Sax Rohmer

“ He burst out laughing, his good humour suddenly quite restored, and taking out his pipe began industriously to load it.
“I can smoke while I am changing,” he said, “and you can sit there and tell me all about Colin Camber.”
I did as he requested, and Harley, who could change quicker than any man I had ever known, had just finished tying his bow as I completed my story of the encounter at the Lavender Arms.
“Hm,” he muttered, as I ceased speaking. “At every turn I realize that without you I should have been lost, Knox. I am afraid I shall have to change your duties to-morrow.” ”

“ I observed a book lying upon the dressing table, and concluding that it was one which Harley had brought with him, I took it up, glancing at the title. It was “Negro Magic,” and switching on the light, for there was a private electric plant in Cray’s Folly, I opened the book at random and began to read.
“The religion of the negro,” said this authority, “is emotional, and more often than not associated with beliefs in witchcraft and in the rites known as Voodoo or Obi Mysteries. ”

“ Colin Camber, the American authority, offered some very curious particulars in support of a theory to show that whereas snakes and scorpions have always been recognized as sacred by Voodoo worshippers, the real emblem of their unclean religion is the bat, especially the Vampire Bat of South America.
“He pointed out that the symptoms of one dying beneath the spell of an Obeah man are closely paralleled in the cases of men and animals who have suffered from nocturnal attacks of blood-sucking bats.” ”