THE LURE OF KARTABO 21 



Slowly, very slowly, I lifted the other hand, 

 always thinking of my elbow, so that I might 

 keep all the muscles relaxed. Very slowly it 

 approached, and with as swift a motion as I could 

 achieve, I grasped at the vampire. I felt a 

 touch of fur and I gripped a struggling, skinny 

 wing; there came a single nip of teeth, and the 

 wing-tip slipped through my fingers. I could 

 detect no trace of blood by feeling, so turned over 

 and went to sleep. In the morning I found a 

 tiny scratch, with the skin barely broken; and, 

 heartily disappointed, I realized that my tick- 

 ling and tingling had been the preliminary symp- 

 toms of the operation. 



Marvelous moths which slipped into the bun- 

 galow like shadows ; pet tarantulas ; golden-eyed 

 gongasocka geckos; automatic, house-cleaning 

 ants ; opossums large and small ; tiny lizards who 

 had tongues in place of eyelids; wasps who had 

 doorsteps and watched the passing from their 

 windows; all these were intimates of my lab- 

 oratory table, whose riches must be spread else- 

 where ; but the sounds of the bungalow were com- 

 mon to the whole structure. 



One of the first things I noticed, as I lay on 

 my cot, was the new voice of the wind at night. 



