Old novel of a hunter on a man-eating island; he has to escape from another hunter who would try to kill him

Question

It was a story of a hunter (say hunter A). He was travelling across a sea when he heard that the island which can be seen far across is a man-eating island. All the ships which go near it are wrecked. He was standing on the deck and suddenly there was a jerk in the ship and he fell from the ship. It was night time and nobody noticed him falling.Then he somehow manages to go to the island. There he learns what makes the other ships crash on that island. There he learns that another hunter (say hunter B), who is bored with hunting animals, started hunting men. In order to survive our hunter A has three days on that island to escape from the hunter B who would try to hunt him down and kill him. If hunter A fails his mission i.e. to hunt hunter A in three days, then he will set hunter A free. It was an old novel or a story I forgot. Anyone please help me find the name of this story and its author. Its name was something like 'the man-eating island' (I am not sure). It was an old novel or story.

Answer 1

"The Most Dangerous Game" (aka "The Hounds of Zaroff"), a novelette by Richard Connell, was the basis for several movies, including the 1987 science fiction movie Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity (trailer) as well as a 1932 movie titled The Most Dangerous Game which you can watch on YouTube.

The text of "The Most Dangerous Game" is available from Duke of Definition: English on the Web. Radio adaptations were aired on Suspense 1943 09 23 and Suspense 1945 02 14 and Escape 1947 10 01. The following plot summary is from Wikipedia:

Sanger Rainsford and his friend, Whitney, are traveling to Rio de Janeiro to hunt the region's big cat: the jaguar. After a discussion about how they are "the hunters" instead of "the hunted", Whitney goes to bed and Rainsford remains on deck. While Whitney returns to his quarters Rainsford hears gunshots, he climbs onto the yacht's rail to get a better view of the nearby Ship-Trap Island, and falls overboard. After he realizes he cannot swim back to the boat, he swims to Ship-Trap, which is notorious for shipwrecks. He finds a palatial chateau inhabited by two Cossacks: the owner, General Zaroff, and his gigantic deaf-mute servant, Ivan.

Zaroff, another big-game hunter, knows of Rainsford from his published account of hunting snow leopards in Tibet. After inviting him to dinner, General Zaroff tells Rainsford he is bored of hunting because it no longer challenges him; he has moved to Ship-Trap in order to capture shipwrecked sailors, whether due to storms or by luring vessels onto the rocks. He sends the sailors into the jungle supplied with food, a knife, and hunting clothes to be his quarry. After a three-hour head start, he sets out to hunt and kill them. Any captives who can elude Zaroff, Ivan, and a pack of hunting dogs for three days are set free; however, no one has eluded him that long. Zaroff invites Rainsford to join him in his hunt, but Rainsford is appalled by Zaroff's offer and refuses. Zaroff then tells Rainsford that he can choose whether he will be the next to be hunted or whipped to death by Ivan; Rainsford chooses to be hunted.

During the three-hour head start, Rainsford begins to lay an intricate trail in the forest and then climbs a tree. Zaroff finds him easily, but decides to play with him like a cat would a mouse. After the failed attempt of eluding Zaroff, Rainsford builds a Malay-man-catcher, a weighted log attached to a trigger. This contraption injures Zaroff's shoulder, causing him to return home for the night. The next day Rainsford creates a Burmese tiger pit, which kills one of Zaroff's hounds. He sets a native Ugandan knife trap, which impales and kills Ivan, but costs him his knife. To escape Zaroff and his approaching hounds, Rainsford dives off a cliff into the sea; Zaroff, disappointed at Rainsford's apparent suicide, returns home.

Zaroff locks himself in his bedroom and turns on the lights only to find Rainsford waiting for him; he had swum around the island in order to sneak into the chateau without the dogs finding him and killing him. Zaroff congratulates him on winning the "game", but Rainsford decides to fight him, saying he is still a beast-at-bay and that the original hunt is not over. Accepting the challenge, Zaroff says that the loser will be fed to the dogs, while the winner will sleep in his bed. Though the ensuing fight is not described, the story ends with Rainsford observing that "he had never slept in a better bed" — implying that he defeated and killed Zaroff.