82 MARTIN RATTLER.

hermit entered the hut bearing a small deer upon his
shoulders. Resting his gun in a corner of the room,
he advanced to Martin’s hammock.

“My boy!” he exclaimed in surprise, “what is
wrong with you?”

“Tm sure I don’t know,” said Martin faintly. “I
think there is something wet about my feet.”

Turning up the sheet, he found that Martin’s feet
were covered with blood! For a few seconds the
hermit growled forth a number of apparently very
pithy sentences in Portuguese, in a deep guttural
voice, which awakened Barney with a start. Spring-
ing 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 Ivish-
man 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.”