The Most Dangerous Game 22

Rainsford had fought his way through the bush for two hours. “I mustkeep my nerve. I must keep my nerve,” he said through tight teeth. He had not been entirely clearheaded when the chateau gates snapped shutbehind him. His whole idea at first was to put distance between himselfand General Zaroff; and, to this end, he had plunged along, spurred onby the sharp rowers of something very like panic. Now he had got a gripon himself, had stopped, and was taking stock of himself and thesituation. He saw that straight flight was futile; inevitably it wouldbring him face to face with the sea. He was in a picture with a frame ofwater, and his operations, clearly, must take place within that frame. “I’ll give him a trail to follow,” muttered Rainsford, and he struck offfrom the rude path he had been following into the trackless wilderness.He executed a series of intricate loops; he doubled on his trail againand again, recalling all the lore of the fox hunt, and all the dodges ofthe fox. Night found him leg-weary, with hands and face lashed by thebranches, on a thickly wooded ridge. He knew it would be insane toblunder on through the dark, even if he had the strength. His need forrest was imperative and he thought, “I have played the fox, now I mustplay the cat of the fable.” A big tree with a thick trunk and outspreadbranches 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 broadlimbs, after a fashion, rested. Rest brought him new confidence andalmost a feeling of security. Even so zealous a hunter as General Zaroffcould not trace him there, he told himself; only the devil himself couldfollow that complicated trail through the jungle after dark. But perhapsthe general was a devil–