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. 
