As Gavin Brice sat with feet drawn up under him, listening to
the gruesome slither of the mocca sinsalong the concrete
floor just below he was gripped for a minute by irresistible
terror. It was all so simple--so complete! And he had been
calmly self-confident of his ability to command the situation,
to play these people's own game and to beat them at it.
Grinning and open-eyed he had marched into the trap. He had
been glad to let Hade and Standish think him safely out of
their way, and had planned so confidently to return by stealth
to the mainland that night and to Milo's house!

And now they had had absolutely no difficulty in caging him,
and in arranging that he should be put forever out of their
way. The most stringent inquiry--should any such be made
--could only show that he had been bitten once or more by a
deadly snake. Any post-mortem would bear out the statement.

It was known to every one that many of the keys--even several
miles from the mainland--are infested by rattlesnakes and by
other serpents, though how such snakes ever got to the islands
is as much of a mystery to the naturalist world as is the
presence of raccoons and squirrels on the same keys. It is
simply one of the hundred unsolvable mysteries and puzzles of
the subtropic region.

In his jiu-jutsu instructions Brice had learned a rule which
he had carried into good effect in other walks of life.
Namely to seem to play one's opponent's game and to be fooled