Reaching the assacu, Pedro and Mack again went ashore on the safe side of the tree, while I kept watch along the ygarapé. Quickly but thoroughly they removed the last traces of our fight and our moonlight visit—traces which the savages could not have seen last night in the deep shadows, but which they might perceive if they came again by daylight. They covered the bloodstains with fresh earth, which they patted down carefully and then smeared out smooth with hatfuls of water.
In the same way, working back toward the edge, they blotted out every track made by Senhor Mack's boot-soles and heels. And when they again entered the canoe we smoothed away the marks left in the bank last night by our bow and Pedro's paddle.
"Now,” said Pedro, “any barbaros coming here to investigate will get nothing for their pains—except, perhaps, more death from our snake-head trail. There is no sign that the ubá bringing you, Senhor Mack, ever reached here. You, and the seven cannibals with you, and the boat itself, have disappeared into nothing. Where a human corpse should stand against the tree is only a stinking jacaré. They will have something to think about."
"They had something to think about last night,” I said. “They were panting ‘Anyi’ as they fled. That means ‘devil,’ senhor."
"Yes? Thought the devil was after them, eh? Well, they'll be dead sure of it a few days from now, I'm thinking."
And Pedro, smiling at some thought of his own, echoed—
"I too am thinking so."
Down to the end of the ygarapé we pushed swiftly. Pedro and the blond man got out. I stayed in the boat.
"Dang it, I don't feel right to quit you like this!” Mack grumbled. “But it's the only thing to do if you won't come along. Take care of yourself, old chap."
"I am in the habit of taking care of myself,” I smiled. “Go with God!"
Pedro waved a hand, turned, and plunged into the bush. Mack followed. They vanished, swallowed by the jungle. I was alone.
* * * *
XIII
IF THE two who were gone expected me to spend my time lolling in my hammock and hugging the jug they were wrong. The first thing I did, after hiding the canoe and reaching camp, was to bury the jug at a rear corner of the tambo, where it would be safe and out from under foot. Then I cleared up the things left lying about in the hasty departure, oiled my gun, smoked a cigarette, and thought.
As the result of that thinking I went out that afternoon on another spying trip. Halfway around the enseada I sneaked, almost to the place where that path of the barbaros turned so suddenly into the forest. I did not enter the path itself for two reasons: it was not necessary to my present purpose, and I felt a man in it.
Yes, senhores, I mean just that. I did not see him, hear him, or even smell him—I felt him. I knew he was there as surely as I knew I was there. And I took great care that he should not hear anything of me, for it was no part of my plan to kill any man there just then. I stole back a little distance, then wormed my way down to the water's edge and squatted there studying the hill of the cannibals and all I could see around it.
Pedro's estimate had been correct. The front of the place could not be scaled at any time, and the two sides were too steep and too well cleared to be rushed by anything less than a small army. Paths led to the top from both sides, I knew, but these probably were guarded at ordinary times, both above and below. The man in the path nearest to me undoubtedly was a sentry stationed at a fixed post, as he did not seem to go away—I still felt that he was there. And after watching awhile I became sure that the tongue of low land opposite me, running westward and forming a shore of both the enseada and the lagoa, also was guarded. Across the water I glimpsed an Indian passing slowly up and down through the undergrowth.
Not much chance of a few men reaching the hilltop from this direction, I decided. I began to speculate about the rear of the place, and half determined that I would take a look at it when the time was more favorable. That time must be at night, when I could pass unseen down the lagoa in the canoe and later prowl by moonlight.
While I thought of this, two ubás full of paddlers came swinging up the bay from the lake. Behind each of them trailed smaller canoes, empty. They passed in silence, and their men showed none of the fear I had observed among those who fled from the ygarapé last night. I had not seen nor heard any visitors to the assacu today, and was quite sure none had been there. These men evidently had done what Pedro predicted—returned to the death-strewn camp of Senhor Mack to search for anything overlooked after the fight; and I silently blessed my partner for preventing the planting of any cross among the bones there.
The boats went to the usual place and the men got out in a calm, unhurried way. For a few minutes some of them stood talking. Then all faded away inland.
Having learned all I could at this spot, I crept away and returned to my tambo. The air now was stifling hot, and my head grew heavy. I decided to sleep for the rest of the afternoon, and then, after dark, to take out the canoe and go down the lagoon for further study of the Jararaca's place. Perhaps the paths along the enseada would be left unguarded after sundown—savages seldom keep sentries out at night, and these men did not know any enemy was near—and in that case I could safely prowl close to their camp. So I lay down, knowing the usual night clamor would wake me at dark.
But while I slept the weather changed. I awoke in blackness to hear rain pounding the jungle. It was not a thunder-squall, but a hard steady rain that would last most of the night and blot the moon from the sky. After a smoke I went to sleep again and knew nothing more until day.
Now it is a habit of mine in the bush to glance around me as soon as I awake in the morning, before putting my feet to the ground. One never knows what sort of thing may have crawled into an open tambo during the night, and it is always well to look about before rising. Most of the time one sees nothing new, but now and then there may be something worth looking at. And this morning, after making my usual quick inspection of the ground, I kept my bare feet in the hammock.
Under me, coiled ready to strike, its wicked eyes watching me and its forked tongue quivering, was a jararaca.
It had crept in there, perhaps, to keep out of the rain, though a jararaca does not dislike water. At any rate, it was there, and it showed no intention of going away. And while it stayed under my hammock, I was in a bad position. I had no fear that it would strike straight up at me, though I have heard of snakes doing such things. But if I stepped out it surely would bury its fangs in my foot. And unless I did step out there was scant chance of my killing it.
As you senhores know, a hammock is a tipsy and tricksy bed at best. Many a time I have fallen out in my sleep while turning over or disturbed by a dream. When a hammock does dump you it does so very suddenly, giving you no chance whatever to save yourself. So you can see that it is no place from which to try to kill snakes.
This jararaca was not very large. My machete lay beside me, and my gun was within easy reach. But the deadliness of such a creature does not depend on its length, and any attempt to swing my bush-knife or rifle down on this snake would undoubtedly result in unbalancing myself so that I would sprawl beside him—and then I would no longer be a menace to that other Jararaca over on the hill. Even if I got my gun without tipping out it could be used only as a club, for of course any gunshot would reach the ears of the barbaros. And those two weapons were the only things within my reach. So I did the only thing possible—lay still and tried to plan some way to rid myself of the danger.
While I thought I looked all about the place, seeking something that would give me an idea. But I saw nothing useful. And the most useless thing of all seemed to be that big gold crucifix which still hung from the ridge-pole overhead. My eyes went from it to the snake, and from the snake to the cross, and all my looking at them did me no good. Each stayed where it was. And so did I.
After a time I tired of the sight of them and stared out at the bush, still puzzling over what to do. And suddenly I saw a thing so unexpected that it stopped my br
eath. There at the edge of the undergrowth, motionless as any bush, was the head and neck of another snake. And that snake was a mussurana.
* * * *
XIV
NOW I am not at all religious, senhores, nor have I ever been. If I were, I probably should think that the cross hanging over me had brought that mussurana to aid me. But I do not believe in such things. I do not believe any cross, or any priest either, can save my life in this world or my soul in the next.
Yet I am not one of those who think there is no God. And I do believe that whenever Deus Padre allows an evil thing to come into the world he also creates a good thing to destroy it. And whether this be so or not, I know that as our jungle harbors the venomous jararaca, so also it protests the good mussurana, which slays the jararaca.
That is what the mussurana lives for. Though itself a serpent, it is a killer of serpents. And though the deadliest poison of another snake can not harm it, it has no poison of its own and does no harm to man. True, it is not at all handsome, and its flat head looks vicious and grim. But if ever I saw a snake which seemed beautiful and was as welcome as a friend in time of trouble, it was that morning when I spied that shining blue thing lying there with its fierce gaze fixed on the coil under me.
If I had lain still before, I now was motionless as a log. I hardly breathed, feeling that the slightest move might draw the attention of the mussurana to me and stop it from coming in. Yet I need not have feared. Its whole brain was centered on its enemy. And slowly, its head a little off the ground, its tongue darting, it crept smoothly out into the open.
Inch by inch, foot by foot, it came sliding forward until it was all in sight. In the watery morning sunlight its steely blue body shone like a four-foot gun-barrel slipping silently along the dirt. Into the shadow of the tambo it crept without a pause—on, on until it was within a yard of the jararaca.
Then under me sounded a startled hiss. The jararaca, which had been fixedly watching me, suddenly saw the danger almost upon it. At the sound the mussurana stopped an instant, and the two reptiles glared at each other. Then the mussurana resumed its glide.
It seemed to me that both snakes darted upon each other at the same instant. Such things happen so quickly that the eye can not follow them. But the jararaca flashed from its coil, and for a second the blue destroyer became a blur. Then I saw the jararaca jerk its fangs out of the side of the other snake; and I saw also that the mussurana had whipped several folds of itself around the deadly reptile and sunk its own teeth into its enemy.
The fangs of the mussurana had struck several inches behind the neck, and this was not at all the hold it wanted. As the jararaca pulled away its head the other did the same; but it kept its twining body-grip. It reached for a hold nearer the head—and got it. As its fangs sank in for the second time, the jararaca also bit again. And then, locked together, they rolled about as I have seen two battling men roll when grappling on the ground.
Lashing, writhing, squirming, they struggled for minutes. But now I could see that the jararaca was trying, not to overpower its enemy, but to wriggle out of the gripping blue coils. And the mussurana, though it seemed trying to squeeze its prey to death, was not attempting that at all. It knew just how it wanted to kill that jararaca, and it was working very coolly toward carrying out its plan. While it gripped the venomous snake it was also creeping upward around it, working toward the deadly head. And at length it clamped its fangs into the head itself.
For a moment it lay quiet as if resting. Its body now was twined all down that of its enemy in a close, even spiral, and only the head and tail of the jararaca could be seen. Then the mussurana, moving its muscles upward, seemed to bunch itself around the throat of the other reptile.
The head of the jararaca, still held in the blue snake's teeth, came forward a little, then bent back. With sure, terrible power the destroyer was stretching the neck of its victim. When that neck was drawn taut the blue snake began twisting it from side to side.
How long that twisting kept on I do not know. But I do know it lasted until the bones of the jararaca were ground loose from one another and its neck was hopelessly shattered. At last the mussurana unclamped its jaws, loosened its coil, and let the weakly twitching body lie free. After another short rest it seized the head of the conquered snake and began to swallow it.
For some time longer I lay there, watching the blue-steel creature swell as it drew the quivering jararaca down its gullet. At last only the tip of the slender tail hung from its mouth. Then this too faded from sight. The deadly thing which had held me a prisoner in my hammock had vanished from the face of the earth.
I dropped my feet to the ground and stood up. The mussurana, which had given me no attention whatever, drew back in a startled way. But as I made no more sudden moves, it lay quietly watching me for a time, then calmly glided away toward the bush.
It was returning to the place from which it had come. I watched it, wishing I had some way of rewarding it for the good turn it had done for me. And as I thought this there came to me a curiosity to know where the creature had its lair. It was quite likely that before I left this part of the jungle I might kill another snake in my wanderings, and if I knew where my friend the mussurana lived I could take the dead thing there and give it a good meal without the work of slaying it first.
A foolish thought, yes. But just then I felt very grateful to that blue fighter; and so, having nothing better to do than to follow up my foolish thought, I stepped softly after the creature. It had vanished now into the undergrowth. But the wet ground was soft, and I have a pair of bush-trained eyes, so that it was not hard for me to trail the four-foot reptile, heavy with its swallowed prey. I felt that it would go straight to its den to sleep for the next few days, as is the habit of snakes after a good kill. And, traveling lightly to avoid alarming it, I followed its track until I neared a tree between whose buttress roots opened a hole.
At the bottom of this hole I spied the steely glint of the mussurana, creeping sluggishly in out of sight. Satisfied that this was its home, I went no farther. As I returned to the tambo I marked bushes lightly with my machete, so that I could come back at any time.
When I emerged in the clearing and set about getting breakfast I laughed at my foolishness. But before I finished my meal I stopped grinning.
Somehow the gold cross hanging in the tambo bothered me. Somehow there kept beating at my memory the sneering words of the Son of the Snake to Senhor Mack—
"Who lives by the cross dies by the snake!"
And suddenly, senhores, those words and the cross and the blue mussurana jumped together and struggled in my head as those two snakes had rolled about under my hammock. Then they straightened out into an idea—an idea that almost made me dizzy. And after staring at my coffee awhile I muttered:
"Vive Deus! I will do it!"
* * * *
XV
DAYS PASSED before I put my idea to the test. It was not one of those ideas which can be tried as soon as thought of. Between the thought and the trial lay several steps which had to be taken slowly. The idea depended very largely on my newly found friend, the mussurana. And before doing anything else I had to make that blue snake acquainted with me. As you know, a snake which has gorged itself is sluggish for a while afterward. Not until it has digested its meal will it grow hungry and active again; and if it has fed well, this time of torpor lasts several days. If the mussurana was not alarmed it would stay in its retreat for a week or more before starting out on another hunt. So, since I knew just where to find it, I could visit it each day and let it become accustomed to me. And that is what I did.
The first day, going quietly to its hole, I squatted a yard away. The hole was not large, and in the blackness beyond the opening I could see nothing. But I was sure that the creature was there, and thought it might be sleepily watching me. So I remained quiet for some time. Then I began to whistle.
My whistling was not loud, you may be sure. I kept it low enough to be heard by no ea
r more than a few feet away, yet strong enough to reach the hidden snake. I did not try to make music, but whistled steadily on one note for a while, then shifted to another. And after a while, gazing fixedly at that hole, I saw within it a shadowy flat head. The mussurana was listening and watching.
For quite a long time I whistled away on that same note. I kept at it until my cheeks pained me, my eyes burned from the steady stare, and my legs cramped under me. During that time the dim head had slipped forward until I could see it plainly, as well as an inch or two of neck. But the snake was too sluggish or too uncertain of me to come any farther. So, rising as slowly as possible on my aching legs, I went away, knowing that my face and the sound of my whistle were planted firmly in the mussurana's brain.
The next day I did the same thing. Before I went away that time the shiny blue body had come out of its hole more than a foot; and as I arose to go, still softly whistling, it did not draw back. When, after a couple of slow steps, I paused and glanced down, it still lay there with eyes fixed on me. Probably it did not return to its doze until I had passed away through the bush to my camp.
So, day by day, I serenaded that mussurana. If the coronel and Pedro could have seen me squatting by the hour beside a hole and whistling to a snake they would have thought me stark mad. There were times when I too called myself a fool. What the snake thought about me I do not know, but I have no doubt it was puzzled.
Yet, as the swallowed jararaca digested and the blue fighter became more alert, it also grew friendly. By the sixth day it not only came out to meet me and listen to my noises, but it allowed me to pick it up. I handled it very gently and let it crawl along my arms, though I must confess that I did not like the feel of the thing. It made no effort to escape, and when I set it on the ground again it curled partly around itself and lay lazily in the sun, looking at me and listening as I talked to it in a crooning tone.
For a longer time than usual I stayed with it that day, mumbling to it. I told it what I intended to do, and it never winked an eye. I even gave it a name before I went away. I called it Matador Azul, meaning “Blue Killer.” And in the days that followed I always thought of it by that name, though I dropped the “blue” part of it and called it only Matador.
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