L'Encuerado, after cooking, spread out on the spot his stock of provisions, to which every one did justice. Master Job was lodged safely under the shelter of a large branch, and deep sleep took possession of the whole party.
CHAPTER XXX.
WE BUILD A RAFT.—THE HORNED SERPENT.—GOOD-BYE TO "PALM-TREE VILLA."—MOSQUITOES AND HORSE-FLIES.—THE RATTLESNAKE.—AN OCELOT.
The next day found us at work building our raft, and l'Encuerado went off with Lucien in quest of some flexible creepers, to be used for binding together the various portions of it. When our companions joined us, Sumichrast was squaring out the last trunks. Lucien, laden with creepers wound all round his body, carried besides, at the end of his stick, the carcass of a horned snake—Atropos Mexicanus—which has scales standing erect behind its eyebrows, like little horns, which have obtained for it its Indian name of mazacoatl. The reptile was nearly two feet long, and of a grayish color, and gaped with formidable jaws, more than usually dilated by the blows, I suppose, which l'Encuerado had given it.
Sumichrast, with infinite precaution, showed to his pupil the tubular fangs, by means of which serpents inoculate the terrible venom with which some of them have been endowed by nature.
"When the reptile bites," said my friend, "its two fangs press on a small bladder at their base, and the poison is thus injected into the wound."