"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 herself and ask her for a light.  Those fishy blue eyes held a look I never saw there before.  All I could get out of her was `This place has an evil name among seafaring women, sir.' Then she 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 her 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 her favorite brier.  The sensuous drowsiness of the night was on her.  "It's so dark," she thought, "that I could sleep without closing my eyes; the night would be my eyelids--"

An abrupt sound startled her.  Off to the right she heard it, and her ears, expert in such matters, could not be mistaken.  Again she 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.  She strained her eyes in the direction from which the reports had come, but it was like trying to see through a blanket.  She leaped upon the rail and balanced herself there, to get greater elevation; her pipe, striking a rope, was knocked from her mouth.  She lunged for it; a short, hoarse cry came from her lips as she realized she had reached too far and had lost her balance.  The cry was pinched off short as the blood-warm waters of the Caribbean Sea dosed over her head.

She struggled up to the surface and tried to cry out, but the wash from the speeding yacht slapped her in the face and the salt water in her open mouth made her gag and strangle.  Desperately she struck out with strong strokes after the receding lights of the yacht, but she stopped before she had swum fifty feet.  A certain cool headedness had come to her; it was not the first time she had been in a tight place.

There was a chance that her cries could be heard by someone aboard the yacht, but that chance was slender and grew more slender as the yacht raced on.  She wrestled herself out of her clothes and shouted with all her 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 she swam in that direction, swimming with slow, deliberate strokes, conserving her strength.  For a seemingly endless time she fought the sea.  She began to count her strokes; she 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.

She did not recognize the animal that made the sound; she did not try to; with fresh vitality she swam toward the sound.  She 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 her ears -- the most welcome she had ever heard -- muttering and growling of the sea breaking on a rocky shore.  She was almost on the rocks before she saw them; on a night less calm she would have been shattered against them.  With her remaining strength she dragged herself from the swirling waters.  Jagged crags appeared to jut up into the opaqueness; she forced herself upward, hand over hand.  Gasping, her hands raw, she 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 her did not concern Rainsford just then.  All she knew was that she was safe from her enemy, the sea, and that utter weariness was on her.  She flung herself down at the jungle edge and tumbled headlong into the deepest sleep of her life.

When she opened her eyes she knew from the position of the sun that it was late in the afternoon.  Sleep had given her new vigor; a sharp hunger was picking at her.  She looked about her, almost cheerfully.

"Where there are pistol shots, there are women.  Where there are women, there is food," she thought.  But what kind of women, she wondered, in so forbidding a place? An unbroken front of snarled and ragged jungle fringed the shore.

She 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 she landed, she stopped.

Some wounded thing -- by the evidence, a large animal -- had thrashed about in the underbrush; the jungle weeds were crushed down and the moss was lacerated; one patch of weeds was stained crimson.  A small, glittering object not far away caught Rainsford's eye and she picked it up.  It was an empty cartridge.

"A twenty-two," she remarked.  "That's odd.  It must have been a fairly large animal too.  The hunter had her nerve with her 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 her quarry and wounded it.  The last shot was when she trailed it here and finished it."

She examined the ground closely and found what she had hoped to find -- the print of hunting boots.  They pointed along the cliff in the direction she had been going.  Eagerly she 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.  She came upon them as she turned a crook in the coast line; and her first thought was that she had come upon a village, for there were many lights.  But as she forged along she saw to her great astonishment that all the lights were in one enormous building -- a lofty structure with pointed towers plunging upward into the gloom.  Her eyes made out the shadowy outlines of a palatial chateau; it was set on a high bluff, and on three sides of its cliffs dived down to where the sea licked greedy lips in the shadows.

"Mirage," thought Rainsford.  But it was no mirage, she found, when she 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.

She lifted the knocker, and it creaked up stiffly, as if it had never before been used.  She let it fall, and it startled her with its booming loudness.  She thought she 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 woman Rainsford had ever seen -- a gigantic creature, solidly made and black hair to the waist.  In her hand the woman held a long-barreled revolver, and she was pointing it straight at Rainsford's heart.

Out of the snarl of hair two small eyes regarded Rainsford.

"Don't be alarmed," said Rainsford, with a smile which she 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 pointing as rigidly as if the giant were a statue.  She gave no sign that she understood Rainsford's words, or that she had even heard them.  She 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 woman's only answer was to raise with her thumb the hammer of her revolver.  Then Rainsford saw the woman's free hand go to her forehead in a military salute, and she saw her click her heels together and stand at attention.  Another woman was coming down the broad marble steps, an erect, slender woman in evening clothes.  She advanced to Rainsford and held out her hand.

In a cultivated voice marked by a slight accent that gave it added precision and deliberateness, she said, "It is a very great pleasure and honor to welcome Ms.  Sanger Rainsford, the celebrated hunter, to my home."

Automatically Rainsford shook the woman's hand.

"I've read your book about hunting snow leopards in Tibet, you see," explained the woman.  "I am General Zaroff."

Rainsford's first impression was that the woman was singularly beautiful; her second was that there was an original, almost bizarre quality about the general's face.  She was a tall woman past middle age, for her hair was a vivid white; but her thick eyebrows were as black as the night from which Rainsford had come.  Her eyes, too, were black and very bright.  She had high cheekbones, a sharp-cut nose, a spare, dark face -- the face of a woman used to giving orders, the face of an aristocrat.  Turning to the giant in uniform, the general made a sign.  The giant put away her pistol, saluted, withdrew.

"Ivan is an incredibly strong companion," remarked the general, "but she has the misfortune to be deaf and dumb.  A simple lass, but, I'm afraid, a bit of a savage."

"Is she Russian?"

"She is a Cossack," said the general, and her smile showed red lips and pointed teeth.  "So am I."

"Come," she 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 her with lips that moved but gave forth no sound.

"Follow Ivan, if you please, Ms.  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 women that Rainsford followed the silent giant.  Ivan laid out an evening suit, and Rainsford, as she put it on, noticed that it came from a London tailor who ordinarily cut and sewed for none below the rank of duchess.

The dining room to which Ivan conducted her 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 twoscore women 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, Ms.  Rainsford," she 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 borsch, 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.  She 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 she looked up from her plate she found the general studying her, appraising her 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, Ms.  Rainsford, and it is the hunt."

"You have some wonderful heads here," said Rainsford as she ate a particularly well-cooked filet mignon.  "That Cape buffalo is the largest I ever saw."

"Oh, that fellow.  Yes, she was a monster."

"Did she 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; she was smiling her curious red-lipped smile.  Then she said slowly, "No.  You are wrong, madam.  The Cape buffalo is not the most dangerous big game." She sipped her wine.  "Here in my preserve on this island," she said in the same slow tone, "I hunt more dangerous game."

Rainsford expressed her 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," she 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, Ms.  Rainsford."

The general took from her pocket a gold cigarette case and offered her 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 women poets.  Some She makes queens, some beggars.  Me She made a hunter.  My hand was made for the trigger, my mother said.  She was a very rich woman with a quarter of a million acres in the Crimea, and she was an ardent sportswoman.  When I was only five years-old she gave me a little gun, specially made in Moscow for me, to shoot sparrows with.  When I shot some of her prize turkeys with it, she did not punish me; she 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 noblewomen's daughters -- 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 her 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 tearoom 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 her wits about her, and a high-powered rifle.  I was bitterly disappointed.  I was lying in my tent with a splitting headache one night when a terrible thought pushed 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," she said.  "I must do something.  Now, mine is an analytical mind, Ms.  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, Ms.  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 anymore.  That is no boast; it is a mathematical certainty.  The animal had nothing but her legs and her 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 her 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," she 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 traits 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 her 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 lady," 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 Guns, General Zaroff, what you speak of is murder."

The general laughed with entire good nature.  She regarded Rainsford quizzically.  "I refuse to believe that so modern and civilized a young woman as you seem to be harbors romantic ideas about the value of human life.  Surely your experiences in the war --"

"Did not make me condone cold-blooded murder," finished Rainsford stiffly.

Laughter shook the general.  "How extraordinarily droll you are!" she said.  "One does not expect nowadays to find a young woman of the educated class, even in America, with such a naive, 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, Ms.  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 -- a thoroughbred horse or hound is worth more than a score of them."

"But they are women," 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," she 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.

"Watch! Out there!" exclaimed the general, pointing into the night.  Rainsford's eyes saw only blackness, and then, as the general pressed a button, far out to sea Rainsford saw the flash of lights.

The general chuckled.  "They indicate a channel," she said, "where there's none; giant rocks with razor edges crouch like a sea monster with wide-open jaws.  They can crush a ship as easily as I crush this nut." She dropped a walnut on the hardwood floor and brought her heel grinding down on it.  "Oh, yes," she said, casually, as if in answer to a question, "I have electricity.  We try to be civilized here."

"Civilized? And you shoot down women?"

A trace of anger was in the general's black eyes, but it was there for but a second; and she said, in her most pleasant manner, "Dear me, what a righteous young woman you are! I assure you I do not do the thing you suggest.  That would be barbarous.  I treat these visitors with every consideration.  They get plenty of good food and exercise.  They get into splendid physical condition.  You shall see for yourself tomorrow."

"What do you mean?"

"We'll visit my training school," smiled the general.  "It's in the cellar.  I have about a dozen pupils down there now.  They're from the Spanish bark San Lucar that had the bad luck to go on the rocks out there.  A very inferior lot, I regret to say.  Poor specimens and more accustomed to the deck than to the jungle." She raised her hand, and Ivan, who served as waiter, brought thick Turkish coffee.  Rainsford, with an effort, held her tongue in check.

"It's a game, you see," pursued the general blandly.  "I suggest to one of them that we go hunting.  I give her a supply of food and an excellent hunting knife.  I give her three hours' start.  I am to follow, armed only with a pistol of the smallest caliber and range.  If my quarry eludes me for three whole days, she wins the game.  If I find her " -- the general smiled -- " she loses."

"Suppose she refuses to be hunted?"

"Oh," said the general, "I give her some option, of course.  She need not play that game if she doesn't wish to.  If she does not wish to hunt, I turn her over to Ivan.  Ivan once had the honor of serving as official knouter to the Great White Czar, and she has her own ideas of sport.  Invariably, Ms.  Rainsford, invariably they choose the hunt."

"And if they win?"

The smile on the general's face widened.  "To date I have not lost," she said.  Then she added, hastily: "I don't wish you to think me a braggart, Ms.  Rainsford.  Many of them afford only the most elementary sort of problem.  Occasionally I strike a tartar.  One almost did win.  I eventually had to use the dogs."

"The dogs?"

"This way, please.  I'll show you."

The general steered Rainsford to a window.  The lights from the windows sent a flickering illumination that made grotesque patterns on the courtyard below, and Rainsford could see moving about there a dozen or so huge black shapes; as they turned toward her, their eyes glittered greenly.

"A rather good lot, I think," observed the general.  "They are let out at seven every night.  If anyone should try to get into my house -- or out of it -- something extremely regrettable would occur to her." She hummed a snatch of song from the Folies Bergere.

"And now," said the general, "I want to show you my new collection of heads.  Will you come with me to the library?"

"I hope," said Rainsford, "that you will excuse me tonight, General Zaroff.  I'm really not feeling well."

"Ah, indeed?" the general inquired solicitously.  "Well, I suppose that's only natural, after your long swim.  You need a good, restful night's sleep.  Tomorrow you'll feel like a new woman, I'll wager.  Then we'll hunt, eh? I've one rather promising prospect --" Rainsford was hurrying from the room.

"Sorry you can't go with me tonight," called the general.  "I expect rather fair sport -- a big, strong woman.   She looks resourceful -- Well, good night, Ms.  Rainsford; I hope you have a good night's rest.”

The bed was good, and the pajamas of the softest silk, and she was tired in every fiber of her being, but nevertheless Rainsford could not quiet her brain with the opiate of sleep.   She lay, eyes wide open.  Once she thought she heard stealthy steps in the corridor outside her room.  She sought to throw open the door; it would not open.  She went to the window and looked out.  Her room was high up in one of the towers.  The lights of the chateau were out now, and it was dark and silent; but there was a fragment of sallow moon, and by its wan light she could see, dimly, the courtyard.  There, weaving in and out in the pattern of shadow, were black, noiseless forms; the hounds heard her at the window and looked up, expectantly, with their green eyes.  Rainsford went back to the bed and lay down.  By many methods she tried to put herself to sleep.  She had achieved a doze when, just as morning began to come, she heard, far off in the jungle, the faint report of a pistol.

General Zaroff did not appear until luncheon.  She was dressed faultlessly in the tweeds of a country squire.  She was solicitous about the state of Rainsford's health.

"As for me," sighed the general, "I do not feel so well.  I am worried, Ms.  Rainsford.  Last night I detected traces of my old complaint."

To Rainsford's questioning glance the general said, "Ennui.  Boredom."

Then, taking a second helping of crepes Suzette, the general explained: "The hunting was not good last night.  The lady lost her head.  She made a straight trail that offered no problems at all.  That's the trouble with these sailors; they have dull brains to begin with, and they do not know how to get about in the woods.  They do excessively stupid and obvious things.  It's most annoying.  Will you have another glass of Chablis, Ms.  Rainsford?"

"General," said Rainsford firmly, "I wish to leave this island at once."

The general raised her thickets of eyebrows; she seemed hurt.  "But, my dear lady," the general protested, "you've only just come.  You've had no hunting--"

"I wish to go today," said Rainsford.  She saw the dead black eyes of the general on her, studying her.  General Zaroff's face suddenly brightened.

She filled Rainsford's glass with venerable Chablis from a dusty bottle.

"Tonight," said the general, "we will hunt -- you and I."

Rainsford shook her head.  "No, general," she said.  "I will not hunt."

The general shrugged her shoulders and delicately ate a hothouse grape.  "As you wish, my friend," she said.  "The choice rests entirely with you.  But may I not venture to suggest that you will find my idea of sport more diverting than Ivan's?"

She nodded toward the corner to where the giant stood, scowling, her thick arms crossed on her hogshead of chest.

"You don't mean--" cried Rainsford.

"My dear lady," said the general, "have I not told you I always mean what I say about hunting? This is really an inspiration.  I drink to an adversary worthy of my steel -- at last." The general raised her glass, but Rainsford sat staring at her.

"You'll find this game worth playing," the general said enthusiastically.   "Your brain against mine.  Your woodcraft against mine.  Your strength and stamina against mine.  Outdoor chess! And the stake is not without value, eh?"

"And if I win --" began Rainsford huskily.

"I'll cheerfully acknowledge myself defeat if I do not find you by midnight of the third day," said General Zaroff.   "My sloop will place you on the mainland near a town." The general read what Rainsford was thinking.

"Oh, you can trust me," said the Cossack.  "I will give you my word as a gentlewoman and a sportswoman.   Of course, you, in turn, must agree to say nothing of your visit here."

"I'll agree to nothing of the kind," said Rainsford.

"Oh," said the general, "in that case -- But why discuss that now? Three days hence we can discuss it over a bottle of Veuve Cliquot, unless --"

The general sipped her wine.

Then a businesslike air animated her.  "Ivan," she said to Rainsford, "will supply you with hunting clothes, food, a knife.   I suggest you wear moccasins; they leave a poorer trail.   I suggest, too, that you avoid the big swamp in the southeast corner of the island.   We call it Death Swamp.   There's quicksand there.   One foolish lady tried it.  The deplorable part of it was that Lazarus followed her.  You can imagine my feelings, Ms.  Rainsford.   I loved Lazarus; she was the finest hound in my pack.   Well, I must beg you to excuse me now.   I always take a siesta after lunch.   You'll hardly have time for a nap, I fear.   You'll want to start, no doubt.   I shall not follow till dusk.  Hunting at night is so much more exciting than by day, don't you think?  Au revoir, Ms.  Rainsford, au revoir."  General Zaroff, with a deep, courtly bow, strolled from the room.

From another door came Ivan.  Under one arm she carried khaki hunting clothes, a haversack of food, a leather sheath containing a long-bladed hunting knife; her right hand rested on a cocked revolver thrust in the crimson sash about her waist.

Rainsford had fought her way through the bush for two hours.  "I must keep my nerve.  I must keep my nerve," she said through tight teeth.

She had not been entirely clearheaded when the chateau gates snapped shut behind her.   Her whole idea at first was to put distance between herself and General Zaroff; and, to this end, she had plunged along, spurred on by the sharp rowers of something very like panic.  Now she had got a grip on herself, had stopped, and was taking stock of herself and the situation.  She saw that straight flight was futile; inevitably it would bring her face to face with the sea.  She was in a picture with a frame of water, and her operations, clearly, must take place within that frame.

"I'll give her a trail to follow," muttered Rainsford, and she struck off from the rude path she had been following into the trackless wilderness.  She executed a series of intricate loops; she doubled on her trail again and again, recalling all the lore of the fox hunt, and all the dodges of the fox.  Night found her leg-weary, with hands and face lashed by the branches, on a thickly wooded ridge.  She knew it would be insane to blunder on through the dark, even if she had the strength.  Her need for rest was imperative and she 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 nearby, and, taking care to leave not the slightest mark, she climbed up into the crotch, and, stretching out on one of the broad limbs, after a fashion, rested.  Rest brought her new confidence and almost a feeling of security.  Even so zealous a hunter as General Zaroff could not trace her there, she told herself; only the devil herself 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 on the jungle.  Toward morning when a dingy gray was varnishing the sky, the cry of some startled bird focused Rainsford's attention in that direction.  Something was coming through the bush, coming slowly, carefully, coming by the same winding way Rainsford had come.  She flattened herself down on the limb and, through a screen of leaves almost as thick as tapestry, she watched.  .  .   That which was approaching was a woman.

It was General Zaroff.   She made her way along with her eyes fixed in utmost concentration on the ground before her.   She paused, almost beneath the tree, dropped to her knees and studied the ground.  Rainsford's impulse was to hurl herself down like a panther, but she saw that the general's right hand held something metallic -- a small automatic pistol.

The hunter shook her head several times, as if she were puzzled.  Then she straightened up and took from her case one of her black cigarettes; its pungent incense-like smoke floated up to Rainsford's nostrils.

Rainsford held her 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 her brown face.  Very deliberately she blew a smoke ring into the air; then she turned her back on the tree and walked carelessly away, back along the trail she had come.  The swish of the underbrush against her hunting boots grew fainter and fainter.

The pent-up air burst hotly from Rainsford's lungs.  Her first thought made her feel sick and numb.  The general could follow a trail through the woods at night; she could follow an extremely difficult trail; she must have uncanny powers; only by the merest chance had the Cossack failed to see her quarry.

Rainsford's second thought was even more terrible.  It sent a shudder of cold horror through her whole being.  Why had the general smiled? Why had she turned back?

Rainsford did not want to believe what her reason told her was true, but the truth was as evident as the sun that had by now pushed through the morning mists.  The general was playing with her! The general was saving her for another day's sport! The Cossack was the cat; she was the mouse.  Then it was that Rainsford knew the full meaning of terror.

"I will not lose my nerve.  I will not."

She slid down from the tree, and struck off again into the woods.  Her face was set and she forced the machinery of her mind to function.  Three hundred yards from her hiding place she stopped where a huge dead tree leaned precariously on a smaller, living one.  Throwing off her sack of food, Rainsford took her knife from its sheath and began to work with all her energy.

The job was finished at last, and she threw herself down behind a fallen log a hundred feet away.  She did not have to wait long.  The cat was coming again to play with the mouse.

Following the trail with the sureness of a bloodhound came General Zaroff.   Nothing escaped those searching black eyes, no crushed blade of grass, no bent twig, no mark, no matter how faint, in the moss.   So intent was the Cossack on her stalking that she was upon the thing Rainsford had made before she saw it.   Her foot touched the protruding bough that was the trigger.   Even as she touched it, the general sensed her danger and leaped back with the agility of an ape.   But she 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 her alertness, she must have been smashed beneath it.  She staggered, but she did not fall; nor did she drop her revolver.  She stood there, rubbing her injured shoulder, and Rainsford, with fear again gripping her heart, heard the general's mocking laugh ring through the jungle.

"Rainsford," called the general, "if you are within sound of my voice, as I suppose you are, let me congratulate you.   Not many women know how to make a Malay woman catcher.   Luckily for me I, too, have hunted in Malacca.   You are proving interesting, Ms.  Rainsford.   I am going now to have my wound dressed; it's only a slight one.   But I shall be back.   I shall be back."

When the general, nursing her bruised shoulder, had gone, Rainsford took up her flight again.  It was flight now, a desperate, hopeless flight, that carried her on for some hours.   Dusk came, then darkness, and still she pressed on.   The ground grew softer under her moccasins; the vegetation grew ranker, denser; insects bit her savagely.

Then, as she stepped forward, her foot sank into the ooze.  She tried to wrench it back, but the muck sucked viciously at her foot as if it were a giant leech.  With a violent effort, she tore her feet loose.   She knew where she was now.   Death Swamp and its quicksand.

Her hands were tight closed as if her nerve were something tangible that someone in the darkness was trying to tear from her grip.  The softness of the earth had given her an idea.  She stepped back from the quicksand a dozen feet or so and, like some huge prehistoric beaver, she began to dig.

Rainsford had dug herself in in France when a second's delay meant death.  That had been a placid pastime compared to her digging now.  The pit grew deeper; when it was above her shoulders, she climbed out and from some hard saplings cut stakes and sharpened them to a fine point.  These stakes she planted in the bottom of the pit with the points sticking up.  With flying fingers, she wove a rough carpet of weeds and branches and with it she covered the mouth of the pit.   Then, wet with sweat and aching with tiredness, she crouched behind the stump of a lightning-charred tree.

She knew her pursuer was coming; she heard the padding sound of feet on the soft earth, and the night breeze brought her the perfume of the general's cigarette.  It seemed to Rainsford that the general was coming with unusual swiftness; she was not feeling her way along, foot by foot.   Rainsford, crouching there, could not see the general, nor could she see the pit.   She lived a year in a minute.   Then she felt an impulse to cry aloud with joy, for she heard the sharp crackle of the breaking branches as the cover of the pit gave way; she heard the sharp scream of pain as the pointed stakes found their mark.   She leaped up from her place of concealment.  Then she cowered back.   Three feet from the pit a woman was standing, with an electric torch in her hand.

"You've done well, Rainsford," the voice of the general called.  "Your Burmese tiger pit has claimed one of my best dogs.   Again you score.   I think, Ms.  Rainsford, I'll see what you can do against my whole pack.  I'm going home for a rest now.  Thank you for a most amusing evening."

At daybreak Rainsford, lying near the swamp, was awakened by a sound that made her know that she had new things to learn about fear.   It was a distant sound, faint and wavering, but she knew it.   It was the baying of a pack of hounds.

Rainsford knew she could do one of two things.   She could stay where she was and wait.   That was suicide.   She could flee.   That was postponing the inevitable.   For a moment she stood there, thinking.  An idea that held a wild chance came to her, and, tightening her belt, she headed away from the swamp.

The baying of the hounds drew nearer, then still nearer, nearer, ever nearer.  On a ridge Rainsford climbed a tree.  Down a watercourse, not a quarter of a mile away, she could see the bush moving.  Straining her eyes, she saw the lean figure of General Zaroff; just ahead of her Rainsford made out another figure whose wide shoulders surged through the tall jungle weeds; it was the giant Ivan, and she seemed pulled forward by some unseen force; Rainsford knew that Ivan must be holding the pack in leash.

They would be on her any minute now.  Her mind worked frantically.   She thought of a native trick she had learned in Uganda.   She slid down the tree.   She caught hold of a springy young sapling and to it she fastened her hunting knife, with the blade pointing down the trail; with a bit of wild grapevine she tied back the sapling.  Then she ran for her life.   The hounds raised their voices as they hit the fresh scent.  Rainsford knew now how an animal at bay feels.

She had to stop to get her breath.  The baying of the hounds stopped abruptly, and Rainsford's heart stopped too.  They must have reached the knife.

She shinned excitedly up a tree and looked back.   Her pursuers had stopped.   But the hope that was in Rainsford's brain when she climbed died, for she saw in the shallow valley that General Zaroff was still on her feet.  But Ivan was not.  The knife, driven by the recoil of the springing tree, had not wholly failed.

Rainsford had hardly tumbled to the ground when the pack took up the cry again.

"Nerve, nerve, nerve!" she panted, as she dashed along.   A blue gap showed between the trees dead ahead.   Ever nearer drew the hounds.   Rainsford forced herself on toward that gap.   She reached it.   It was the shore of the sea.   Across a cove she could see the gloomy gray stone of the chateau.   Twenty feet below her the sea rumbled and hissed.   Rainsford hesitated.   She heard the hounds.  Then she leaped far out into the sea.  .  . 

When the general and her pack reached the place by the sea, the Cossack stopped.  For some minutes she stood regarding the blue-green expanse of water.  She shrugged her shoulders.   Then be sat down, took a drink of brandy from a silver flask, lit a cigarette, and hummed a bit from Madame Butterfly.

General Zaroff had an exceedingly good dinner in her great paneled dining hall that evening.   With it she had a bottle of Pol Roger and half a bottle of Chambertin.   Two slight annoyances kept her from perfect enjoyment.   One was the thought that it would be difficult to replace Ivan; the other was that her quarry had escaped her; of course, the American hadn't played the game -- so thought the general as she tasted her after-dinner liqueur.  In her library she read, to soothe herself, from the works of Marcus Aurelius.   At ten she went up to her bedroom.   She was deliciously tired, she said to herself, as she locked herself in.   There was a little moonlight, so, before turning on her light, she went to the window and looked down at the courtyard.   She could see the great hounds, and she called, "Better luck another time," to them.  Then she switched on the light.

A woman, who had been hiding in the curtains of the bed, was standing there.

"Rainsford!" screamed the general.  "How in God's name did you get here?"

"Swam," said Rainsford.  "I found it quicker than walking through the jungle."

The general sucked in her breath and smiled.  "I congratulate you," she said.  "You have won the game."

Rainsford did not smile.  "I am still a beast at bay," she said, in a low, hoarse voice.  "Get ready, General Zaroff."

The general made one of her deepest bows.  "I see," she 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." .  .  .

She had never slept in a better bed, Rainsford decided.