The Next Day

As soon as Rainsford woke from his deep, untroubled sleep, he immediately had a feeling that he had forgotten something. He wandered around the chateau contemplating what it could be.

He emphatically avoided the library. He shuddered every time he passed the door, imagining what could have happen had Zaroff had not wanted a little sport. However, he was morbidly curious about how many had succumbed to Zaroff's bestial game. Nevertheless, he was not sure he was that curious.

After he passed the library for the third time, it dawned on him. Hadn't Zaroff mentioned that he had "pupils" in the cellar? Rainsford gasped. Horrified that he had forgotten such a monumental thing, he hurried to the underground room that had a crypt-like feel to it. As he threw open the door, he was bashed on the head causing him to lose consciousness.

When he awakened in his bleary sub perception, he heard discussing him in whispers laden with Spanish accents.

"Well, what should we do with him?"

"He's obviously not Zaroff's henchman. Look at his clothes. The giant gave the same clothes to Timothy before they sent him out."

"Do you reckon he killed him?"

One of them, a burly Spaniard, jerked his thumb behind him. "And whose arm do you think that is lying in the dog's kennel?"

"It's true! Look at that ring! There's no way the ogre was sporting that thing!" babbled a slighter, more rat-like sailor.

Rainsford struggled slightly, trying to shake the vestiges of oblivion from his system, and as he did so he realized he was bound hand and foot. Well, that certainly is irony, he thought, I escape the hunter only to end up captured by my fellow prey.

"Oi, look he's waking up!" this sailor talked with a deep British accent. Two of them dragged Rainsford to his feet. He glanced towards the kennel where the aftermath of last night lay. Rainsford after killing Zaroff desired to move him from the chamber, but in his physical and mental exhaustion could not drag him out the door. So he shoved him out the window straight into the dog's kennel. Huh, he thought, even though Zaroff loved his dogs and valued them over human beings; they obviously harbored no lost love for the lifeless Cossack.

"Your name?" the Spaniard snarled, wrenching him back into reality. "Rainsford." he said trying to put as little menace as possible into the answer. "So, the salior asked, a gleam in his eyes, "what happened to Zaroff?"

"I killed him." Rainsford said a hard edge to his voice.

"Alright! Loose him." he said. Rainsford assumed from his tone of voice that he was the leader of this small band of sailors. "So," Rainsford asked, "what happens now?" The Spaniard pointed out to sea. "We wait for that yacht that is working its way inward to reach the shore." Turning swiftly, Rainsford strained his eyes at the approaching boat. At its head, he could make out the small figure of his hunting buddy, Whitney. A single tear rolled down his face. The nightmare was over.