet hotness of a conservatory. When even the insects andthe untiring tree-toads were silenced by the sun, Professor Ditson,wearing a gray linen suit with a low collar and a black tie, was asenthusiastic as ever over the collecting of rare specimens, and wasgreatly pleased at Will's interest in his out-of-door hobbies.
Together they stepped into the jungle, where scarlet passion-flowersshone like stars through the green. Almost immediately they began to seebutterflies. The first one was a magnificent grass-green specimen,closely followed by others whose iridescent, mother-of-pearl wingsgleamed in the sunlight like bits of rainbow. On a patch of damp sand agroup made a cloud of sulphur-yellow, sapphire-blue, and gildedgreen-and-orange. The professor told Will that in other years he hadfound over seven hundred different kinds within an hour's walk from thisforest bungalow, being more than double the number of varieties found inall Europe.
Deep in the jungle, they at last came to a little open stretch wherethe Professor had often collected before and which to-day seemed full ofbutterflies. Never had Will imagined such a riot of color and beauty asthere dazzled his eyes. Some of the butterflies were red and yellow, thecolors of Spain. Others were green, purple, and blue, bordered andspangled with spots of silver and gold. Then there were the strangetransparent "glass-wings." One of these, the _Hetaira esmeralda_, Willwas convinced must be the most beautiful of all flying creatures. Itswings were like clear glass, with a spot of mingled violet and rose inthe center of each one. At a distance, only this shimmering spot couldbe seen rising and falling through the air, like the wind-borne petalsof some beautiful flower. Indeed, as the procession of color drifted by,it seemed to the boy as if all the loveliest flowers on earth had takento themselves wings, or that the rainbow-bridge of the sky had beenshattered into fragments which were drifting slowly down to earth.
The largest of them all were the swallowtails, belonging to the samefamily as the tiger, and blue and black swallowtail, which Will had sooften caught in Cornwall. One of that family gleamed in the sunlightlike a blue meteor as it flapped its great wings, seven inches from tipto tip and of a dazzling blue, high above the tree-tops. Another memberof the same family, and nearly as large, was satiny white in color.Professor Ditson told Will that both of these varieties were almostunknown in any collection, as they never came within twenty feet of theground, so that the only specimens secured were those of disabled orimperfect butterflies which had dropped to the lower levels.
"Why couldn't I climb to the top of one of those trees with a net andcatch some?" inquired Will, looking wistfully up at the gleaming shapesflitting through the air so far above him.
"Fire-ants and wasps," returned the professor, concisely. "They arefound in virtually every tree. No one can stand the pain of an ant'sbite, and one sting of a Maribundi wasp has been known to kill a strongman."
r /> That night, tired out by their long day of hunting, the whole party wentto bed early. Will's sleeping-room was an upper screened alcove, justlarge enough to hold a single hammock. Somehow, even after his long hardday, he did not feel sleepy. Great trees shadowed his corner, so thickthat even the stars could not shine through their leaves, and it seemedto Will as if he could stretch out his hands and lift up dripping massesof blackness, smothering, terrifying in its denseness. From a far-awaytree-top the witch-owl muttered over and over again that mysterious wordof evil, "Murucututu, murucututu," in a forgotten Indian tongue. He hadlaughed when Pinto told him a few nights before that the owl was tryingto lay a spell on those who listened, but to-night in the dark he didnot laugh.
Then close at hand in a neighborhood tree-top sounded a beautifulcontralto frog-note slowly repeated. "Gul, gul, gul, gul, guggle, gul,guggle," it throbbed. The slow, sweet call gave the boy a sense ofcompanionship, and he fell asleep with the music of it still sounding inhis ears.
Toward midnight he woke with a vague sense of uneasiness. It was as ifsome hidden subconsciousness of danger had sounded an alarm note withinhis nerve centers and awakened him. Something seemed to be moving andwhispering outside of the screened alcove. Then a body struck the screenof mosquito-netting, and he heard the rotten fiber rip. Another second,and his little room was filled with moving, flitting, invisible shapes.Great wings fanned the air just above his face. There was the faint reekof hot, furry bodies passing back and forth and all around him. For amoment Will lay thinking that he was in a nightmare, for he had thatstrange sense of horror which paralyzes one's muscles during a bad dreamso that movement is impossible. At last, by a sudden effort, hestretched out his hand and struck a match from a box which stood on astand beside his hammock. At the quick spurt of flame through the dark,from all parts of the little room came tiny, shrill screeches, and theair around him was black with whirling, darting shapes. Suddenly intothe little circle of light from the match swept the horrible figure of agiant bat, whose leathern wings had a spread of nearly two and a halffeet, and whose horrible face hovered and hung close to his own. Neverhad the boy believed that any created thing could be so grotesquelyhideous. The face that peered into his own was flanked on each side byan enormous leathery ear. From the tip of the hairy muzzle grew aspearlike spike, and the grinning mouth was filled with rows ofirregular, tiny, gleaming sharp teeth, gritting and clicking againsteach other. Deep-set little green eyes, which glistened and gleamed likeglass, glared into Will's face. Before he could move, a great cloud offlying bats, large and small, settled down upon him. Some of them weresmall gray vampire-bats with white markings, others were the greatfruit-eating bats, and there were still others dark-red, tawny-brown,and fox-yellow. Whirling and wheeling around the little point of flame,they dashed it out, and crawled all over the boy until he felt stifledand smothered with the heat of their clinging bodies.
Suddenly he felt a stinging pain in his bare shoulder and in one of hisexposed feet. As he threw out his hands desperately, tiny clicking teethcut the flesh of wrists and arms. The scent of blood seemed to maddenthe whole company of these deaths-in-the-dark, and, although the actualbites were made by the little vampire-bats, yet at the sight of themfeasting, the other night-fliers descended upon the boy like a blackcloud and clustered around the little wounds, as Will had seen mothsgather around syrup spread on trees of a warm June night.
The sting of their bites lasted for only a second, and the flapping oftheir wings made a cool current of air which seemed to drug his senses.Dreamily he felt them against him, knew that they were draining hislife, yet lacked the will-power to drive them away. Suddenly thereflashed into his mind all that he had heard and read of the deadlymethods of these dark enemies of mankind. With a shriek, he threw outhis arms through the furry cloud that hung over him and sprang out ofhis hammock.
At his scream, Professor Ditson rushed in with a flash-light, followedby Pinto, Hen, and Joe, while Jud slept serenely through the wholetumult. They found Will dripping with blood from a dozen littlepunctures made by the sharp teeth of the bats, and almost exhausted fromfright and the loss of blood. Then came pandemonium. Seizing sticks,brooms, machetes, anything that came to hand, while Will sank back intohis hammock, the others attacked the bats. Lighted by the flash ofProfessor Ditson's electric light, they drove the squeaking, shriekingcloud of dark figures back and forth through the little room until thelast one had escaped through the torn netting or was lying dead on thefloor.
Twenty-seven bats altogether were piled in a heap when the fight wasover.