The Snake Biting Indian... The Snake Biting Indian
The Snake Biting Indian
Tall, straight, and dark browed, Joseph Naughaught was a familiar figure as he made his way throughout the Cape, Bible tucked under his arm. Wherever his wandering feet brought him, he stopped to preach for Christianity, for he was a converted Indian. Pious, rum-hating Joseph was a self-made man both educationally and religiously, and was well known as a religiously, and at times, fanatically, sincere man—so well known for this, in fact, that he soon came to be called “The Deacon.”
When “The Deacon” was not evangelicaling, converting, or leading future converts in prayer, he couldbe found, in all seasons, strolling leisurely through the woods and along the beaches.
One bright Fall day, when the Deacon was walking through the Truro Hills, he came to his favorite place of meditation, a rocky, cave-like shelter which was close to the ocean bluffs. There he sat for some time, quietly smoking and thinking, when his thoughts were arrested by a strange and ominous hissing.
The Deacon was trapped, for there directly before the mouth of the cave, was a huge circle of deadly black snakes. The Deacon was unarmed, and the snakes he knew, would close in on him faster than light at his slightest movement. He sat frozen with horror.
The minutes dragged by. The Deacon never took his eyes off the snakes, and they in turn were like frozen black ribbons, heads slightly raised, as they stared at him with eyes he could not see. The small gusts of occasional sea breeze were cold against the Deacon’s skin, for he was drenched with the sweat of fear.
The snakes crawled slowly towards him, with one of the black lines a little ahead of the others. When the reptiles reached his feet, they stopped once more. He could hear their soft hissing, and feel the weight of the lead snake across his foot. They moved again, like a soft, clinging wave, slithering and undulating towards him. Sluggishly and relentlessly they moved up his immobile form, until they had twined their dank bodies all around him. They clung to him like tenacious pieces of damp wool. The Deacon could see their wicked slit eyes, bright and expressionless, but deadly; he could hear their hissing breaths, and feel their hungry bodies in a horrid caress. Still hedid not move a hair, a muscle—he seemed not to breathe. The leader snake was wound around his neck, and was looking, his head raised, right at the Deacon, darting its flat head in and out at the Indian’s face.
On one of these thrusts, when the snake’s head came within an inch of his mouth, the Deacon opened wide his great jaws, and at the moment when the snake thrust its head inquiringly inside, the Deacon clamped shut his huge teeth, and bit the snake’s head off. This so frightened the rest of the snakes that they hurtled themselves from the Deacon’s body and fled. Some of the black reptiles were stunned from their fall, and the Deacon, master of the field, quickly killed them with a huge stone. The dead snakes he skinned, and brought their dried hides home as evidence of the terrible encounter.