Baton

“ Bathyb`ius, (i. e. living matter in the deep) , substance of a slimy nature found at great sea depth, over-hastily presumed to be organic, proved by recent investigation to be inorganic, and of no avail to the evolutionist.
Batley (28) , a manufacturing town in the W. Riding of Yorkshire, 8 m. SW. of Leeds; a busy place.
Batn-el-Hajar, a stony tract in the Nubian Desert, near the third cataract of the Nile.
Baton-Rouge (10) , a city on the E. bank of the Mississippi, 130 m. above New Orleans, and capital of the state of Louisiana; originally a French settlement. ”

“ It lay on the earth, ripe and purple, and when night had fallen, and the Bat-King walked abroad, he saw what he took to be a spray of plums lying tossed at the foot of a tree. He ate one, and, finding it delicious, did not stop till he had devoured the whole.
That night the Bats rushed up and down the forest in dismay, for they could not think what had happened to their monarch. He would suffer none to approach him. No one could do his bidding fast enough to escape his wrath; no one was fit to stand in his presence; no one could make a low enough obeisance as he passed. ”

“ From a thousand sources now the clamor arose—press, police, and public alike crying out for the capture of the master criminal of a century—lost voices hounding a specter down the alleyways of the wind. And still the meshes broke and the quarry slipped away before the hounds were well on the scent—leaving behind a trail of shattered safes and rifled jewel cases—while ever the clamor rose higher to “Get him—get him—get—”
Get whom, in God’s name—get what? Beast, man, or devil? A specter—a flying shadow—the shadow of a Bat. ”

“ Is the greatest monarch on earth to walk like the lowest of his people?”
The Bats disappeared in all directions, for the Bat-King had kept the horse tied up in a distant spot; in their alarm they strayed all over the forest, but at last some of them got to the place where he was tethered.
The Princess watched eagerly for her favourite. “Dear Amulet,” she whispered to him when he arrived, “have no fear and we shall yet escape. I have sent for you that I may free you. Do all you are bid, for he who you think is the Bat-King is our friend who has come all the way with us.” ”

“ But the vampire was here by far the most abundant of the family of leaf-nosed bats. It is the largest of all the South American species, measuring twenty-eight inches in expanse of wing. Nothing, in animal physiognomy can be more hideous than the countenance of this creature when viewed from the front; the large, leathery ears standing out from the sides and top of the head, the erect spear-shaped appendage on the tip of the nose, the grin and the glistening black eye all combining to make up a figure that reminds one of some mocking imp of fable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Some day the Bat would slip and falter; then they would have him. But the weeks passed into months and still the Bat flew free, solitary, untamed, and deadly. At last even his own kind turned upon him; the underworld is like the upper in its fear and distrust of genius that flies alone. But when they turned against him, they turned against a spook—a shadow. ”

“ The Bat-King, who was now on his feet, rushed at him with his spear, but the Enchantress threw herself between them.
“No, no!” she cried, “you shall not kill him! He is mine! No one shall harm him. I love him and he loves me!”
At this the King, beside himself with rage, turned upon her.
“I would sooner die than be near you another day,” he cried. “I hate you as I hate sin itself! There is only one person in the world I love, and that is this Princess.”
The Enchantress’s face grew white; all her beauty seemed to have faded. ”

“ The Bat-King has millions of subjects, and he has only to sign to them to put you to death should you attempt it.”
They went out, and on the ramparts her chariot waited her. The King could not tell what it was made of, but it looked like one of those clouds that cross the setting sun before a stormy night; six enormous owls were harnessed to it and stood ready for a flight, their yellow eyes fixed on space. A servant handed a long scourge of plaited twigs to the Enchantress. When she and the King had seated themselves, the car rose into the air, and they were soon rushing across the sky. ”

“ At last they reached a place where some trees stood round a grassy circle; in the centre of it were two figures.
“See,” said the Bat-King, “here are my prisoners. In the night, when my people are awake, they are watched on all sides, and in the day, while we sleep, one touch of my spear raises such a wall of bush and brier that they may try for ever to get through it in vain.”
His eyes gleamed with malice. “Stand, woman!” he cried, “stand up and let the Enchantress see you!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then my ruler and I were left with the wizard.
"It has come to my ear," spake Batta, "that you live in a darksome cave beneath the hill that is before the sun, and work witchcraft, catching away my people's souls with thy black box. What say you, O Wizard?"
The wizard smiled, but his lips were of the color of sand.
"O Batta," thus spake he, "I am but a poor man. I gather simples, herbs in the woods. I do cook them over the burning of sticks and of the black-stone-which-burns-long. Thus do I extract their strength, and therewith do that which to common men seems strange." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As soon as she was permitted to do so, she flitted away across my river in the direction of Windsor Forest, and, for anything I know, may be there still. Bats are not creatures that one ever hears much of, nor have I been accustomed to interest myself particularly in their proceedings; but if you happen to see an especially ugly and repulsive bat, it is quite as likely to be old Mother Wandle as anybody else, and you may be sure that she is still enduring the punishment so justly inflicted upon her by a righteous judge. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Perhaps it is true that in the great crises of life the inner eye becomes momentarily opened.
With intense curiosity I awaited the Colonel’s next words, but, a cigarette held nervously between his fingers, he stood staring at Harley, and it was the latter who broke that peculiar silence which had fallen upon us.
“The wing of a bat,” he murmured, then touched it gingerly. “Of what kind of bat, Colonel Menendez? Surely not a British species?”
“But emphatically not a British species,” replied the Spaniard. “Yet even so the matter would be strange.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Miss Cornelia and Dale shrank back against the mantel. Bailey took up a post beside the window, the Unknown flattening himself against the wall beside him. There was a breathless pause.
The top of the extension ladder began to tremble. A black bulk stood clearly outlined against the diminishing red glow—the Bat, masked and sinister, on his last foray!
There was no sound as the killer stepped into the room. He waited for a second that seemed a year—still no sound. Then he turned cautiously toward the place where he had left the satchel—the beam of his flashlight picked it out. ”

“ And it was so from that day forth. "Do I look like that?" he asked again, with the voice of a thunder-peal, this time turning to the white-haired counselor, he-who-speaks-little-but-wisely.
"I would not be so foolish as to say it was like you, great Batta!" answered the counselor; and the rest who stood about said that his words were wise.
"Your art is no art!" then said the great Batta; and, calling the swordbearer, he ordered that the wizard's box should be thrown into the sea, together with his vile compounds, his dishes, the liquids, and his flat pieces and the baleful red-fire maker. ”

“ The effect of the light upon the unhappy bats was perfectly marvellous; dazzled and blinded, they knew not what to do nor where to fly; some dashed themselves up against the walls and put an end to their own lives; others flew straight up to the mannikins, and fell an easy prey to the latter, who, with their little swords drawn, stood ready to strike down each foeman as he approached, and dealt stout blows upon the blinded bats who came within their reach. Mother Wandle herself by no means relished her reception ”

“ 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. ”

“ The blood of the bat may be derived from an Oriental belief that the bat being the most perfect of birds, because it has breasts and suckles its young, it is specially adapted to magical uses. In the Tyrol he who bears the left eye of a bat may become invisible, and in Hesse he who wears the heart of a bat bound to his arm with red thread will always win at cards. The manes of the horses which have been tangled and twisted by the Chagrin must not be cut off or disentangled unless these words are spoken:-- "Čin tu jid', cin ádá bálá jiden." ”