Attracted, no doubt, by its warmth, two huge, swollen-looking moccasins had crawled up on the little heap of mud and now lay with their flat, ugly heads within a few inches of the little negro's trembling body.
"Don't move an inch, Chris," he shouted, as he broke off a dead limb from a cedar tree.
The caution was useless, for, bound as he was, hand and foot, Chris could only lay and stare in horror and helplessness.
A couple of well-aimed blows from the stick killed the two poisonous, sluggish serpents, and, dragging them to the edge of the island, the captain pitched them out into the marsh.
"They ain't very pleasant visitors," he remarked as he returned to his helpless companion, "but I reckon, they've done you a heap of good. You was laying like a dead man when I went ashore and now you look right pert and lively."
"Dey's too sudden an' powerful medicine," grumbled Chris. "Dis nigger might jes' as well die as be scart to death. Golly! how my leg does burn and smart. Please take dat stuff off ob hit, Massa Captain, an' unloose my han's."
But the old sailor feared to remove the mud poultice, dreading another relapse. However, he untied the little negro's hands, upon his promise that he would lie still and not move. He was delighted with the change in the little lad. Whether the shock from the snakes, or, what was much more probable, the continued effects of the palmetto juice had done the work, the stupor which had frightened them all was entirely gone, and the patient soon declared himself decidedly hungry.
Cutting a stick and laying it within Chris' reach so that he would have the means of protecting himself from other possible visitors, the Captain departed in search of food.