The Most Dangerous Game

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The Most Dangerous Game.
by Richard Connell
Originally published in Richard Connell’s
short story collection Variety
NEW YORK
MINTON, BALCH & COMPANY
1925 

The Most Dangerous Game

“OFF THERE to the right—somewhere—is a large island,”
said Whitney. “It’s rather a mystery—”
“What island is it?” Rainsford asked.
“The old charts call it ‘Ship-Trap Island,’” Whitney replied.
“A suggestive name, isn’t it? Sailors have a curious dread of the
place. I don’t know why. Some superstition—”
“Can’t see it,” remarked Rainsford, trying to peer through the
dank tropical night that was palpable as it pressed its thick warm
blackness in upon the yacht.

“You’ve good eyes,” said Whitney, with a laugh, “and I’ve
seen you pick off a moose moving in the brown fall bush at four
hundred yards, but even you can’t see four miles or so through a
moonless Caribbean night.”
“Nor four yards,” admitted Rainsford. “Ugh! It’s like moist
black velvet.”
“It will be light enough in Rio,” promised Whitney. “We
should make it in a few days. I hope the jaguar guns have come
from Purdey’s. We should have some good hunting up the
Amazon. Great sport, hunting.”
“The best sport in the world,” agreed Rainsford.
“For the hunter,” amended Whitney. “Not for the jaguar.”
“Don’t talk rot, Whitney,” said Rainsford. “You’re a big-game
hunter, not a philosopher. Who cares how a jaguar feels?”
“Perhaps the jaguar does,” observed Whitney.
“Bah! They’ve no understanding.”
“Even so, I rather think they understand one thing—fear. The
fear of pain and the fear of death.”
“Nonsense,” laughed Rainsford. “This hot weather is making
you soft, Whitney. Be a realist. The world is made up of two
classes—the hunters and the huntees. Luckily, you and I are
hunters. Do you think we’ve passed that island yet?”
“I can’t tell in the dark. I hope so.”
“Why?” asked Rainsford.
“The place has a reputation—a bad one.”
“Cannibals?” suggested Rainsford.
“Hardly. Even cannibals wouldn’t live in such a God-forsaken
place. But it’s gotten into sailor lore, somehow. Didn’t you notice
that the crew’s nerves seemed a bit jumpy today?”
“They were a bit strange, now you mention it. Even Captain
Nielsen—”

“Yes, even that tough-minded old Swede, who’d go up to the
devil himself and ask him for a light. Those fishy blue eyes held a
look I never saw there before. All I could get out of him was ‘Thisplace has an evil name among seafaring men, sir.’ Then he said to
me, very gravely, ‘Don’t you feel anything?’—as if the air about us
was actually poisonous. Now, you mustn’t laugh when I tell you
this—I did feel something like a sudden chill.
“There was no breeze. The sea was as flat as a plate-glass
window. We were drawing near the island then. What I felt was
a—a—mental chill; a sort of sudden dread.”
“Pure imagination,” said Rainsford. “One superstitious sailor
can taint the whole ship’s company with his fear.”
“Maybe. But sometimes I think sailors have an extra sense
that tells them when they are in danger. Sometimes I think evil is
a tangible thing—with wave lengths, just as sound and light have.
An evil place can, so to speak, broadcast vibrations of evil.
Anyhow, I’m glad we’re getting out of this zone. Well, I think I’ll
turn in now, Rainsford.”
“I’m not sleepy,” said Rainsford. “I’m going to smoke another
pipe up on the afterdeck.”
“Good night, then, Rainsford. See you at breakfast.”
“Right. Good night, Whitney.”

There was no sound in the night as Rainsford sat there but the
muffled throb of the engine that drove the yacht swiftly through
the darkness, and the swish and ripple of the wash of the
propeller.

Rainsford, reclining in a steamer chair, indolently puffed on
his favorite brier. The sensuous drowsiness of the night was on
him. “It’s so dark,” he thought, “that I could sleep without closing
my eyes; the night would be my eyelids—”
An abrupt sound startled him. Off to the right he heard it, and
his ears, expert in such matters, could not be mistaken. Again he
heard the sound, and again. Somewhere, off in the blackness,
someone had fired a gun three times.

Rainsford sprang up and moved quickly to the rail, mystified.
He strained his eyes in the direction from which the reports had
come, but it was like trying to see through a blanket. He leaped
upon the rail and balanced himself there, to get greater elevation;
his pipe, striking a rope, was knocked from his mouth. He lunged
for it; a short, hoarse cry came from his lips as he realized he had
reached too far and had lost his balance. The cry was pinched off
short as the blood-warm waters of the Caribbean Sea dosed over
his head.

He struggled up to the surface and tried to cry out, but the
wash from the speeding yacht slapped him in the face and the salt
water in his open mouth made him gag and strangle. Desperately
he struck out with strong strokes after the receding lights of the
yacht, but he stopped before he had swum fifty feet. A certain
cool-headedness had come to him; it was not the first time he hadbeen in a tight place. There was a chance that his cries could be
heard by someone aboard the yacht, but that chance was slender
and grew more slender as the yacht raced on. He wrestled himself
out of his clothes and shouted with all his power. The lights of the
yacht became faint and ever-vanishing fireflies; then they were
blotted out entirely by the night.

Rainsford remembered the shots. They had come from the
right, and doggedly he swam in that direction, swimming with
slow, deliberate strokes, conserving his strength. For a seemingly
endless time he fought the sea. He began to count his strokes; he
could do possibly a hundred more and then—
Rainsford heard a sound. It came out of the darkness, a high
screaming sound, the sound of an animal in an extremity of
anguish and terror.

He did not recognize the animal that made the sound; he did
not try to; with fresh vitality he swam toward the sound. He heard
it again; then it was cut short by another noise, crisp, staccato.
“Pistol shot,” muttered Rainsford, swimming on.

Ten minutes of determined effort brought another sound to
his ears—the most welcome he had ever heard—the muttering and
growling of the sea breaking on a rocky shore. He was almost on
the rocks before he saw them; on a night less calm he would have
been shattered against them. With his remaining strength he
dragged himself from the swirling waters. Jagged crags appeared to
jut up into the opaqueness; he forced himself upward, hand over
hand. Gasping, his hands raw, he reached a flat place at the top.
Dense jungle came down to the very edge of the cliffs. What
perils that tangle of trees and underbrush might hold for him did
not concern Rainsford just then. All he knew was that he was safe
from his enemy, the sea, and that utter weariness was on him. He
flung himself down at the jungle edge and tumbled headlong into
the deepest sleep of his life.

When he opened his eyes he knew from the position of the
sun that it was late in the afternoon. Sleep had given him new
vigor; a sharp hunger was picking at him. He looked about him,
almost cheerfully.
“Where there are pistol shots, there are men. Where there
are men, there is food,” he thought. But what kind of men, he
wondered, in so forbidding a place? An unbroken front of snarled
and ragged jungle fringed the shore.

He saw no sign of a trail through the closely knit web of weeds
and trees; it was easier to go along the shore, and Rainsford
floundered along by the water. Not far from where he landed, he
stopped.

Some wounded thing—by the evidence, a large animal—had
thrashed about in the underbrush; the jungle weeds were crusheddown and the moss was lacerated; one patch of weeds was stained
crimson. A small, glittering object not far away caught Rainsford’s
eye and he picked it up. It was an empty cartridge.
“A twenty-two,” he remarked. “That’s odd. It must have been
a fairly large animal too. The hunter had his nerve with him to
tackle it with a light gun. It’s clear that the brute put up a fight. I
suppose the first three shots I heard was when the hunter flushed
his quarry and wounded it. The last shot was when he trailed it
here and finished it.”

He examined the ground closely and found what he had
hoped to find—the print of hunting boots. They pointed along the
cliff in the direction he had been going. Eagerly he hurried along,
now slipping on a rotten log or a loose stone, but making
headway; night was beginning to settle down on the island.
Bleak darkness was blacking out the sea and jungle when
Rainsford sighted the lights. He came upon them as he turned a
crook in the coast line; and his first thought was that be had come
upon a village, for there were many lights. But as he forged along
he saw to his great astonishment that all the lights were in one
enormous building—a lofty structure with pointed towers plunging
upward into the gloom. His eyes made out the shadowy outlines
of a palatial chateau; it was set on a high bluff, and on three sides
of it cliffs dived down to where the sea licked greedy lips in the
shadows.

“Mirage,” thought Rainsford. But it was no mirage, he found,
when he opened the tall spiked iron gate. The stone steps were
real enough; the massive door with a leering gargoyle for a
knocker was real enough; yet above it all hung an air of unreality.
He lifted the knocker, and it creaked up stiffly, as if it had
never before been used. He let it fall, and it startled him with its
booming loudness. He thought he heard steps within; the door
remained closed. Again Rainsford lifted the heavy knocker, and
let it fall. The door opened then—opened as suddenly as if it were
on a spring—and Rainsford stood blinking in the river of glaring
gold light that poured out. The first thing Rainsford’s eyes
discerned was the largest man Rainsford had ever seen—a gigantic
creature, solidly made and black bearded to the waist. In his hand
the man held a long-barreled revolver, and he was pointing it
straight at Rainsford’s heart.

Out of the snarl of beard two small eyes regarded Rainsford.
“Don’t be alarmed,” said Rainsford, with a smile which he
hoped was disarming. “I’m no robber. I fell off a yacht. My name
is Sanger Rainsford of New York City.”
The menacing look in the eyes did not change. The revolver
pointed as rigidly as if the giant were a statue. He gave no sign that
he understood Rainsford’s words, or that he had even heardthem. He was dressed in uniform—a black uniform trimmed with gray astrakhan.

“I’m Sanger Rainsford of New York,” Rainsford began again.
“I fell off a yacht. I am hungry.”
The man’s only answer was to raise with his thumb the
hammer of his revolver. Then Rainsford saw the man’s free hand
go to his forehead in a military salute, and he saw him click his
heels together and stand at attention. Another man was coming
down the broad marble steps, an erect, slender man in evening
clothes. He advanced to Rainsford and held out his hand.
In a cultivated voice marked by a slight accent that gave it
added precision and deliberateness, he said, “It is a very great
pleasure and honor to welcome Mr. Sanger Rainsford, the
celebrated hunter, to my home.”

Automatically Rainsford shook the man’s hand.
“I’ve read your book about hunting snow leopards in Tibet,
you see,” explained the man. “I am General Zaroff.”
Rainsford’s first impression was that the man was singularly
handsome; his second was that there was an original, almost
bizarre quality about the general’s face. He was a tall man past
middle age, for his hair was a vivid white; but his thick eyebrows
and pointed military mustache were as black as the night from
which Rainsford had come. His eyes, too, were black and very
bright. He had high cheekbones, a sharp-cut nose, a spare, dark
face—the face of a man used to giving orders, the face of an
aristocrat. Turning to the giant in uniform, the general made a
sign. The giant put away his pistol, saluted, withdrew.
“Ivan is an incredibly strong fellow,” remarked the general,
“but he has the misfortune to be deaf and dumb. A simple fellow,
but, I’m afraid, like all his race, a bit of a savage.”
“Is he Russian?”
“He is a Cossack,” said the general, and his smile showed red
lips and pointed teeth. “So am I.”
“Come,” he said, “we shouldn’t be chatting here. We can talk
later. Now you want clothes, food, rest. You shall have them. This
is a most-restful spot.”
Ivan had reappeared, and the general spoke to him with lips
that moved but gave forth no sound.
“Follow Ivan, if you please, Mr. Rainsford,” said the general.
“I was about to have my dinner when you came. I’ll wait for you.
You’ll find that my clothes will fit you, I think.”
It was to a huge, beam-ceilinged bedroom with a canopied
bed big enough for six men that Rainsford followed the silent
giant. Ivan laid out an evening suit, and Rainsford, as he put it on,
noticed that it came from a London tailor who ordinarily cut and
sewed for none below the rank of duke.The dining room to which Ivan conducted him was in many ways remarkable. There was a medieval magnificence about it; it suggested a baronial hall of feudal times with its oaken panels, its high ceiling, its vast refectory tables where two-score men could sit down to eat. About the hall were mounted heads of many
animals—lions, tigers, elephants, moose, bears; larger or more
perfect specimens Rainsford had never seen. At the great table the
general was sitting, alone.

“You’ll have a cocktail, Mr. Rainsford,” he suggested. The
cocktail was surpassingly good; and, Rainsford noted, the table
appointments were of the finest—the linen, the crystal, the silver,
the china.

They were eating borscht, the rich, red soup with whipped
cream so dear to Russian palates. Half apologetically General
Zaroff said, “We do our best to preserve the amenities of
civilization here. Please forgive any lapses. We are well off the
beaten track, you know. Do you think the champagne has
suffered from its long ocean trip?”
“Not in the least,” declared Rainsford. He was finding the
general a most thoughtful and affable host, a true cosmopolite.
But there was one small trait of the general’s that made Rainsford
uncomfortable. Whenever he looked up from his plate he found
the general studying him, appraising him narrowly.
“Perhaps,” said General Zaroff, “you were surprised that I
recognized your name. You see, I read all books on hunting
published in English, French, and Russian. I have but one passion
in my life, Mr. Rainsford, and it is the hunt.”
“You have some wonderful heads here,” said Rainsford as he
ate a particularly well-cooked filet mignon. “That Cape buffalo is
the largest I ever saw.”
“Oh, that fellow. Yes, he was a monster.”
“Did he charge you?”
“Hurled me against a tree,” said the general. “Fractured my
skull. But I got the brute.”
“I’ve always thought,” said Rainsford, “that the Cape buffalo is
the most dangerous of all big game.”
For a moment the general did not reply; he was smiling his
curious red-lipped smile. Then he said slowly, “No. You are
wrong, sir. The Cape buffalo is not the most dangerous big game.”
He sipped his wine. “Here in my preserve on this island,” he said
in the same slow tone, “I hunt more dangerous game.”
Rainsford expressed his surprise. “Is there big game on this
island?”
The general nodded. “The biggest.”
“Really?”
“Oh, it isn’t here naturally, of course. I have to stock the
island.”“What have you imported, general?” Rainsford asked.
“Tigers?”
The general smiled. “No,” he said. “Hunting tigers ceased to
interest me some years ago. I exhausted their possibilities, you
see. No thrill left in tigers, no real danger. I live for danger, Mr.
Rainsford.”
The general took from his pocket a gold cigarette case and
offered his guest a long black cigarette with a silver tip; it was
perfumed and gave off a smell like incense.
“We will have some capital hunting, you and I,” said the
general. “I shall be most glad to have your society.”
“But what game—” began Rainsford.
“I’ll tell you,” said the general. “You will be amused, I know. I
think I may say, in all modesty, that I have done a rare thing. I
have invented a new sensation. May I pour you another glass of
port?”
“Thank you, general.”
The general filled both glasses, and said, “God makes some
men poets. Some He makes kings, some beggars. Me He made a
hunter. My hand was made for the trigger, my father said. He was
a very rich man with a quarter of a million acres in the Crimea,
and he was an ardent sportsman. When I was only five years old
he gave me a little gun, specially made in Moscow for me, to
shoot sparrows with. When I shot some of his prize turkeys with
it, he did not punish me; he complimented me on my
marksmanship. I killed my first bear in the Caucasus when I was
ten. My whole life has been one prolonged hunt. I went into the
army—it was expected of noblemen’s sons—and for a time
commanded a division of Cossack cavalry, but my real interest
was always the hunt. I have hunted every kind of game in every
land. It would be impossible for me to tell you how many animals
I have killed.”

The general puffed at his cigarette.
“After the debacle in Russia I left the country, for it was
imprudent for an officer of the Czar to stay there. Many noble
Russians lost everything. I, luckily, had invested heavily in
American securities, so I shall never have to open a tea room in
Monte Carlo or drive a taxi in Paris. Naturally, I continued to
hunt—grizzlies in your Rockies, crocodiles in the Ganges,
rhinoceroses in East Africa. It was in Africa that the Cape buffalo
hit me and laid me up for six months. As soon as I recovered I
started for the Amazon to hunt jaguars, for I had heard they were
unusually cunning. They weren’t.” The Cossack sighed. “They
were no match at all for a hunter with his wits about him, and a
high-powered rifle. I was bitterly disappointed. I was lying in my
tent with a splitting headache one night when a terrible thoughtpushed its way into my mind. Hunting was beginning to bore me!
And hunting, remember, had been my life. I have heard that in
America businessmen often go to pieces when they give up the
business that has been their life.”
“Yes, that’s so,” said Rainsford.
The general smiled. “I had no wish to go to pieces,” he said.
“I must do something. Now, mine is an analytical mind, Mr.
Rainsford. Doubtless that is why I enjoy the problems of the
chase.”
“No doubt, General Zaroff.”
“So,” continued the general, “I asked myself why the hunt no
longer fascinated me. You are much younger than I am, Mr.
Rainsford, and have not hunted as much, but you perhaps can
guess the answer.”
“What was it?”
“Simply this: hunting had ceased to be what you call ‘a
sporting proposition.’ It had become too easy. I always got my
quarry. Always. There is no greater bore than perfection.”
The general lit a fresh cigarette.
“No animal had a chance with me any more. That is no boast;
it is a mathematical certainty. The animal had nothing but his legs
and his instinct. Instinct is no match for reason. When I thought
of this it was a tragic moment for me, I can tell you.”
Rainsford leaned across the table, absorbed in what his host
was saying.
“It came to me as an inspiration what I must do,” the general
went on.
“And that was?”
The general smiled the quiet smile of one who has faced an
obstacle and surmounted it with success. “I had to invent a new
animal to hunt,” he said.
“A new animal? You’re joking.”
“Not at all,” said the general. “I never joke about hunting. I
needed a new animal. I found one. So I bought this island built
this house, and here I do my hunting. The island is perfect for my
purposes—there are jungles with a maze of trails in them, hills,
swamps—”
“But the animal, General Zaroff?”
“Oh,” said the general, “it supplies me with the most exciting
hunting in the world. No other hunting compares with it for an
instant. Every day I hunt, and I never grow bored now, for I have
a quarry with which I can match my wits.”
Rainsford’s bewilderment showed in his face.
“I wanted the ideal animal to hunt,” explained the general.
“So I said, ‘What are the attributes of an ideal quarry?’ And the
answer was, of course, ‘It must have courage, cunning, and, above
all, it must be able to reason.’”“But no animal can reason,” objected Rainsford.

“My dear fellow,” said the general, “there is one that can.”
“But you can’t mean—” gasped Rainsford.
“And why not?”
“I can’t believe you are serious, General Zaroff. This is a grisly
joke.”
“Why should I not be serious? I am speaking of hunting.”
“Hunting? Great God, General Zaroff, what you speak of is
murder.”
The general laughed with entire good nature. He regarded
Rainsford quizzically. “I refuse to believe that so modern and
civilized a young man as you seem to be harbors romantic ideas
about the value of human life. Surely your experiences in the
war—” He stopped.

“Did not make me condone cold-blooded murder,” finished
Rainsford stiffly.
Laughter shook the general. “How extraordinarily droll you
are!” he said. “One does not expect nowadays to find a young
man of the educated class, even in America, with such a naïve,
and, if I may say so, mid-Victorian point of view. It’s like finding a
snuffbox in a limousine. Ah, well, doubtless you had Puritan
ancestors. So many Americans appear to have had. I’ll wager
you’ll forget your notions when you go hunting with me. You’ve a
genuine new thrill in store for you, Mr. Rainsford.”
“Thank you, I’m a hunter, not a murderer.”
“Dear me,” said the general, quite unruffled, “again that
unpleasant word. But I think I can show you that your scruples
are quite ill founded.”
“Yes?”
“Life is for the strong, to be lived by the strong, and, if needs
be, taken by the strong. The weak of the world were put here to
give the strong pleasure. I am strong. Why should I not use my
gift? If I wish to hunt, why should I not? I hunt the scum of the
earth: sailors from tramp ships—lascars, blacks, Chinese, whites,
mongrels—a thoroughbred horse or hound is worth more than a
score of them.”
“But they are men,” said Rainsford hotly.
“Precisely,” said the general. “That is why I use them. It gives
me pleasure. They can reason, after a fashion. So they are
dangerous.”
“But where do you get them?”
The general’s left eyelid fluttered down in a wink. “This island
is called Ship-Trap,” he answered. “Sometimes an angry god of
the high seas sends them to me. Sometimes, when Providence is
not so kind, I help Providence a bit. Come to the window with
me.”
Rainsford went to the window and looked out toward the sea.