by Mayne Reid
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.
THE SNAKE-DOCTOR.
With admiring eyes I looked for some moments on this bold black man--this slave-hero. I might have gazed longer, but the burning sensationin my arm reminded me of my perilous situation.
"You will guide me to Bringiers?" was my hurried interrogatory.
"Daren't, mass'."
"Daren't! Why?"
"Mass' forgot I'se a runaway. White folk cotch Gabr'l--cut off himarm."
"What? Cut off your arm?"
"Saten sure, mass'--dats da law of Loozyaney. White man strike nigga,folk laugh, folk cry out, `Lap de dam nigga! lap him!' Nigga strikewhite man, cut off nigga's arm. Like berry much to 'bleege mass' Edwad,but daren't go to de clearins. White men after Gabr'l last two days.Cuss'd blood-dogs and nigga-hunters out on im track. Thought youngmass' war one o' dem folks; dat's why um run."
"If you do not guide me, then I must die."
"Die!--die! why for mass' say dat?"
"Because I am lost. I cannot find my way out of the forest. If I donot reach the doctor in less than twenty minutes, there is no hope. OGod!"
"Doctor!--mass' Edwad sick? What ail um? Tell Gabr'l. If dat's dacase, him guide de brack man's friend at risk ob life. What young mass'ail?"
"See! I have been bitten by a rattlesnake."
I bared my arm, and showed the wound and the swelling.
"Ho! dat indeed! sure 'nuff--it are da bite ob de rattlesnake. Doctorno good for dat. Tobacc'-juice no good. Gabr'l best doctor for derattlesnake. Come 'long, young mass'!"
"What! you are going to guide me, then?"
"I'se a gwine to _cure_ you, mass'."
"You?"
"Ye, mass'! tell you doctor no good--know nuffin' 't all 'bout it--hekill you--truss Ole Gabe--he cure you. Come 'long, mass', no time t' beloss."
I had for the moment forgotten the peculiar reputation which the blackenjoyed--that of a snake-charmer and snake-doctor as well, although Ihad so late been thinking of it. The remembrance of this fact nowreturned, accompanied by a very different train of reflections.
"No doubt," thought I, "he possesses the requisite knowledge--knows theantidote, and how to apply it. No doubt he is the very man. Thedoctor, as he says, may not understand how to treat me."
I had no very great confidence that the doctor could cure me. I wasonly running to him as a sort of _dernier ressort_.
"This Gabriel--this snake-charmer, is the very man. How fortunate Ishould have met with him!"
After a moment's hesitation--during the time these reflections werepassing through my mind--I called out to the black--
"Lead on! I follow you!"
Whither did he intend to guide me? What was he going to do? Where was_he_ to find an antidote? How was he to cure me?
To these questions, hurriedly put, I received no reply.
"You truss me, mass' Edward; you foller me!" were all the words theblack would utter as he strode off among the trees.
I had no choice but to follow him.
After proceeding several hundred yards through the cypress swamp, I sawsome spots of sky in front of us. This indicated an opening in thewoods, and for that I saw my guide was heading. I was not surprised onreaching this opening to find that it was the glade--again the fatalglade!
To my eyes how changed its aspect! I could not bear the bright sun thatgleamed into it. The sheen of its flowers wearied my sight--theirperfume made me sick!
Maybe I only fancied this. I was sick, but from a very different cause.The poison was mingling with my blood. It was setting my veins onfire. I was tortured by a choking sensation of thirst, and already feltthat spasmodic compression of the chest, and difficulty of breathing--the well-known symptoms experienced by the victims of snake-poison.
It may be that I only fancied most of this. I knew that a venomousserpent had bitten me; and that knowledge may have excited myimagination to an extreme susceptibility. Whether the symptoms did inreality exist, I suffered them all the same. My fancy had all thepainfulness of reality!
My companion directed me to be seated. Moving about, he said, was notgood. He desired me to be calm and patient, once more begging me to"truss Gabr'l."
I resolved to be quiet, though patient I could not be. My peril was toogreat.
Physically I obeyed him. I sat down upon a log--that same log of theliriodendron--and under the shade of a spreading dogwood-tree. With allthe patience I could command, I sat awaiting the orders of thesnake-doctor. He had gone off a little way, and was now wanderingaround the glade with eyes bent upon the ground. He appeared to besearching for something.
"Some plant," thought I, "he expects to find growing there."
I watched his movements with more than ordinary interest. I need hardlyhave said this. It would have been sufficient to say that I felt mylife depended on the result of his search. His success or his failurewere life or death to me.
How my heart leaped when I saw him bend forward, and then stoop stilllower, as if clutching something upon the ground! An exclamation of joythat escaped his lips was echoed in a louder key from my own; and,forgetting his directions to remain quiet, I sprang up from the log, andran towards him.
As I approached he was upon his knees, and with his knife-blade wasdigging around a plant, as if to raise it by the roots. It was a smallherbaceous plant, with erect simple stem, oblong lanceolate leaves, anda terminal spike of not very conspicuous white flowers. Though I knewit not then, it was the famed "snake-root" (_Polygala senega_).
In a few moments he had removed the earth, and then, drawing out theplant, shook its roots free of the mould. I noticed that a mass ofwoody contorted rhizomes, somewhat thicker than those of thesarsaparilla briar, adhered to the stem. They were covered withash-coloured bark, and quite inodorous. Amid the fibres of these rootslay the antidote to the snake-poison--in their sap was the saviour of myrife!
Not a moment was lost in preparing them. There were no hieroglyphicsnor Latinic phraseology employed in the prescription of thesnake-charmer. It was comprised in the phrase, "_Chaw it_!" and, alongwith this simple direction, a piece of the root scraped clear of thebark was put into my hand. I did as I was desired, and in a moment Ihad reduced the root to a pulp, and was swallowing its sanitary juices.
The taste was at first rather sweetish, and engendered a slight feelingof nausea; but, as I continued to chew, it became hot and pungent,producing a peculiar tingling sensation in the fauces and throat.
The black now ran to the nearest brook, filled one of his "brogans" withwater, and, returning, washed my wrist until the tobacco juice was allremoved from the wound. Having himself chewed a number of the leaves ofthe plant into a pulpy mass, he placed it directly upon the bitten part,and then bound up the wound as before.
Everything was now done that could be done. I was instructed to abidethe result patiently and without fear.
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In a very short time a profuse perspiration broke out over my wholebody, and I began to expectorate freely. I felt, moreover, a stronginclination to vomit--which I should have done had I swallowed any moreof the juice, for, taken in large doses, the seneca root is a powerfulemetic.
But of the feelings I experienced at that moment, the most agreeable wasthe belief that _I was cured_!
Strange to say, this belief almost at once impressed my mind with theforce of a conviction. I no longer doubted the skill of thesnake-doctor.