The sound had been a long-drawn hiss.

And Gavin Brice understood. Now he knew why the softly
falling bodies had slithered so oddly down the short distance
between window and floor. And he read aright the slippery
crawling little noises that had been assailing his ears.

The unseen man outside had thrust through the ventilator not
less than seven or eight snakes, carried thither, presumably,
in bags.

Crouching on his long box Gavin peered about him. Faintly
against the dense gray of the shadowy floor. he could see
thick ropelike forms twisting sinuously
to and fro, as if exploring their new quarters or seeking
exit. More than once. as these chanced to cross one another's
path, that same long-drawn hiss quavered out into the dark
silences.

And now Brice's nostrils were assailed by a sickening smell as
of crushed cucumbers. And at the odor his fists tightened in
new fear. For no serpents give off that peculiar odor.
except members of the pit-viper family.

"They're not rattlesnakes," he told himself. "For a scared or
angry rattler would have this room vibrating with his whirr.
We're too far south for copperheads. The--the only other
pit-viper I ever heard of in Florida is the--cotton-mouth
moccasin!"