Chapter Summary: The Most Dangerous Game By Richard Connell

The Most Dangerous Game. by Richard Connell (1893-1949) "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, but I do. Some superstition--" "Can't see it," remarked Rainsford, trying to peer through the bitter 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
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 heard them. He was dressed in uniform--a black uniform trimmed with gray astrakhan. "I'm Sanger Rainsford of New York," Rainsford began. 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." Rainsford automatically 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
He executed a series of intricate loops; he doubled on his trail again and again, recalling all the lore of the fox hunt, and all the dodges of the fox. Night found him leg-weary, with hands and face lashed by the branches, on a thickly wooded ridge. He knew it would be insane to blunder through the dark, even if he had the strength. His need for rest was imperative and he thought, "I have played the fox, now I must play the cat of the fable." A big tree with a thick trunk and outspread branches was near by, and, taking care not to leave the slightest mark, he climbed up into the crotch, and, stretching out on one of the broad limbs, after a fashion, rested. The 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-- An apprehensive night crawled slowly by like a wounded snake and sleep did not visit Rainsford, although the silence of a dead world was in the