IN THE DAY OF BATTLE As Gavin Brice sat with feet drawn up under him, listening to the gruesome slither of the moccasins along 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.