He walked out to meet me and introduced himself as Cecil Hubbers. He said that he had been staying at the settlement for nearly six months and that he represented a South American pharmaceutical firm which was endeavoring to establish a permanent base in that area.
He was middle-aged, gaunt and faded-looking, with an expression of chronic weariness etched on his wan face. A huge, high-crowned straw hat accentuated the strained lines of his pinched countenance. He acted jumpy and nervous.
He was certainly a pathetic figure, and I felt sorry for him, but he seemed sincerely glad to see me and he was hospitable enough.
After I had washed and taken some food, I sat on his screened porch and he talked. He said that except for the natives he was alone for months at a time. The company he worked for had parties further in the interior but they remained in the jungles for long periods, collecting roots and herbs and bark which were used to concoct precious drugs.
He had come down from Panama some years before with a fair grubstake, he said, but he had lost his money in a mining venture and since then he had drifted from one poor-paying job to another. When the pharmaceutical company offered him work at the settlement, he was flat broke and he had accepted it.
His job was easy enough. He had to store and check supplies, list and pack outgoing raw materials and recruit and pay the native guides. But it was obvious to me that there was some aspect of the job, or of the locale, which he detested.
After he had talked for nearly an hour, I finally learned what was preying on his mind. He lived in constant fear of a vampire bat which he said was systematically draining him of blood and life. I say bat, not bats, because he had a weird conviction that a single bat was to blame.
When he first mentioned the bat, he made some effort to describe his predicament in a detached and objective manner, but it was impossible for him to do so. He became emotional. His voice grew shrill and I thought that he was about to leap out of his chair.
"If I don't find out how it's getting to me, that bat will bleed me to death!" he cried. "I've already lost half my blood! Half of it I tell you!"
He became so agitated at one point, I thought I might actually have to restrain him from some violent action. Finally he calmed down a little and I managed to change the subject.