Summary
"The Most Dangerous Game", also published as "The Hounds of Zaroff", is a short story by Richard Connell. It was published in Collier's Weekly on January 19, 1924.
Widely anthologized, and the author's best-known work, "The Most Dangerous Game" features as its main character a big-game hunter from New York, who falls off a yacht and swims to an isolated island in the Caribbean, where he is hunted by a Cossack aristocrat. The story is an inversion of the big-game hunting safaris in Africa and South America that were fashionable among wealthy Americans in the 1920s.
Sanger Rainsford a celebrated hunter, while aboard a yacht cruising in the Caribbean, falls into the sea. Swimming desperately for shore, he hears the anguished cries of an animal being hunted that he does not recognize. Rainsford makes it to land and after sleeping on the beach, he begins to look for people on the island. He finds evidence of the hunt he overheard and wonders, upon finding empty cartridges of a small gun wondering who will hunt with such weapon. Looking around he finds out that is obviously a large animal. Rainsford then follows the hunter's footprints to the solitary house on the island.
The mansion looms above him like something out of a Gothic novel and inside is a similarly Gothic character as well: Ivan, a gigantic, mute man. Ivan is about to shoot Rainsford when the entry of another man stops him. The second man, General Zaroff, is far more civilized looking than Ivan and has exquisite manners. He apologizes for Ivan and gives Rainsford clean clothes and dinner. While the men are eating, Zaroff reveals his passion for the hunt. He tells Rainsford he hunts "big game" on the island—game he has imported. Hunting had ceased to be a challenge to Zaroff, so he decided to hunt a new animal, one that could reason. Rainsford realizes with horror that Zaroff actually hunts human beings for only them can reason. Rainsford desires to leave but General Zaroff stops him and tells him that he wants to play with him. If Rainsford was to refuse General Zaroff demands Ivan would torture and kill him. General Zaroff aqlso adds that if Rainsford can stay alive on the island for three days his life would be spare. With no other way out Rainsford accepts General Zaroff conditions and go out to the jungle.
Before going to the jungle Ivan supplied hunting clothes, food, a knife to Rainsford. Rainsford went deeper into the heart of the jungle making sure to not live a trace to be followed. After a long day of walking rest was imperative. A big tree with a thick trunk and outspread branches was near by, and, taking care to leave not the slightest mark, he climbed up into the crotch, and, stretching out on one of the broad limbs, after a fashion, rested. Rest brought him new confidence and almost a feeling of security. Even so zealous a hunter as General Zaroff could not trace him there, he told himself; only the devil himself could follow that complicated trail through the jungle after dark. But perhaps the general was a devil.
General Zaroff was on his way along with his eyes fixed in utmost concentration on the ground before him. He paused, almost beneath the tree, dropped to his knees and studied the ground. Rainsford's impulse was to hurl himself down like a panther, but he saw that the general's right hand held something metallic—a small automatic pistol. General Zaroff took out a pack of black cigarettes and smoked one. The pungent incenselike smoke floated up to Rainsford nose. He held his breath. The general's eyes had left the ground and were traveling inch by inch up the tree. Rainsford froze there, every muscle tensed for a spring. But the sharp eyes of the hunter stopped before they reached the limb where Rainsford lay; a smile spread over his brown face. Very deliberately he blew a smoke ring into the air; then he turned his back on the tree and walked carelessly away, back along the trail he had come. The swish of the underbrush against his hunting boots grew fainter and fainter.
The pent-up air burst hotly from Rainsford's lungs. His first thought made him feel sick and numb. The general could follow a trail through the woods at night; he could follow an extremely difficult trail; he must have uncanny powers; only by the merest chance had the Cossack failed to see his quarry. The General was just playing with him. Rainsford admitted that the General had won that battle but not the war.
The second day Rainsford was ready to fight he set up a trap to get General Zaroff. When General Zaroff was near the trap he could feel that even as he walked closer there was danger he leaped back with the agility of an ape. But he was not quite quick enough; the dead tree, delicately adjusted to rest on the cut living one, crashed down and struck the general a glancing blow on the shoulder as it fell; but for his alertness, he must have been smashed beneath it. He staggered, but he did not fall; nor did he drop his revolver. He stood there, rubbing his injured shoulder, and Rainsford, with fear again gripping his heart, heard the general's mocking laugh ring through the jungle. Then he went to congratulate Rainsford by shouting out loud. He said that not many have been able to injure him and that he would be back after his wounds have healed.
Rainsford was decided that on the third and last day he would get Zeroff a way or another. Rainsford could hear how General Zaroff was getting closer this time with hunting dogs by his side. Rainsford maded a deep pit and then he took some hard saplings cut stakes sharpened them to a fine point. These stakes he planted in the bottom of the pit with the points sticking up. With flying fingers he wove a rough carpet of weeds and branches and with it he covered the mouth of the pit. Then, wet with sweat and aching with tiredness, he crouched behind the stump of a lightning-charred tree. It seemed to Rainsford that the general was coming with unusual swiftness; he was not feeling his way along, foot by foot. Rainsford, crouching there, could not see the general, nor could he see the pit. He lived a year in a minute. Then he felt an impulse to cry aloud with joy, for he heard the sharp crackle of the breaking branches as the cover of the pit gave way; he heard the sharp scream of pain as the pointed stakes found their mark. He leaped up from his place of concealment. Then he cowered back. Three feet from the pit a man was standing, with an electric torch in his hand. The General congrats Rainsford for taking one of his best hunting dogs and then started pursuing Rainsford. He slid down the tree. He caught hold of a springy young sapling and to it he fastened his hunting knife, with the blade pointing down the trail; with a bit of wild grapevine he tied back the sapling. Then he ran for his life. The hounds raised their voices as they hit the fresh scent. Rainsford knew now how an animal at bay feels. He had to stop to get his breath. The baying of the hounds stopped abruptly, and Rainsford's heart stopped too. They must have reached the knife. He shinned excitedly up a tree and looked back. His pursuers had stopped. But the hope that was in Rainsford's brain when he climbed died, for he saw in the shallow valley that General Zaroff was still on his feet. But Ivan was not. The knife, driven by the recoil of the springing tree, had not wholly failed. Ivan was dead but that didn't stoped him from continuing to peruse Rainsford. he was pursued to the shore were he was forced to jump into the sea. General Zaeroff feeling humiliated which ed him a better luck next time.
At night at him home feeling deafeted Zeroff felt how someone was watching him. It was Rainsford who had survived the incredible fall to the sea and swim his way back to have a final duel with General Zerrof. The general made one of his deepest bows. "I see," he said. "Splendid! One of us is to furnish a repast for the hounds. The other will sleep in this very excellent bed. On guard, Rainsford." . . .
Rainsford had hardly tumbled to the ground when the pack took up the cry again.He had never slept in a better bed, Rainsford decided.
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