At first I could not quite make out what I was looking at; then, to my
astonishment, I saw that these stark, gray trees were indeed lifeless,
and that what I had mistaken for dark foliage were velvety clusters of
bats hanging there asleep--thousands of them thickly infesting and
clotting the dead branches with a sombre and horrid effect of foliage.
I don't mind bats in ordinary numbers. But in such soft, motionless
masses they slightly sickened me. There must have been literally tons
of them hanging to the dead trees.
"This is pleasant," I said. "Look at those bats, Brown."
When Brown spoke without lifting his head, his voice was so shaken, so
altered, that the mere sound of it scared me:
"Smith," he said, "there is a fish in here, shaped exactly like a brook
minnow. And I should judge, by the depth it is swimming in, that it is
about as long as an ordinary Pullman car."
His voice shook, but his words were calm to the point of commonplace.
Which made the effect of his statement all the more terrific.
"A--a _minnow_--as big as a Pullman car?" I repeated, dazed.
"Larger, I think.... It looks to me through the hydroscope, at
this distance, exactly like a tiny, silvery minnow.
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