Most dangerous game by Richard Connell part 5

[Red02102002]

   “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. Here is my preserve on this island, 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. We will have some capital hunting, you and I. 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, Mr. Rainsford.
   “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.”
   “Yes,” said Rainsford.
   The general smiled. “I had no wish to go to pieces,” he said. “I must do something. So 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. No animal had a chance with any more. That is no boast; it is a 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 supplied me with the most exciting hunting in the world. No other hunting compares with it for an instand. Every day I hunt, and I never grow bored now, for I have a quarry with which I can match my wits.”