The Bat

“ We fully enjoyed the rural privilege, and the old clock in the corner had rung out its warning many times unheeded, when our games were broken up, as far as the ladies were concerned, by the entrance of a bat, for there are few things they are more genuinely afraid of than a little leather-wing. Like the eyes of a well executed portrait, the bat seems to follow you wherever you crouch in the room, and dips with regular precision and nicety of distance at your head, however low you bow it. ”

“ Do you know that frayed sparrow that comes and sits on your window ledge and waits for some one? Do you know that lightness that steals over your heart of a morning when you seat yourself at your desk amid the smell of dusty lawbooks? Well, there comes a time when the breeze and the sparrow and the leap of the heart unite to tell you that something is happening to old Mother Earth—and at the same time something happened to Bat. ”

“ Of course the two ridiculous fur balls were just the bat family. The smaller, more timorous bat, soon followed her mate from behind the web curtain and joined him upon the broad beam. But so clumsy and half awake was she that the very first thing she did was to make a misstep and go pitching off the high beam into space. She landed upon the hay, fortunately, and then began the funniest sight. Did you ever chance to see a bat when it attempted to walk? They seldom use their feet, and when they do it is a droll sight. ”

“ In tawdrily gorgeous apartments, where gathered the larger figures, the proconsuls of the world of crime, cold, conscienceless brains dissected the work of a colder and swifter brain than theirs, with suave and bitter envy. Evil's Four Hundred chattered, discussed, debated—sent out a thousand invisible tentacles to clutch at a shadow—to turn this shadow and its distorted genius to their own ends. The tentacles recoiled, baffled—the Bat worked alone—not even Evil's Four Hundred could bend him into a willing instrument to execute another's plan. ”

“ The bat has shunned the light so long through so many bat-generations that it has become blind, but it has remarkable ears, and nature has grown for it an abnormal sense of touch, and a peculiar sensitiveness even where there is no contact, so that it avoids obstacles in flying with a skill that seems uncanny, incredulous. ”

“ Before the dim shadows began to lift, the bats and owls had returned usually, but the bat family did not retire again behind their cobweb curtain; instead they hung themselves by their wing-claws head downward from the beam, folding their wings closely over their beady eyes, and thus they would sleep all day. ”

“ Bat herself, and if you could only have peeped beneath one of her wings you might have seen the dearest little mite of a bat, with eyes of jet, clinging close to its mother's breast as she folded it tenderly beneath her wing. There the helpless little creature stayed, close to its mother, until it became older and stronger, for among all the tiny, fur-bearing animals there is no little mother more considerate of her young than the bat. ”

“ THE Bat is a harmless little animal, but I doubt if many of us would care to have a number of them flying around. The hotter the climate the more Bats you will find. As evening draws nigh, even in Italy, Greece, and Spain, out of their nooks and corners thousands of them fly, fluttering over the fields, through the gardens and streets of the town, through houses and rooms. ”

“ She read it aloud. "We must cease combing the criminal world for the Bat and look higher. He may be a merchant—a lawyer—a doctor—honored in his community by day and at night a bloodthirsty assassin——" The print blurred before her eyes—she could read no more for the moment. ”

“ We were all sitting in the parlor one evening last summer when in flew a creature through the open window. Bump—bump, he went against the wall and ceiling.
“A bat! a bat!” shrieked aunt Mary, and ran behind the door. Mamma jumped up into a chair and gathered her skirts about her, just as though it were a mouse. Grace and Mabel ran out of the Room, while papa and Frank and Kate chased the bat.
The poor little bat fluttered about, and almost fell into the kerosene lamp chimney. Then he got entangled in the window draperies. You know a bat cannot see by a light any more than an owl can. ”

“ The glow-worms were shining and the Bats going about again with open eyes when the owl-chariot was seen. The old man took a dark cloak which had belonged to the Bat-King, and, muffling his head and face with it, went to meet the Enchantress. As she stepped out of her car he cried: “Alas, lady! I have bad news. The old man is dead, and the pleasure of slaying one of these wretches is lost. ”

“ After a while, as the fight went on, the Birds began to have the best of it, and then away flew the Bat to their side. “What Beast comes here?” said the Birds.
“I am not a Beast,” said the Bat; [100] “I am a Bird. Look at my wings. This is my battle as truly as it is yours.”
But the Birds would have nothing to do with him. And to this day the Bat seems ashamed to show himself in the daytime but hides in lonely places, away from all other creatures, and only flits about noiselessly in the dark, when both Birds and Beasts are asleep. ”

“ I said a minute ago, you had brains—but now, by Judas, I doubt it! If anyone else wanted a chance at the Bat, I'd give it to them and gladly—I'm hard-boiled. But you're too valuable a man to be thrown away! ”

“ How many Americans among those who have been under the spell of the realistic action of “The Bat” have thought of the fact that the characters were at all times moving about in rooms with only three walls, that darkness was symbolized by lights carried by the actors, that the attic in the country home of the astute spinster was lighted by footlights, and that an actor who had been killed appeared a moment later for a curtain call? ”

“ Before many days there was a new tepee among the “Red Lodges,” and every morning Seet-se-be-a set a lance and shield up beside the door, so that people should know by the devices that the Bat lived there.
V. “The Kites and the Crows”
The Bat had passed the boy stage. He was a Chis-chis-chash warrior now, of agile body and eager mind. No man’s medicine looked more sharply after his physical form and shadow-self than did the Bat’s; no young man was quicker in the surround; no war-pony could scrabble to the lariat ahead of his in the races. ”

“ The wing of the Bat is commonly spoken of as of leather; that it is an insensible piece of stuff—the leather of a glove or of a lady's shoe; but nothing can be further from the truth. If one were to select an organ of the most exquisite delicacy and sensibility, it would be the Bat's wing. It is anything but leather, and is, perhaps, the most acute organ of touch that can be found.
Bats are supposed to perceive external objects without coming actually in contact with them, because in their rapid and irregular flight, amidst various surrounding bodies, they never fly against them ”

“ If, however, a fragment of beef or a decapitated moth is dropped, and lies on the table immediately beneath the Bat's nose, or if a partially devoured mealworm succeeds, by dint of its convulsive struggles, in escaping from the Bat's jaws, and instinctively makes for the darkness beneath its body or wings, the Bat makes no attempt to recover it. ”

“ He jabbed the muzzle against a straining back. The Bat ceased to struggle. Bailey stepped a little away.
“I’ve still got you covered!” he said fiercely. The Bat made no sound.
“Hold out your hands, Bat, while I put on the bracelets,” commanded the Unknown in tones of terse triumph. He snapped the steel cuffs on the wrists of the murderous prowler. “Sometimes even the cleverest Bat comes through a window at night and is caught. Double murder—burglary—and arson! That’s a good night’s work even for you, Bat!”
He switched his flashlight on the Bat’s masked face. ”

“ The squeak made by the bat is so very fine, that while to some ears it is loud, by others it cannot be heard. I once, when a boy, was exploring a hollow tree after owls' nests, when the smell from one particular hole was so dreadful that we put some lighted paper down to see what would come out; and to our astonishment dozens of large, reddish bats flew out, and dashed madly about in the bright sunlight. The bat has more vermin upon it than any other creature of its size. It seems needless to state that the bat is an animal, and not a bird or an insect ”

“ They hunt by the ear, but they follow their prey by the eye. Some Bats are said to feed upon fruits: have they the same delicacy of hearing, feeling, &c., as others?
Mr. Sowerby has further described the singular mode adopted by the long-eared Bat in capturing his prey. The flying apparatus is extended from the hind legs to the tail, forming a large bag or net, not unlike two segments of an umbrella, the legs and tail being the ribs. The Bat, having caught the fly, instead of eating it at once, generally covers it with his body, and, by the aid of his arms, &c., forces it into his bag. ”

“ CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE BAT STILL FLIES
HE stepped back in the doorway, looked out, then turned to them again.
"I come in, please?" he said pathetically, his hands quivering. "I not like to stay in dark." ”

“ No, answers science, the stars are not tiny sparks; they are enormous bodies which compare in light and size to the sun itself, a million and a half times as large as the earth. The bat, it is commonly asserted, is a harmful, hideous, venomous creature of ill omen that must be crushed without mercy under the heel. ”

“ Perhaps there are few people who would not feel some surprise when they learn that the very highest of our British animals is the Bat. Usually the bat is looked upon with rather a feeling of dread, and is regarded as a creature of such ill-omen that its very presence causes a shudder, and its approach would put to flight many a human being. ”

“ Often, when it has caught an insect, the Long-eared Bat will come to the ground to eat it.
The soft, silky, brown fur is long and thick, especially on the shoulders, but does not extend far upon the wings. On the under parts it pales to yellowish or dirty white. The wings are both long and broad, and their expanse in flight is about ten inches. The long tail when folded forwards can touch the top of the head; its tip is slightly free from the interfemoral membrane, and when the Bat hooks itself up head downwards for sleep it serves as a third foot. ”

“ From the Emblem of the Bat and Weazle, we are to Gather, that there are Certain Ways, Cases, and Occasions, wherein, Disguises, and Artificial Evasions are in some Measure Allowable, provided only that there be No Scandalous, or Malicious Departure from the Truth. This Shuffling of the Bat in the Paw of the Weazle, was but making the Best of what he had to say, and to shew for Himself, toward the saving of his Life. ”

“ In the contact between mankind and bats, man, the invariable aggressor, finds the bats baring their teeth, biting viciously, squeaking, and behaving altogether like little fiends. A gentler side is sometimes exhibited, however, and one observer who caught a partly grown red bat found that it became tame, showed intelligence, and developed a friendly feeling for its captor. ”

“ Sometimes on dull, dark days he doesn't wait for evening, but flies in the afternoon. Usually he is the first of the Bat family to appear in the evening, often coming out while it is still light enough to show the color of his red coat. No other member of his family has a coat of this color.
“Some people call him the Tree Bat. After seeing him hanging over there I think you can guess why. He rarely goes to a cave for his daytime sleep, as most of his relatives do, but hangs by his toes from a twig of a tree or bush, frequently not far from the ground, just as he is right now. ”

“ So that nobody has seen Bat's wounds but himself; but no doubt he has many of them: though, to be sure, that on his chin looks as though it was done by the blunt razor of a barber, rather than a grenadier's baggonet, or a dragoon's sabre. However, all's one for that.
Bat's too high and mighty to be much liked by the people about; and a boy says he peeped in at a hole in the cabin one day, and saw something on Bat's back, that looked as if the military cat had been scratching it. ”

“ From its habit of hiding, its night-flying, its uncouth motion, its mouse-like body and unfeathered wings, which are so unhandsome that artists have copied them when they wish to show demons, witches, dragons, harpies, and evil angels with wings, the poor bat has derived its unlucky reputation, and the general dislike with which it is regarded. In truth, there is scarcely any creature so frail, defenceless, harmless, friendly, gentle, and timid as a bat. ”

“ And if I weren’t so damn old, I’d go after the slippery devil myself and let you sit here and watch me get brought in with an infernal paper bat pinned where my shield ought to be. The Bat’s supernatural, Anderson. You haven’t a chance in the world but it does me good all the same to shake hands with a man with brains and nerve,” and he solemnly wrung Anderson’s hand in an iron grip. ”

“ Now, if the hypothesis be deemed absurd that the Bat had been immured in the vault since 1748, how then are we to account for its presence there? For although I am aware that a Bat, and especially one of the smallest species, would creep through a very small crack or crevice, yet the evidence of my own senses, after a very close examination, convinces me that not even the smallest crack existed between the bricks of the vault ”