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Muffled ladies pass by, resembling nothing I can think of so much as big black bats as they sit man-fashion on their donkeys, wrapped in black silk cloaks; men in gorgeous silks, also on donkeys, ride along, while laden camels and asses carrying large panniers of clover slowly pick their way through the crowd. I never saw such a miscellaneous throng in any street before.
The glittering peerage of France, created by a court, and living in perpetual connexion with the court, as naturally followed its fate as a lapdog follows the fortunes of its mistress; but here was a digging up of the moles, an extermination of the bats, a general extrusion of the subversive principle, to a race of existence which, whether above or below ground, seemed almost to form a part of the soil.
Now and then fragments of her clothes were left hanging on the thick bushes; now a branch which shot outwards seized her bonnet and struck it flat; now she went stumbling over tree-roots and stones, which, on account of the darkness and the speed of her flight, she could not avoid; and now bats flew into her face.
The bats haunt the same eaves, but the journalist drifts from city to city, from county to county, busying himself with ideas that were not his yesterday, and will not be his to-morrow. An interview with a statesman is followed by a review of a book, and the day after he may be thousands of miles away, describing a great flood or a railway accident.
They then opened a window in each side for the large glass plates, admitting the sun when closed, made the Callisto rather warm and placed a stout wire netting within them to keep out birds and bats, and then, though it was but little past noon, got into their comfortable beds and slept nine hours at a stretch.
There were quite a number of these "bats," and they seemed to labor under the same hallucination that catches the lady students of the Pundit Vivakenanda H. Darmapala: they think that wisdom is to be imparted by word of mouth, and that by listening hard and making notes one can become very wise.
"Well, Doller is very cunning very cunning, indeed. But he has nothing to do with the north strip. He owns the twenty-five feet to the south of your property, the piece fronting on Sandpile Terrace, and a very malarious location it is, too. I pledge you my word, Mr. Baker, I have seen mosquitos hovering over that Doller strip at night as big as bats!"
Ida was ready to go with him, and the Jardines, always tremendous walkers, were equally anxious for a ramble; but Brian was much too languid for evening walks. 'I'll stay and smoke my smoke and talk to the Mater, he said, always contriving to keep on pleasant terms with Lady Palliser; 'I hate bats, owls, twilight, and all the Gray's Elegy business.
Some days after this sad event, Miss Tinné ascended the river to Heiligenkreuz, an Austrian missionary station. There she remained until mid-September, making a short excursion into the interior; crossing rivers, penetrating into swampy forests, and visiting villages inhabited by a quite naked population, feeding upon bats, snakes, termites, and raw roots.
Side by side with that multiplication of false deities went the almost entire neglect of the worship of Jehovah, until at last, as his reign advanced and he floundered deeper into his troubles, the Temple was spoiled, everything in it that could be laid hands upon was sent to the melting-pot, to pay the Assyrian tribute; and then the doors were shut, the lamps extinguished, the fire quenched on the cold altars, and the silent Temple left to the bats and the Shekinah; for God still abode in the deserted house.
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