[adapted]

by
Richard Connell

“Over there to the right—somewhere—is a big island,” said Whitney. “It’s kind of mysterious——”

“What island is it?” Rainsford asked.

“The old maps call it ‘Ship-Trap Island,’” Whitney answered. “That’s an interesting name, isn’t it? Sailors are strangely afraid of the place. I don’t know why. Some kind of superstition——”

“I can’t see it,” said Rainsford, trying to look through the thick, wet tropical night that seemed to push its heavy, warm darkness around the yacht.

“You’ve got good eyes,” said Whitney, laughing. “I’ve seen you shoot a moose moving in the brown autumn forest from four hundred yards away, but even you can’t see four miles or so in a dark Caribbean night with no moon.”

“Or even four yards,” said Rainsford. “Ugh! It feels like wet black velvet.”

“It will be bright enough in Rio,” said Whitney. “We should get there in a few days. I hope the jaguar rifles have arrived from Purdey’s. We should have some good hunting up the Amazon River. Hunting is great fun.”

“It’s the best sport in the world,” said Rainsford.

“For the hunter,” added Whitney. “Not for the jaguar.”

“Don’t say silly things, Whitney,” said Rainsford. “You’re a big-game hunter, not a thinker. Who cares how a jaguar feels?”

“Maybe the jaguar does,” said Whitney.

“Bah! They don’t understand anything.”

“Even so, I 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 realistic. The world has two kinds of people—the hunters and the ones who are hunted. 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 bad reputation.”

“Cannibals?” guessed Rainsford.

“Not likely. Even cannibals wouldn’t live in a place so awful. But somehow it’s become part of sailor stories. Didn’t you notice the crew seemed a little nervous today?”

“Now that you mention it, they did act a bit odd. Even Captain Nielsen——”

“Yes, even that tough old Swede, who would go right up to the devil and ask him for a light. His cold blue eyes had a look I’d never seen before. All he would say was: ‘This place has a bad name among sailors, sir.’ Then he looked serious and said to me: ‘Don’t you feel anything?’—like the air around us was really dangerous. Now, don’t laugh when I tell you this—I did feel something, like a sudden chill.

“There was no wind. The sea was as smooth as glass. We were getting close to the island then. What I felt was—was a chill in my mind; a kind of sudden fear.”

“Just your imagination,” said Rainsford. “One superstitious sailor can scare the whole crew.”

“Maybe. But sometimes I think sailors have a special sense that warns them of danger. Sometimes I think evil is a real thing—with waves, just like sound and light. A bad place can, in a way, send out waves of evil. Anyway, I’m glad we’re leaving this area. Well, I think I’ll go to bed now, Rainsford.”

“I’m not sleepy,” said Rainsford. “I’m going to smoke another pipe on the back deck.”

“Good night, then, Rainsford. See you at breakfast.”

“All right. Good night, Whitney.”

The only sounds in the night as Rainsford sat there were the quiet hum of the engine moving the yacht quickly through the darkness, and the gentle splash and ripple of the water from the propeller.

Rainsford, leaning back in a deck chair, lazily puffed on his favorite pipe. The warm sleepiness of the night made him feel relaxed. “It’s so dark,” he thought, “that I could fall asleep without even closing my eyes; the night is like my eyelids——”

A sudden sound startled him. He heard it off to the right, and his trained ears knew he wasn’t wrong. He heard it again, and again. Somewhere out in the darkness, someone had fired a gun three times.

Rainsford jumped up and quickly went to the railing, confused. He looked hard in the direction the sounds had come from, but it was like trying to see through a blanket. He climbed onto the rail and balanced there to see better. His pipe hit a rope and fell from his mouth. He reached to catch it; a short, rough cry came from his lips as he realized he had reached too far and lost his balance. The cry was cut off as the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea closed over his head.

He fought his way up to the surface and tried to shout, but waves from the fast-moving yacht hit him in the face, and the salt water in his mouth made him choke and cough. He swam hard after the yacht’s fading lights, but stopped after swimming less than fifty feet. He felt calm again—this wasn’t the first time he had been in a tough situation. Maybe someone on the yacht would hear his shouting, but it was a small chance—and it got smaller as the yacht sped away. He pulled off his clothes and shouted with all his strength. The lights of the yacht looked like tiny fireflies far away, getting dimmer and smaller. Then they disappeared into the night.

Rainsford remembered the gunshots. They had come from the right, and he stubbornly swam that way, using slow, steady strokes to save his strength. For what felt like forever, he fought the sea. He started to count his strokes; he could maybe do a hundred more, and then——

Rainsford heard a sound. It came from the darkness—a high, screaming sound, the sound of an animal in terrible pain and fear.

He didn’t know what kind of animal made the sound; he didn’t try to figure it out. With new energy, he swam toward the sound. He heard it again, then it suddenly stopped with another sharp, short sound.

“Pistol shot,” Rainsford said to himself, swimming on.

Ten minutes of hard swimming brought another sound to his ears—the most welcome sound he had ever heard—the low roar of the sea hitting rocks on a shore. He was almost at the rocks before he saw them; on a rougher night, he would have been smashed into them. With the last of his strength, he pulled himself out of the swirling water. Sharp rocks stuck out into the dark. He pulled himself upward, hand over hand. Breathing hard, his hands sore, he reached a flat place at the top. Thick jungle came right up to the edge of the cliffs. Whatever dangers the trees and bushes might have didn’t matter to Rainsford now. All he cared about was that he was safe from the sea, and that he was extremely tired. He dropped down at the edge of the jungle and fell into the deepest sleep of his life.

When he opened his eyes, he knew from the position of the sun that it was late afternoon. The sleep had made him feel strong again. A sharp hunger was growing inside him. He looked around, feeling almost cheerful.

“Where there are gunshots, there are people. Where there are people, there is food,” he thought. But what kind of people, he wondered, would live in such a scary place? A wall of twisted, wild jungle covered the shore.

He saw no path through the thick mess of vines and trees, so it was easier to walk along the beach. Rainsford stumbled along by the water. Not far from where he came out of the sea, he stopped.

Some injured animal, a large one by the look of it, had struggled through the bushes; the jungle plants were crushed, and the moss was torn. One part of the weeds was stained red. A small, shiny object nearby caught Rainsford’s eye. He picked it up. It was an empty bullet shell.

“A twenty-two,” he said. “That’s strange. It must have been a pretty big animal too. The hunter was brave to go after it with such a small gun. It’s clear the animal fought back. I guess the first three shots I heard were when the hunter scared it and hurt it. The last shot must have been when he followed it here and killed it.”

He looked at the ground closely and found what he had hoped to see—footprints from hunting boots. They pointed along the cliffs, going the same way he was going. Eagerly, he hurried along, now slipping on a rotting log or a loose stone, but still moving forward. Night was starting to fall over the island.

Darkness was covering the sea and the jungle when Rainsford saw the lights. He found them when he turned a bend in the coastline, and at first he thought he had found a village, because there were many lights. But as he got closer, he saw, to his surprise, that all the lights came from one huge building—a tall house with pointed towers reaching up into the night. He could just see the shape of a fancy castle. It was set high on a cliff, and on three sides cliffs dropped straight down to where the sea crashed in the dark below.

“Just a mirage,” thought Rainsford. But it wasn’t a mirage, he found out, when he opened the tall iron gate with sharp spikes. The stone steps were real. The big door with a scary gargoyle-shaped knocker was real too. Still, everything felt strange and dream-like.

He lifted the knocker, and it creaked as if it had never been used before. He let it fall, and the sound was loud and booming. He thought he heard footsteps inside, but the door stayed closed. Rainsford lifted the heavy knocker again and let it drop. This time, the door opened suddenly, as if it were on a spring. Rainsford stood blinking in the bright golden light that came pouring out.

The first thing he saw was the biggest man he had ever seen. The man was huge, with a thick black beard that went down to his waist. He held a long gun and was pointing it straight at Rainsford’s chest.

Two small eyes looked at Rainsford from inside the beard.

“Don’t be scared,” said Rainsford, with a friendly smile. “I’m not a thief. I fell off a yacht. My name is Sanger Rainsford, from New York City.”

The man’s angry expression didn’t change. He still pointed the gun like a statue. He didn’t show that he understood what Rainsford had said—or even heard him. He wore a uniform, black with gray fur trim.

“I’m Sanger Rainsford, from New York,” Rainsford said again. “I fell off a yacht. I’m hungry.”

The man didn’t answer. He just pulled back the hammer of his gun with his thumb. Then Rainsford saw the man’s other hand rise to his forehead in a salute, and he clicked his heels together and stood straight. Another man was coming down the wide marble steps—a thin man with perfect posture, dressed in evening clothes. He walked up to Rainsford and held out his hand.

In a clear and elegant voice, with a slight accent that made it sound even more careful, he said: “It is a great pleasure and honor to welcome Mr. Sanger Rainsford, the famous hunter, to my home.”

Rainsford shook the man’s hand right away.

“I’ve read your book about hunting snow leopards in Tibet,” the man said. “I am General Zaroff.”