I don’t buy that.
The snake was getting into the cat’s territory.
To a bored cat, snakes are an amusing challenge, they get a lot of play time before it dies.
I had a Siamese mix that we found as an emaciated kitten after its mom had been killed at a rest stop... she grew up to be a voracious snake hunter. But one day she found one that was just too big to handle [and apparently didn’t want to play] and came to get us. She called all the way, led us out of the house, and around the side by the water hose, then sat down facing an overturned muck bucket and pawed the edge. At first we couldn’t figure out why she was carrying on, all we saw was the bucket, which had what looked like algae-filled water in the rolled brim, which was about an inch and a half thick and deep. My mom picked up the bucket, holding it upside down to see if the cat knew something was under it, but there was nothing. Mom shook the crap out of the bucket to knock what she thought was making the bucket so heavy, to no avail.
Then when she let it slam back down, we saw the movement of a snake that was enjoying the warm water. I thought at first it was just a water snake, but when the snake decided to get away from all the excitement and find another quiet place to sleep, it was a cat-eyed water moccasin. Fortunately the hot water bath had it in a very good mood and it wasn’t very irritated.
May have been eating its rodents, too. Cat may have even caught it with its mouth full.