The Dreadful Island

“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 himself and ask him for a light. Those fishy blue eyes held a look I never saw there before. All I could get out

of him was ‘This place has an evil name among seafaring men, sir.’ Then he 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 his 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 his favorite brier. The sensuous drowsiness

of the night was on him. “It’s so dark,” he thought, “that I could sleep without closing my eyes; the night would be my

eyelids—” An abrupt sound startled him. Off to the right he heard it, and his ears, expert in such matters, could not

be mistaken. Again he 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. He strained his eyes in the direction from which

the reports had come, but it was like trying to see through a blanket. He leaped upon the rail and balanced himself

there, to get greater elevation; his pipe, striking a rope, was knocked from his mouth. He lunged for it; a short,

hoarse cry came from his lips as he realized he had reached too far and had lost his balance. The cry was pinched off

short as the blood-warm waters of the Caribbean Sea dosed over his head. He struggled up to the surface and tried to

cry out, but the wash from the speeding yacht slapped him in the face and the salt water in his open mouth made him gag

and strangle. Desperately he struck out with strong strokes after the receding lights of the yacht, but he stopped

before he had swum fifty feet. A certain coolheadedness had come to him; it was not the first time he had been in a

tight place. There was a chance that his cries could be heard by someone aboard the yacht, but that chance was slender

and grew more slender as the yacht raced on. He wrestled himself out of his clothes and shouted with all his 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 he swam in that direction, swimming with

slow, deliberate strokes, conserving his strength. For a seemingly endless time he fought the sea. He began to count

his strokes; he 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. He did not recognize the animal

that made the sound; he did not try to; with fresh vitality he swam toward the sound. He 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 his ears—the most welcome he had ever heard—the muttering and growling of

the sea breaking on a rocky shore. He was almost on the rocks before he saw them; on a night less calm he would have

been shattered against them. With his remaining strength he dragged himself from the swirling waters. Jagged crags

appeared to jut up into the opaqueness; he forced himself upward, hand over hand. Gasping, his hands raw, he 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 him did not concern Rainsford just then. All he knew was that he was safe from his enemy, the

sea, and that utter weariness was on him. He flung himself down at the jungle edge and tumbled headlong into the

deepest sleep of his life. When he opened his eyes he knew from the position of the sun that it was late in the

afternoon. Sleep had given him new vigor; a sharp hunger was picking at him. He looked about him, almost

cheerfully. “Where there are pistol shots, there are men. Where there are men, there is food,” he thought. But what

kind of men, he wondered, in so forbidding a place? An unbroken front of snarled and ragged jungle fringed the

shore. He 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 he landed, he 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

he picked it up. It was an empty cartridge. “A twenty-two,” he remarked. “That’s odd. It must have been a fairly

large animal too. The hunter had his nerve with him 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 his quarry and wounded it. The last shot was

when he trailed it here and finished it.” He examined the ground closely and found what he had hoped to find—the

print of hunting boots. They pointed along the cliff in the direction he had been going. Eagerly he hurried along, now

slipping on a rotten log or a loose stone, but making headway; night was beginning to settle down on the island.