Gray Eagle (Sass collection)/The Way of a Serpent
THE sunlight, streaming straight down through wide rifts in the scant foliage of the tall, short-branched sweet gums, smote fiercely upon the stagnant pool, blotching its opaque, wine-colored surface with numberless sharply defined patches of translucent amber. The pool was of oval shape and of small area. A slender gum, uprooted years before by some irresistible equinoctial blast, had fallen clear across it, and, stretching from shore to shore like a causeway or a half-submerged bridge, divided it into two completely dissevered parts. Close around its soft, soggy edge crowded the trees—a few lofty, moss-bearded cypresses, spared by the lumbermen because of some saving defect of shape, straight sweet gums of every age and size, some of them taller than the tallest of the cypresses but dead or dying at their tops. Their column-like trunks soared upward out of a dense thicket of scrubby, close-growing bushes whose small leaves were of so pale a shade of green as to appear almost silver where the light fell obliquely upon them. In front of this solid wall of frondage and springing from the dark, scumladen shallows along its base, irregular ranks of slim, plumed reeds formed an unbroken ring around the margin of the pool.
About the pool on three sides the ground was low and spongy and carpeted with a thick growth of short, broad-bladed, moisture-loving plants; but on the fourth side it sloped sharply upward, forming a miniature plateau a foot or more above the level of the water. From this higher ground rose the stalwart gray trunk of a large magnolia whose branches, reaching far out above the pool, cast so sombre a shade that here the water seemed of an inky blackness. The sandy ground immediately beneath the tree was also in dark shadow except a single almost circular patch of sunlight, about two yards in diameter, midway between the base of the trunk and the rim of the pool.
To this spot a ray penetrated through some hidden tunnel in the dome of lustrous foliage above; and upon this white disc of light, his five feet of velvet length disposed in a loose coil and his flat, triangular head pillowed upon the warm sand, lay motionless a male diamond rattlesnake.
The snake, despite his deathlike immobility, was neither dead nor asleep. His small eyes glinted with changing metallic flashes of black and green, like beads of half-transparent obsidian, and seemed fixed in an intent and baleful stare upon the sun splashed surface of the pool in front of him. There was something inexpressibly menacing in the cold glitter of those bead-like eyes; and yet, terrible as was his aspect, the snake was undeniably a creature of real and almost marvelous beauty.
A splendid specimen of his race, though not as large as the diamond rattler sometimes becomes, he measured, from the tip of his sharp-nosed, arrow-shaped head to the last of his ten rattles, an inch more than five feet, while the girth of his massive trunk at its thickest part was fully eight inches. The ground-color of his body was a lustrous, almost iridescent grayish-green, and along his broad, arched back a chain of black-brown, diamond-shaped patches stretched from the base of the head, merging finally with the dusky olive of the thick, black-ringed tail. In the coloration of his mailed body there was a richness of tint which could not fail to compel admiration; yet all sense and realization of this beauty of color and pattern were obliterated instantly by a single glance at the wide, flat head and face. These seemed instinct with wickedness and cruelty—hideous, revolting, utterly beyond description.
It was not due to accident that the rattlesnakewas lying framed in the queer white disc which formed the only spot of sunlight beneath the big magnolia. He had chosen the spot purposely because he enjoyed the warmth of the sun and because, being absolutely fearless, he cared not a whit how conspicuous his position might render him or how many pairs of eyes might spy upon him. Presently, when the sun had passed its zenith and the circle of light had shifted a little to the eastward, so that part of his body lay in shadow, the flat head reared itself six inches from the ground, the loose coils slid strangely in opposite directions upon one another, and, when the movement ceased and the head sank again upon the sand, his whole body was once more immersed in light.
For another half-hour he lay utterly still, seem'ing scarcely to breathe. Then he uncoiled slowly and languidly, swung his slim neck across his stout, olive-colored tail, forming a great loop, and, straightening to his full length, went forth to his hunting.
The snake headed diagonally away from the pool, keeping to the dry ground and avoiding as far as possible the swampy, reed-choked places. He moved a little more slowly perhaps than a man ordinarily walks and his passage was almost noiseless. His body seemed to flow along over the leaves and grass, as though propelled by some mysterious and unseen force. There was a certain dignity about his going—an utter lack of the furtiveness which marks the movements of all the four-footed forest-dwellers. His spear-shaped head pointed always directly forward, and he passed boldly and indifferently through dense thickets that hid him completely from view and across bare, sunlit places where the brilliant colors of his splendid body flashed and sparkled in the light.
Once, although the snake knew nothing of it and would have cared nothing had he known, a drowsy squirrel, idling away the lazy hot hours on a shady limb of a large oak, saw a wide, gray-green ribbon, braided with black, yellow-bordered, rhomboidal markings, slide smoothly and slowly across an open grassy space far below and vanish in a tangle of smilax beyond—and the squirrel shivered slightly before dozing off again, although his fear must have been wholly instinctive, since never in his short life had he been close enough to that gray-green ribbon to feel the paralyzing power of its glittering eyes. Once, too, a rabbit, stretched comfortably in her soft bed beneath a cassena bush, saw the big snake emerging from a clump of weeds six feet in front of her and, galvanized into instant action, bounded away to the right, making a reckless clatter among the crisp, dead leaves. Except these two, however, none of the keen-eyed woods creatures knew of the rattlesnake's passage across a mile or more of the flat floor of the forest so noiselessly did he glide through shadowed thickets and across sun-bathed, open spaces alike until he arrived at the border of the hunting ground whither he had all this time been traveling—an extensive clearing on the edge of the woods which years before had been a cornfield, and where countless meadow-mice scurried night and day along their winding, tunnel-like runways through the wilderness of tall broom grass that now covered its furrowed surface.
These foolish and incessantly busy little people of the broom grass were easy and succulent game; and it was for the purpose of hunting them that the rattlesnake had journeyed from the reed-bordered pool a mile back in the woods—an unusual proceeding, since he seldom traveled far at any time and his wanderings, such as they were, generally took place at night.
Along the fringe of the wood, separated from the broom grass field by a dry, shallow ditch and a low bank clothed with a dense tangle of wild-rose vines, ran a shady, grass-carpeted road, apparently seldom used by man since here and there it was almost obliterated by clumps of tall, prickly-stemmed weeds. A fox, coming upon the road, would have tested the wind carefully and looked keenly to right and left before venturing to cross it; but the rattlesnake, of too crude a cunning to recognize the road as different in any important particular from one of the open forest spaces where he was accustomed to show himself so boldly, paused not an instant. He was half-way across when suddenly and in a fraction of an instant, his big body gathered itself into a close, symmetrical coil, the slim neck bent back like an S, the evil head drawn within the circle of the body, the black-ringed tail, tipped with its ten rattles, pointing straight upward and vibrating so rapidly as to seem a mere indistinct blur.
Thirty yards away down the road a small brindled cur and, some distance behind him, a ragged negro boy of twelve or thirteen years were approaching at headlong speed. The dog was barking excitedly as he ran and looking up into the liveoaks bordering the road at a squirrel leaping nimbly from branch to branch. For some moments the snake could not see them because of an intervening clump of weeds. Possessing no external ears, he heard only faintly, if at all, the sharp yelping of the dog and the shrill shouts of the boy. It was the vibration of the ground which had thrown him upon guard, and had he wished to do so, he might easily have gained the shelter of the vine-clad bank beyond the road.
The snake, however, did not even consider a retreat. He was hungry and consequently in an evil mood, and the tremor of the soil under his sensitive scales inspired him with a terrible fury. He remained coiled in the middle of the road, his eyes flickering like gems, his whirring rattle rasping its thin, incessant defiance.
The dog did not see the danger and, being young in years and woodcraft, failed to understand the monotonous note of warning. His attention absorbed by the fleeing squirrel, he came bounding along, head in air, careless of the ground in front of him. He leaped clear over the snake; and as he passed, the bent neck straightened like a spring and the javelin-like head, its jaws gaping hugely, lunged upward, seeming to touch the dog gently on the throat where it joined the chest.
The dog did not see what it was that had pricked his skin and at the moment paid no attention to the slight pain. He galloped on, his eager eyes still fixed upon the squirrel, and had passed far down the road beyond the snake before the deadly fluid in his veins began to work. Then he staggered and his excited barking gave place to piercing, agonized yelps. The end came with merciful rapidity. He fell over on his side, lurched once more to his feet, and in a minute or so went down again, his piercing cries reduced to scarcely audible gasps. For a while his limbs twitched and quivered convulsively. Then his gasping ceased and he lay still.
The boy, meanwhile, being more careful of where he placed his bare feet and, moreover, having heard before this the ominous rolling of the kettledrum that every rattlesnake carries at the tip of his tail, had seen and heard the danger simultaneously and only just in time. He leaped a clear four feet to the right and stood there panting, gazing wild-eyed and suddenly weak upon the doom which he had so narrowly escaped. At first he did not realize that his dog was stricken and he kept his terrified eyes fixed upon the snake until the short, sharp barks changed to shrill, long-drawn cries of pain. He watched the poor beast's death struggles in silence and without moving. Then he turned and fled like a deer.
For many minutes after the delicate nerve mechanism of his under-scales had ceased to detect the slightest tremor of the ground the rattlesnake stood on guard, his whirring rattle sounding its fearless challenge. At length, however, he seemed to realize that the enemy had retreated; and, uncoiling slowly, his beautiful body, straightened now to its full length, began again to glide mysteriously over the ground. In the waste of broom grass beyond the shallow, weed-choked ditch the busy meadow-mice still ran hither and thither along their smooth, well-trodden paths; and, now that his sluggish spirit had been stirred to fury and his body put to violent though brief, exertion, the snake was more than ever keenly conscious of his hunger and more impatient for his dinner.
It happened, however, that Fate had for this day decreed immunity for the timid people of the broom grass. The rattlesnake, having crossed the road, had arrived at the verge of the shallow ditch at a point where a well-beaten path led down the slope between two walls of dense thorny weeds and up the bank beyond into the field. Three feet of his thick body had entered this narrow pass when suddenly he paused. At the bottom of the ditch and full in the path, a slender serpent, whose lustrous black body was ringed with narrow stripes of white, lay stretched at full length, motionless and apparently asleep.
The rattlesnake paused only for an instant. It was surprise, not fear, which had arrested momentarily the slow forward flowing of his massive body; and almost immediately this unaccustomed emotion, impressed but faintly upon his dim intelligence, was lost in the strange senseless fury which possessed him.
He had seen but little of other serpents—except those of his own kind with whom he lived at peace and with whom at certain seasons he was accustomed to associate. His experience with other snakes had taught him only that they, like all the other forest-dwellers, owned his mastery; and, though this slim, white-ringed serpent in the path in front of him was of a sort which he had never seen before, he never doubted what its conduct would be.
He glided on, therefore, sounding his battle-call, while the metallic eyes scintillated dangerously in his upraised head.
The kingsnake lay absolutely without movement, apparently unaware of the rattler's approach. It chanced that he was at that moment in an unusually peaceable and lazy mood, desiring only to be let alone. He had hunted the broom grass folk to good purpose that morning, and afterwards he had sought the soft sand at the bottom of the ditch to bask in comfort while the two furry bodies inside of him underwent the process of digestion.
Yet, for all his languor, he was not asleep. The mild black eyes set in his small, blunt-nosed head had seen the rattler at the moment when the latter appeared in the path. They had watched the intruder keenly as he glided down the slope and had noted without the slightest change of expression the huge size of that glittering armored body, three times as thick and only a little shorter than his own.
Until the angry, plated head with its gaping jaws was almost upon him, and the slim neck beneath it was bending back for a thrust, he gave no sign either of dismay or of defiance. Then, however, as if only at that moment endued with life and with a lightning-like quickness which rendered the two movements almost simultaneous, half his slender, whip-like length drew back and flashed forward again, and the battle was joined.
It was a strange fight that raged amid the short weeds and crisp dead leaves at the bottom of the roadside ditch. It had scarcely begun when the ragged black boy, who, a few minutes before had escaped death by so narrow a margin, came at a rapid trot along the road, closely followed by a negro man bearing in his hand a stout hickory stick. These two, hearing a great threshing among the weeds, stood at the entrance of the path leading down into the ditch and watched the duel.
They saw a writhing, twisting yellow and black object whose shape changed and changed again swiftly and incessantly—now straightening convulsively to a length of full six feet, and lashing from side to side, now compacted into a streaked and mottled ball-like mass. It was not easy at first to follow the fortunes of the battle; but presently the man made out that a slender black spiral encircled the forward part of the rattler's thick trunk and that the rattler's head, despite the fetters wound about his neck, struck again and again against some part of this black spiral, the long curved fangs piercing each time the thin mail of the kingsnake's body. The man knew that with every stroke of those hollow fangs, each of them a full inch in length, another gush of venom was injected, though in diminishing volume, into the kingsnake's veins. But he knew also that the kingsnake, by a strange provision of nature, is utterly unaffected by the poison, and from the first he had little doubt as to the issue of the combat.
Yet, for a while, the issue was in doubt; for, although the rattler's poison availed him nothing, the piercing and slashing power of his weapons might well have won the battle before the life was crushed out of him by the increasing constriction of his enemy's slim coils. This was the kingsnake's one weapon—the muscular force of his body. He had strangled many snakes before this—for he fought for the love of fighting as well as for food; but never before had his coils gripped so huge a serpent; and though his wire-like muscles strained and tightened to the utmost limit of their strength, his glittering armor was flecked with crimson in a score of places before the rattlesnake weakened perceptibly.
When at last the contortions of the splendid body, swollen so as almost to hide the slender black cord wound tightly around it, had slackened to a slow, mechanical writhing to and fro, the negro spat upon the ground and cursed delightedly.
"It's all over but de shoutin', Sonny," he said to the boy. "De kingsnake strangle um an' break he rib. But I don' t'ink he gwine ter eat um, 'cause de rattler de bigges' er de two. Go t'row de dog een de bushes. Buzzard comin' for um now." And he pointed with his stick at three grim vultures gliding in wide, graceful circles fifty feet or so above the road where the small brindled carcass was lying.