“We are safe — for the present!” exclaimed Jacinto with a sigh of relief.
“Do you think they will come back?” asked Tom.
“They may — there is no telling.”
“Bless my speedometer!” cried Mr. Damon, “If those beasts or birds — whatever they are — come back I’ll go and hide in the river and take my chances with the alligators!”
“The alligators aren’t much worse,” asserted Jacinto with a visible shiver. “These vampire bats sometimes depopulate a whole village.”
“Bless my shoe laces!” cried Mr. Damon. “You
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don’t mean to say that the creatures can eat up a whole village?”
“Not quite. Though they might if they got the chance,” was the answer of the Spanish guide. “These vampire bats fly from place to place in great swarms, and they are so large and blood-thirsty that a few of them can kill a horse or an ox in a short time by sucking its blood. So when the villagers find they are visited by a colony of these vampires they get out, taking their live stock with them, and stay in caves or in densely wooded places until the bats fly on. Then the villagers come back.
“It was only a small colony that visited us tonight or we would have had more trouble. I do not think this lot will come back. We have killed too many of them,” and he looked about on the ground where many of the uncanny creatures were still twitching in the death struggle.
“Come back again!” cried Mr. Damon. “Bless my skin! I hope not! I’ve had enough of bats — and mosquitoes,” he added, as he slapped at his face and neck.
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