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Serpent forms present themselves: now and then the huge boa and the macaurel, twining the trees. The great tiger-snake is seen with its head raised half a yard from the surface; the cascabel, too, coiled like a cable; and the coral-snake with his red and ringed body stretched at full length along the ground.
The damage to the vessel seemed beyond repair. There were five breaches in her sides, one, very large, in the bow; twenty of the thirty carronades lay useless in their frames. The one which had just been captured and chained again was disabled; the screw of the cascabel was sprung, and consequently leveling the gun made impossible. The battery was reduced to nine pieces. The ship was leaking.
"When we catch her I'll hang the men who fired those shots," he shouted, jumping up and down on his lofty perch. "What are you standing there gaping at, Tierney? Give that gun more elevation and try her again." "I had her up to the last notch in the rear sight, sir," replied Tierney. "I can't give the gun any more elevation. The cascabel is down to the bottom of the screw now.
He, supple, nimble, expert, writhed away like an adder from all these lightning movements. He avoided a collision, but the blows which he parried fell against the, vessel, and continued their work of destruction. An end of broken chain was left hanging to the carronade. This chain had in some strange way become twisted about the screw of the cascabel.
Sometimes night suddenly overtook us, for there is scarcely any twilight in this climate; and we then found ourselves dangerously situated, as the Cascabel, or rattle-snake, the Coral, and other vipers armed with poisonous fangs, frequent these scorched and arid haunts, to deposit their eggs in the sand.
For the Cascabel has a fancy for living in the Lapo's burrow, as does the rattlesnake in that of the prairie dog in the Western United States, and in the same friendly and harmless fashion; and is apt, when dug out, to avenge himself and his host by a bite which is fatal in a few hours.
They were, the Negroes told us, 'Dormillons, or 'Mangrove Cascabel, a species as yet, I believe, undescribed; and, of course, here considered as very poisonous, owing to their likeness to the true Cascabel, whose deadly fangs are justly dreaded by the Lapo hunter.
I did not see that now and then a timid deer had gazed at me for a moment and then bounded away through the brake; neither that again and again a deadly cascabel had glided, worm-like, almost from beneath my feet, uttering a low, ominous hiss as it wriggled away through the tall grass.
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