Vampires of the Desert Page 4

  But a few minutes later I came upon another of the decaying flowers. This time, to my amazement, I discovered that the jointed, leafless shoots of new plants were sprouting from the earth about it. Here was a most interesting state of affairs. There were no seeds or fruit but new plants wore germinating from the flower itself, apparently. Still, upon second thought, I realized this was not so remarkable. Many of the Cacti and Bromeliads, I knew, would grow from portions of the stalks, even from the buds or flowers, and I had long before decided that my plants were closely related to if not members of the Cacti or the Bromeliad group. But more than anything else I was greatly elated to know that I might yet have a chance to witness the blooming of the growths. If the rains continued, they would spring up and develop rapidly, and in a fortnight more should bud and blossom. That afternoon I found several more of the old flowers, and in every case new stalks were sprouting up. At that rate, I thought, in a few months the whole mountainside would be covered with the plants, and I imagined what a truly wonderful sight would be presented when they were covered with hundreds, thousands, of the huge, magnificent flowers in full bloom. What a pity they were night-bloomers like the cereus! But even so, a hillside covered with the gigantic white and mauve flowers when viewed by moonlight would be a sight never to be forgotten, and worth coming many miles to view.

  Almost daily I visited some of the plants. They grew rapidly, seeming to absorb the remains of the flowers, and to my surprise I found them scattered over a very wide area. And my surprise was increased when, in speaking of them to my friends, Merivale said he had run across one of the growths far out in the area of the former desert, and Sedgwick declared he had been attracted to some of the queer-looking plants when he was more than half way to Lobitos. It seemed incredible that the big flowers could have blown so far, and I could only account for it on the supposition that there had been other plants that I had not located at the beginning of the rainy period.

  When, soon after, I saw indications of the nearest plants budding, I became quite excited, and I watched with intense interest as the buds swelled, the flowers developed, and glimpses of the white and purple blooms showed through their rough brownish integument. Finally the time came when I felt that on any night the blooms might open and, fearing that I might miss the sight, for I felt sure the flowers lasted in their full perfection for only one night, I decided to visit the plants that evening. But the rain came down in torrents and when, after half-wading through the water and mud and drenched to the skin, I reached the nearest clump of plants, l found the flowers in exactly the same state as they had been in the day before. Very obviously they would not expand during rainy weather, and cursing myself for an idiot — for I should have known that this would be the case and that few night-blooming flowers open except in fine weather — I returned to camp, deciding to await dry weather before again going tramping off on such another wild-goose chase.

  But I was doomed to bitter disappointment once more. I was unexpectedly summoned to a new oil field being prospected at Langosta Bay, and as luck would have it, dry weather commenced almost as soon as I left. Langosta, being quite out of the world and a mere prospecting camp in the desert — for owing to some freaky wind current or its location this area had not altered in climate like the rest of the coast — no news of the outer world reached us except when — once a fortnight — Lima-Guayaquil plane dropped in on us with mail and newspapers.

  Hence it was two weeks after my arrival at Langosta before we had any news of our friends at Negritos and Talara. And when the Ford tri-motored plane came gliding down and we received our letters and the papers, we found them filled with most amazing and fearful tales. Everywhere during the past week, men, women, children and even domestic animals had fallen victims to the baffling, mysterious death that stalked abroad at night and struck down silently, instantly. More than fifty had been killed in and about Talara; as many more had succumbed from the plague at Negritos, for by this time everyone was agreed that it was some terrible, unknown malady. Nineteen out of the total population of four hundred had died at Lobitos. Several of the native villages in the hills had been completely wiped out, and scores had been killed at Paita, at Salaverry, about Trujillo and back in the hills about Piura. A few deaths had even been reported from as far south as Casma and as far north as Tumbes, but the center appeared to be about Talara and Negritos, and a theory was advanced that the germs of the deadly, terrible disease were brought up by the drilling or by the oil. Work had completely ceased at the camps. Nearly all the Cholos and most of the whites had left the stricken district, but finding a rigid quarantine in force at Lima and in all other parts, the poor frightened inhabitants had been forced to return to their homes, where they were living in a state of terror almost impossible to describe.

  Doctors and specialists were being rushed from the States and the Canal Zone to the locality with orders to make a thorough investigation and to locate the death-dealing germs, and the International Petroleum Company had employed the most eminent specialists at enormous salaries and with offers of veritable fortunes in the form of rewards to anyone who could discover a way of checking the inroads of this new menace to the entire population of the country.

  The first to arrive had been Doctor Heinrich, the noted German biologist, who had been in Guayaquil making an intensive study of tropical fungus diseases of the skin. He had dashed to Talara by plane and had at once plunged into the problem with his customary energy and thoroughness.

  But his first reports somewhat amused me, despite the seriousness of the situation. The deaths, he announced, were the result of some malady that attacked the respiratory organs, the effect being to smother the victim. This primary effect was followed almost instantly by a high fever, a constriction of the throat muscles, and the consequent rupture of small blood vessels. The germs, which he felt sure entered the system through the almost invisible openings in the skin, caused, as a third and final effect, extreme anemia. Examination of the blood remaining in those stricken showed practical elimination of the red corpuscles, and in some cases practically no arterial blood whatever. Undoubtedly, the learned doctor proceeded to explain, the remarkable statements of McGovern and others describing the feeling of a cloth being thrown over their heads and a strangling arm encircling their necks, was the result of the smothering effect of the germs entering the human system. In mild attacks — which had been extremely rare — the symptoms had all been identical in this respect. All those who had been attacked described the smothering cloth, the pressure upon the neck, the mad struggle to escape. These were precisely the mental impressions that would result so he averred — from the effects of the malady as he had described them. Pressure upon nerves and arteries, caused by the spasmodic contraction of the muscles affected by the germs, would induce pressure upon the brain and mental illusions. Hence the victims, feeling smothered, would imagine the cloth and the external pressure, and might quite reasonably be expected to imagine seeing objects that did not exist.

  Hence, he argued with Teutonic logic, the fact that several persons had sworn to seeing indescribable forms rushing off when, by herculean efforts, they had recovered from the attacks, merely proved that they had been temporarily mentally deranged by the effects of the germs entering their systems. He had, he continued, made a very careful examination of all such persons, and had found them invariably excited, in a state of nervous exhaustion, and subject to violent and sudden fits of terror and to suggestion. He had endeavored to isolate the germs from samples of their blood, but so far without success, and he concluded his study almost positively that the disease was neither contagious nor transmissible; that it was in a way similar to tetanus, and that it was unquestionably the result of the alteration in climatic conditions. "In all probability," he wrote," the germs have been present but dormant in the deserts for centuries. The rainfall has invigorated and propagated them, and as they become active and dry, they are carried by the wind to find lodgment upon their living hosts. It is
a notable and suggestive fact that the activity of the disease is confined to dry periods and to the hours of darkness; also that while the deaths resulting from the disease have spread southward — with the prevailing winds — they have not spread northward against the prevailing air currents, except in a few isolated cases."

  As preventative measures, he recommended remaining indoors after dark — he pointed out that with one or two exceptions no one in well-closed houses had suffered — bathing in carbolic or other disinfectant solutions, and refraining from excitement, overeating, exhaustive exercises or nervousness.

  Poor old Doctor Heinrich! The very morning after he had published his report — which contained nothing we did not already know — he was found dead on the steps of his own home, another victim of the "night death," as it was now called.

  And as if his death had been the signal, the rains had come again, and not a death had been reported since.

  "Looks to me," observed Torrens, the long, lean-jawed Texas engineer, "as if what you all need over at Negritos is a lot of fire-hose. The bugs don't look to bite when its wet. Just keep a lot of hose playing 'roun' the camp and the bugs'll keep away."

  "I'm not at all sure that such a scheme might not work," I said, "but it would not help the rest of the world. And there's another queer feature to the whole horrible business. Not a death has been reported from any of the sections that are still dry — from this district, for example, or from Cacamaquilla or the Huaranay country."

  "'Pears like to me the bugs sure like places where there's sunshine after showers," drawled Torrens. "Mebbe they'd dry up and turn into bug mummies out in the desert country — feel like I might get mummified myself if I'm here much longer. And they're night birds, too. All jokin' aside, ain't it possible they can't stand sunshine or heat and that's why they don't wander thisaway? Anyhow you look at it, it's damn bad, and I'm sure glad those bugs ain't mooning around here. Lord Amighty, it's smotherin' enough without them addin' to it."

  The next news we had told a very different story. The rains had recommenced, and for ten days not a death had been reported. The doctors and specialists had reached Talara, and had been busy making an intensive investigation, but I could not see that they had reached any definite conclusions nor had they come to any agreement aside from the fact that all believed that the deaths were the result of some unknown and remarkable germ or microbe. Some held that it was a minute microscopic animal and not a true germ; others declared it the spores of some plant-like growth related to the fungi or moulds, and others were equally insistent that it was the microbe of a true disease.

  Neither did they agree as to the origin, the manner of dissemination and the habits of the thing. Some claimed it was the result of the climatic changes, others that it had been introduced from some other locality, and others declared that it was a new development or form of the mysterious Chan-Chan fever.

  One savant was positive that the germs were carried by night-flying insects, and in support of his theory pointed out that such insects invariably appeared in large numbers on clear nights after heavy rains. His colleagues were equally positive that the germs were blown about by the wind, and as proof called attention to the fact that the strongest winds always blew at night, that during dry weather there was always a breeze, while during the rains it was almost calm, and he further argued that wet weather would lay the germs as it did any other dust. But there could be no argument in respect to the results and the deadly character of the new malady, and all the schemes so far tested had proved ineffectual in so far as preventing attacks was concerned. No, I am mistaken in that statement; no person who had remained indoors with doors and windows closed or screened had been attacked, and as all the white residents of the district had obeyed orders and had been careful to remain indoors after nightfall, no deaths of the whites had occurred, and only Cholos and other natives, who slept in open barracks or sheds, had succumbed, aside from several members of the patrol, who had been found dead at their posts. This, declared the authorities, shed a ray of hope. If everybody kept indoors from dark until dawn, there was every reason to think that the deaths would entirely cease, and, so argued the learned doctors, if the deaths could be completely checked for a time, the germs, finding no hosts, would soon die out. And in order to prevent all possibility of the germs finding victims, all the Cholos and Indians had been rounded up and were nightly locked in barracks and no live stock of any sort was allowed at large after sundown. And as it was now established that the "Night Death" was due to microbes and to no human or outside agency, all police and patrols were abandoned, and soon after sunset the entire country was as silent and deserted as the tomb. Just how well this plan had worked out could not be determined, because, as I have said, the rains had again commenced, and no one positively could state whether the cessation of deaths was due to the weather or to the precautions taken.

  These were the conditions that existed when, having completed my work at Langosta, I returned to Negritos.

  As it was still rainy, and as I felt certain that there was no danger as long as it was wet weather, I decided to have a look at my long-neglected plants. There were severe penalties provided for anyone violating this rule about going abroad after dark, but I intended fully to risk it if I found my plants were about to blossom, for I was determined that I would see the strange growths while in flower. I was not greatly surprised to discover that the growths had increased amazingly. But I was surprised to find how far and how much they had spread. They were in fact everywhere, scattered through the jungles, sometimes singly, again in groups, and in some spots forming miniature forests and covering large areas of the hillsides.

  I found, however, that a comparatively small portion of the plants bore buds, although those that showed no indications of approaching florescence appeared on vigorous and as fully matured as the others. This I accounted for on the theory that a certain proportion were sterile (a condition that exists commonly among many of the cacti and allied plants) and incapable of producing flowers, and my theory was more or less borne out by the fact that those that had no flower buds had developed leaves.

  These leaves were remarkable growths and resembled the gray pendant lichen known as Spanish moss more than anything else. But they were quite different in structure, being composed of innumerable slightly wavy threads or filaments sprouting from a short, fleshy stem, and pale bluish-green in color. While examining these — for my interest had been transferred from the buds to the leaves — I discovered another interesting peculiarity of the remarkable plants. In every case where the growths had sprung up from the fallen decayed blossoms the stems bore the filament-like leaves and no flower buds, whereas — and this took me some time to discover — growths had sprung up from directly under the bunches of drooping, hair-like leaves. Not for some time did it dawn upon me that my strange plants had a most amazing life cycle. In other words, there was a two-phase cycle: the flowers producing non-flowering plants that in turn bore leaves (or perhaps flowers of another form) which, falling to earth, produced plants that bore only flowers. Such a mode of growth and reproduction was not, I knew, unknown among plants. Several of the parasitic tropical plants, known popularly as "air-plants," have a similar habit, the seeds producing non-flowering plants with jointed stems which break apart, each section developing a plant that bears flowers and seeds; and several ferns have a similar mode of propagating themselves; while among the marine plants the dual habit is not unusual. To me this was particularly interesting, as it tended to prove that the ancient forms of plant growth that had been brought into existence from long-dormant semi-fossil seeds by the rains had habits closely related to the marine forms of plant life. And as I had long held to a theory — and had written several monographs on the subject — that all plants originally were marine forms and that, with the receding of the waters and the increase of land, certain species and genera adapted themselves to a terrestrial existence, I was, of course, greatly pleased to find that, in my strange gro
wths about Negritos, my theory was borne out to a certain extent. I was in fact quite convinced that many of the plants on the hillsides were very closely akin to existing marine forms and that my strange, jointed, rapid-growing, huge-flowered, night-blooming shrubs were the most closely related of all to marine growths.

  Their amazingly rapid growth, their fibrous character, the semi-translucent flowers, all reminded me of bryozoans or algae more than of true terrestrial forms of plant life.

  And now this new discovery of their mode of propagation was another point in favor of my newly improvised theory.

  Moreover, as I now realized for the first time, it would not be at all surprising to find the nearest air-breathing relatives of marine plants here in Peru. As I have said, all, or nearly all the plants, were extremely ancient forms that hitherto had been known only from fossils; and, in the second place, the country, as I knew from my paleontological studies, had been beneath the sea at no very remote period (geologically speaking) of the past. Hence, assuming that I was correct in my theory of the evolution of plant life, it would be natural that the earliest terrestrial forms of plant life and those most closely resembling their maritime ancestors, should be found here.

  All of this of course passed through my mind far more rapidly than I have written it, and having located several plants that I judged would bloom that night — provided the rain ceased — I returned to Negritos, feeling that I had accomplished a great deal in support of my pet botanical theory. In my mind I was already composing an article on my discoveries for publication in the Journal of the International Society for Botanical Research.