Across that strange light blue of the sky, so remote from the azure of daytime, and embroidered with inky shadows, black patches were darting and zigzagging in wavy lines, now side-slipping downward, on a wing-tip, like a tilted aëroplane, turning a fantastic somersault, soaring again—to take, with lightning rapidity, a nose-dive after prey.
A nose-dive that brought them, each in turn, down very near to the row of dark ponchos.
“Goody—ginger! Just like aviators—stunt-flying! After insects, I suppose—and any little bird, nestling, foolish enough to be out—late!”
To Pemrose, rousing to watch them, that skinny-winged sky-cavalry, darkly maneuvering, was part of the wonderful fascination of the night—of the night-side of Nature just being turned outward.
So it was to most of the girls—camping girls.
To just one or two tenderfoots—Una in especial—the bats were vampires, when they flew too close—with the low, eerie “eb-eb-eb-ob!” of swooping wings.
“They—they make the sky look ‘ghoulie’,” she whispered.
And as night wore on and the ghouls sought their barns or caves, she did not easily settle down again.
“That black—black something s-stealing towards—us!” She was pinching Pemrose’s arm, once more. “Oh! it looks like a bull—a bear.”
“Elephant, perhaps! Can’t you see its tusks waving?” jeered her poncho-mate. “I’ll tell you what it is; it’s great black, stalking—worry-cow. Go to sleep.”