“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 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.