"I'll give him a trail to follow," muttered Rainsford, and he struck off
from the rude path he had been following into the trackless wilderness.
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 on 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 to leave not the slightest mark,
he climbed up into the crotch, and, stretching out on one of the broad
limbs, after a fashion, rested. 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 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. He flattened himself down on
the limb and, through a screen of leaves almost as thick as tapestry, he
watched. . . . That which was approaching was a man.
It was General Zaroff. He made his way along with his eyes fixed in
utmost concentration on the ground before him. He paused, almost beneath
the tree, dropped to his knees and studied the ground. Rainsford's
impulse was to hurl himself down like a panther, but he saw that the
general's right hand held something metallic--a small automatic pistol.
The hunter shook his head several times, as if he were puzzled. Then he
straightened up and took from his case one of his black cigarettes; its
pungent incenselike smoke floated up to Rainsford's nostrils.
Rainsford held his 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
his brown face. Very deliberately he blew a smoke ring into the air;
then he turned his back on the tree and walked carelessly away, back
along the trail he had come. The swish of the underbrush against his
hunting boots grew fainter and fainter.
The pent-up air burst hotly from Rainsford's lungs. His first thought
made him feel sick and numb. The general could follow a trail through
the woods at night; he could follow an extremely difficult trail; he