A SLAYER OF VAMPIRES.

Hokitika Guardian, 25 November 1918, Page 1

A SLAYER OF VAMPIRES.

(By “Don Esses.”

In the middle of the Langauza plain, a dozen miles up-country from Saloniea, there, dwells a strange character. He is rich. He has a good house and many cattle and sheep, and sometimes his linen and waist-sash are almost clean. By his neighbours he is treated with extreme deference, and his name is mentioned with awe in the villages for thirty miles around. He is Demetrius—Demetrius the Slayer of Vampires.

The Macedonian shepherd, tending his flocks in the high pastures, sets off on his rounds one morning at dawn, and finds half a dozen of his sheep mangled about the neck and dying or dead. Forthwith he flies to the nearest * village, and spreads the dread news-—Vam-pires ! Now the vampire, you must know, is as susceptible as other mortal creatures to an argument such as is afforded, say, by two ounces of slugs discharged from a long-barrelled musket; but lie has this peculiarity, that he is invisible to all save certain few and far between individuals. Among those who have this rare gift of being able to see vampires, Demetrius is king. The tracking and slaying of vampires is his lifework. Occasionally, he will give his services to a poor man for little, but his usual fee is three hundred drachmae (about £l2). * w * * * .So our owner of the slaughtered sheep, if lie be a well-to-do man, hies him to Demetrius and states his facts. And Demetrius loads his long musket very carefully, rams down a holy wafer on top of the charge, puts on his long sheepskin cloak, mounts his pony, and sets off for the hills At the waning of the moon he takes his'stand upon a rock and waits for a vampire. In the chill hour before dawn, perhaps, you will hear hint shoot once, and only once. At daybreak Demetrius takes you to the rock and shows vou the ground near by soaked with a vast quantity of blood. (The vampire, be it remembered, is all blood. Shoot him, and he resolves at once into his elemental.) Thereafter your flocks are troubled no more. I have said that Demetrius is treated with deference by his neighbours. There is one exception to the rule. Andreas, who sells sour wine, and pickled fishes and hoi} 7 pictures in the village store, has been in America. Andreas is a scoffer. He mocks at those things which all men know to be true. Andreas laughs when you mention vampires. He talks of wolves, and of dogs that run amok. Yea, he even hints that it is easy to conceala bladder filled with blood under a long cloak such as Demetrius wears. But all the people know that there is bad feeling between the two. Andreas is not so rich as Demetrius, and they pass each other by without speaking.