A wound by the cotton-mouth moccasin, if treated properly, may not result in death. Like other viperine bites, however, it so affects the surrounding flesh that blood poisoning may follow days after the first crisis has been passed. Yet, even with this two-fold menace lurking in its fangs, it is not the most feared of Florida snakes. Preëminent in that capacity stands the diamond-back rattler, largest of the world's venomous species and second to none in point of deadliness. Smilax insisted—on I do not know what authority—that more dangerous than either of these is the beautiful little coral snake, elaps fulvius, whose victim becomes ravingly insane and invariably dies. That he possessed some uncanny knowledge of the creature must be admitted because of its close relationship to the Cobra-de-Capello, of Asiatic fame, whose poison, we know, flies directly to the nerve centers and almost entirely ignores the tissue. Four days later I had good reason to remember this.
"Are there many snakes hereabouts?" I asked.
"Winter, not much; summer, heap."
However, at that very moment he held his hand back to stop me, then beckoned me forward.
"Look!" He was pointing tensely ahead of us, moving his arm leftward and indicating a circle of perhaps thirty feet in diameter.
Whatever it was, I could see the tops of the grass shake as their stems were slightly jostled by this unknown creature's progress, which continued with incredible speed and was circling back toward us. Then, with a slightly swishing sound as its body glided through the dry grass, that friend of Florida woodsmen—the king snake—passed before our feet like a brownish-green streak.
"Rattler! You watch!" Smilax whispered. His eyes were wide with interest, for it is not permitted many men to see a duel between these mortal enemies.
Somewhere directly ahead of us a diamond-back rattlesnake must have awaited the attack he sensed, though we could not yet see him. Time after time the king snake swept by in front of us, decreasing the circles and, I thought, increasing his speed. After each revolution we stepped in a little nearer, being careful not to interfere with his course nor distract his attention from the serious business at hand.
Soon the viper became visible. His flat head, elevated a few inches above his heavy coil, turned anxiously with the sounds in the grass. He knew what was coming, I think, but did not rattle until the king had reduced the circles about him to a diameter of six or seven feet. Then he became electrified. The rattles sounded viciously, and his head began an ominous swaying motion, out and in, as he searched for a vital spot at which to strike.
The king, although keeping just outside the danger line, was also watching for an opportunity. He may have realized his immunity to poisons, yet did not care unnecessarily to suffer the laceration of fangs. Rather did he choose to rely upon the further protective gifts that nature had given him: length and strength, speed and agility, and a skin that blended elusively with the ground colors; therefore, revolving in these smaller circles, he seemed to make almost a continuous line, without beginning or end, and the rattler was at a loss to act. Now, profiting by a moment when the venomous eyes were turned away, he darted in and caught the viper close up behind its head. Wrapping himself about the squirming body he ruthlessly straightened out. We heard the vertebrae being torn until his victim lay crushed and stretched into a helpless mass.