The Spicy-Adventure

by Robert Leslie Bellem

  Tod almost stepped on the first prostrate native before he saw him. The members of the capturing party fell on their faces. For a second both man and woman felt a leap of joy in their hearts.

  They believed—momentarily—that the natives were making obeisance to them.

  That idea passed all too soon. Unless these folk had strange ideas of reverence, they were faced wrong. Tod and Lill could see only waving, undulating ranks of posteriors. They raised their eyes and looked ahead.

  The woman’s deep drawn breath of astonishment made her firm breast push out the strong fingers of Tod’s encircling hand.

  The cavern ended abruptly.

  A huge, glittering pile of black, loomed up at that end. The steady drip of water could be heard. Water—that seeped slowly over the pile of coal and transformed it in torch light with a gem-like sheen.

  Neither Tod nor Lill spared more than one glance at that pile. Both their minds formed the world “altar.” They both stared then at the figure of the purple man sitting to the right of the pile.

  That man smiled.

  Lill pulled her arm from around Tod. She stuffed her fingers into her mouth to keep back a hysterical giggle.

  That bizarre figure was seated on a Standard Oil gasoline tin!

  Tod and Lill said together “Peretti!”

  Peretti smiled again but he did not get up. He intoned in a loud voice, “Three blind mice, three blind mice, three blind mice.”

  Tod said, “Eenie meenie miney mo and nuts to you Peretti!”

  Peretti lapsed into English—that is into meaningful English. “Welcome to my parlor! Won’t you two come and sit down beside me? Sit beside me and help rule my kingdom. See—I have a place of honor for you—here on the sacred pile of coal!”

  The man and woman did not move. They remembered the warning contained in Walter’s orders.

  “Do not touch coal!”

  Tod said, “Why don’t you quit this foolishness, Peretti? Come on, let’s get out of here. My comrade and I will give you permission to leave. We’ll even guarantee you safety. Your game is finished. You see—we carry the wavy bladed knives.” He gesticulated with his weapon. Lill followed suit.

  Peretti laughed again.

  Tod Kinley hadn’t expected his bluff to work, but he was hardly prepared for swiftness of the disaster which followed.

  Peretti gestured languidly. He spoke in the strange dialect.

  Before Tod’s mind could form a meaning to the words, natives swarmed over him. They held his arms, his legs, his ankles, thighs and wrists. Even at the moment he thought there was a certain amount of reverence in the natives’ grasp. But one tentative wriggle convinced him of the uselessness of struggle. He still held the knife, even though he had no chance to use it. With an effort he managed to turn his head toward the woman. She was held similarly—yet even more carefully.

  Peretti grinned mirthlessly. He spoke again. The two captives were pulled to one side.

  Tod’s scanty knowledge of the dialect brought him the one horrid word “Sacrifice.” He tried to struggle then. Tried, and wisely desisted when he felt the strength of the hands that still held him.

  Wild screams echoed through the cavern. Yells of complete, unmitigated horror, that was beyond the pale word, fear.

  Tod recognized the struggling woman who was being dragged toward the pile of coal as a half-caste, a composite of the races in the islands. He began to struggle again.

  Peretti turned his purple stained countenance toward Kinley. He grinned sardonically.

  Something about that smile stopped Tod. Stopped him with his bare arms still bent in muscle disclosing arcs. Tod waited—and watched.

  Only a knowledge of the futility of struggle kept him quiet during the scene that followed:

  The nude, howling woman was pushed onto the coal altar. Arms and hands were fastened until she was spread-eagled across the pile.

  Peretti spoke then, a short gruff sentence. He reached behind the oil can on which he was seated and produced what appeared to be a single bladed, wavy knife.

  The natives prostrated themselves at the sight of that strange blade. Only the weather-beaten medicine man advanced. There was a trace of fear even in his movement. Fear—that is—until the double handle of the knife rested in his gnarled palm.

  Still another happening made this bizarre sacrifice border on the humorous. Peretti reached over and made a motion with one hand. The hand was hidden behind a stalagmite—but the results were noticeable.

  A phonograph began playing. The record was cracked. At its every circuit a “crock” spoke of the split. A bar-room tenor started the words—

  “When dames wore hoops and powdered hair

  And very strict was etiquette

  When men were brave and ladies fair

  They danced the graceful Minuette.”

  There was nothing funny about that for the natives. They began a dance, keeping time to the words with a rising chant.

  The medicine man held the curved knife above the victim’s heaving abdomen. The song ended. The dance died away into the hush of expectation.

  The knife plunged down suddenly.

  There was only one scream that pushed up the half-caste woman’s quivering breasts.

  There was a long drawn “Ahhhhhhhhhh” from the natives. Inconsistently, Tod was reminded of a time when he was a boy watching fireworks on the fourth of July. That “Ahhhhh!” had greeted each burst of a sky-rocket…

  The priest was bending over his victim, whose face had assumed the taut expression of the half-dead. The thumbs of his two hands hooked in the double circle of the knife handle. He pulled. A huge gaping split appeared. The knife pulled clear. The “Sacrifice’s” torso was completely severed with the exception of the white backbone! No longer did the wavy knife seem one blade. Instead it looked like a huge pair of scissors distended, scissors with the cutting edge on the outside of the blade!

  For Tod Kinley at least the rest of the proceeding was lost in the haze of partial unconsciousness, as an excited captor struck him on the head.

  He heard again the sound of voices, two voices. They were coming—from a great distance. He—would listen—

  “But, Mr. Peretti, I still don’t understand. I don’t see how you did all this with the few natives.”

  Then Peretti’s voice replied, “There’s no reason for such a good looking woman as yourself to bother her head with such things. Why don’t you be—natural?”

  “Oh—Mr. Peretti—” That was Lill’s voice cooing.

  “Why don’t you call me by my first name?”

  “But I don’t know it.”

  “Arturo. Why not call me Art?”

  “But—Art,” she said shyly. “I—I don’t know whether I ought to call a deity by his first name. It sounds almost like sacrilege.”

  “Even when I sit on a Standard Oil can?” the man laughed.

  “Even then—you have something about you.”

  “It must be this purple dye I’m wearing. Why not give us a kiss?”

  “Why not?” said Lill. There was a sound that told of the granting of that favor. “Please—Art,” Lill said then.

  The man’s laugh was husky now.

  Toridzone Kinley pulled himself from the stone bench where he had been lying, struggled to get to his feet. Nearly complete darkness made his footing doubly treacherous. One shaft of light burnt through the black. Tod weaved toward it. His right hand was knotted around the knife which he still retained. His body stopped forcibly at the contact with stone. He had to content himself with looking out a narrow, grated window.

  Lill, still clothed only in a brief loin cloth, was sitting beside Peretti. From the position of the two people, Tod could guess what had gone before. His growl of rage was too heart-felt to be articulate.

  Lill said, “But I
still want to know—Art! I want to know who you’re working for and why you did this thing.” Only her innocent tone of voice made the blunt question possible.

  Peretti looked at her suspiciously nevertheless. “How did you happen to get into this?” he demanded.

  Lill giggled. Tod was shocked at that sound. He wouldn’t have believed it possible. But he heard rightly. Lill giggled!

  “Well,” she said. “You see—I had just met Tod—you know, the man I came with. He came home—that is, he came to see me one evening and said he had to go on a trip. He swore he wouldn’t leave me behind. He—he pulled off my clothes and smeared me with this purple stuff. I—I guess he was half crazy. He made me get in a plane with him without letting me put on any more clothes than this. He tied on a parachute. When we got over this island he pushed me out. You know the rest.”

  Lill looked at Peretti archly. “Now you tell me,” she requested.

  Peretti laughed. “All right. After that, I guess I might as well tell my story. I have only one thing in this world to sell—my services. Various countries have seen fit to bid for them for special missions. I command a high price!” His lips that would have been red but for the dye twisted sardonically. “At any rate I was offered a certain sum by a certain nation to do a certain thing.”

  Lill smiled up at him. “You sound so—so vague,” she protested.

  “Perhaps. Well, I’ll be more explicit. My duty, or my assignment, was to break up the hold of the United States on this bit of an island. I made a visit here. I talked to the natives. I discovered that they were a remnant of a lost tribe. I copied down the sound of some of their words. I went back to—the certain country and spent a year in research. I found a musty book at last. It was filled with strange legends of a forgotten race. It even held a few of their words—words that appeared to correspond with those I had copied down. Armed with those words and legends I came back. And now—now I am a purple god and have accomplished my mission. Don’t you think so, Miss Member of the United States Secret Service?” Tod Kinley’s hands clenched. He was startled by this sudden unmasking of Lill. Goodness knows he had thought her story thin enough, but he had hoped.

  The woman said calmly, “So you didn’t believe me. Well—what are you going to do about it?”

  Peretti was taken aback by her lack of denial. “Well—well—Nothing, I guess,” he said at last. He looked at Lill again.

  She had pushed aside a part of her long hair. One firm, darkly gleaming breast peered out. A breast that could not lose its rounded beauty for all of the disfiguring dye.

  “What have you done with—him?” she asked. Peretti gestured with one hand toward the stone cell which held Kinley. “He’s in there, all right except for a sock on the head. That is—he’s all right so far. Probably still unconscious, but all right. He’ll be all right until he recovers and tries to find his way out: Then he’ll fall in the pit!”

  The pit?

  Tod held onto the grating and explored the floor with one foot. He had to reach out quite a way before that foot failed to find footing. Cold sweat stood out suddenly on Kinley’s forehead. He forced himself to pay attention to the talk. The woman was keeping her head! He must do the same. Beside, the talk of “legends of a forgotten race” had touched his memory. He had studied the weird legends of the Pacific islands. He knew them. That was one of the reasons he had been chosen for this mission. Was it not reasonable that Lill had been chosen too for her similar knowledge? That legend of the lesser god and goddess—lesser to the Sun the all powerful—the ones who had disobeyed—?

  But Lill was talking again. “You say you learned the legends?”

  Peretti’s white teeth looked out of place as his purple lips wrinkled back in the almost perpetual smile. “All of them?” he echoed. “No. Of course not. Just enough to work on the natives’ superstition, just enough so I could land as a purple god and make them do what I wanted. ‘Purple of the sunset,’” he finished suggestively.

  Lill nodded. The movement of her head uncovered that enticing breast still further. “I know about that of course. That’s the reason for our dyeing our skins. Didn’t you read about the part where there was a goddess as well as a god?”

  Peretti looked worried for a minute. “No,” he admitted. He smiled then. One of his hands reached out and captured the treasure his eyes had been caressing for some time.

  Even to Tod came the sound of Lill’s sharply in-drawn breath. The man cursed silently. He cursed in a whisper when Peretti bent down and kissed Lill’s lips.

  Peretti said, “Well—you’ve supplied that lack now. That is—if you’re willing to talk—business with me?”

  Lill’s voice was so low Tod had to strain his ears to catch the words—“I’m willing to talk business—or anything else with you—Art—You and I will be the purple rulers of this island—together!”

  Those words brought the rest of the shadowy legend to Toridzone Kinley. But he forgot all that in the spectacle that followed. He forgot everything and roared like a mad bull!

  Peretti was not bashful. Neither was he the sort of man who would let a little thing like strands of hair and a miniature girdle stand in his way. From the first kiss, he progressed rapidly.

  And Tod knew he had good reason to progress! The captive agent recalled the thrill, the ecstasy he had had when Lill’s little pointed tongue had explored the opening between his lips! Any man would forget—almost anything when Lill kissed him—when Lill arched her warm, pulsing body toward him—when Lill—

  Neither man nor woman looked up as Tod began his bellowings of rage and disappointment.

  Tod had forgotten the legends. He had forgotten he was a trusted member of the United States Secret Service. He had forgotten everything but that one too brief night with Lill. That, and the spectacle of her giving herself to another man!

  He hardly knew when his dim cage was lit with many torches. He scarcely felt the restraining hands that kept him from hurling himself into the now visible pit. Toridzone Kinley yelled out his rage and disappointment. He would not look out of the narrow grated window again.

  The natives who held him looked—and grunted their approval!

  * * * *

  Hours, or minutes were clouded by the delirium of his unforgetting rage.

  He remembered, but took no joy, from the time when his cell door was opened, when he and he alone was called upon to judge the fate of Peretti and Lill who were captives now. He saw the woman’s enigmatic smile. He saw Peretti’s still challenging grin. He said the words he remembered from the legend.

  “Let the man be stripped and cast into the sea!”

  The glee of the natives at the prophetic and correct words echoed through the cavern. The scene shifted rapidly. Tod was dragged along, willy-nilly. They came at last from the underground passage, marched along a high promontory that strode out into the depths of the ocean.

  Peretti still smiled as hard hands stripped him, spilled a hidden automatic from his scanty coverings. He grinned once as two husky natives swung his unresisting body— “A little knowledge is a dangerous—” The words were cut off as the natives hurled him into space.

  Kinley watched his arching fall. He saw the writhings of the man’s body. He saw Peretti strike feet first in a huge swell!

  He shook his head and looked around. With the exception of Lill, he was alone on that wind swept out thrust of rock.

  “Well,” Lill said calmly. “I guess that’s that. I guess we’ve accomplished our mission. We have destroyed Peretti, and we know who hired him.”

  Tod Kinley shook himself. The ocean air was good—and clean. It swept away the hate torn fragments of thoughts from his mind. He muttered. “How—do we know who hired him?” His eyes were still focused on the ocean—on the Spot where Peretti had disappeared.

  “Silly,” said Lill. “You and I know the one library in the world where the
‘musty’ book containing that legend can be found. That legend—‘And one time two of the purple ones, lesser deities of the sunset, by a trick did imprison the Sun, the Flaming One himself, in order to—er—carry out their plans. In his rage and in his captivity the Sun bellowed like the mad bull of Wahini. Then faithful followers gathered and released their Master, holding him until the act was completed. After which they released him and carried out his commands to cast the offending one into the sea—so that there might be no more than one of that race. Thus shall his power be maintained and his followers find peace.’”

  The man tried to think only of the great library belonging to a certain great nation, in which that legend had been found. He said suddenly, “He—he came up—! He’s swimming!” He bent over and picked up the automatic. It blasted down into the water, raising miniature geysers until Lill caught his hand.

  “Why—why do that?” she asked. “He—he can’t swim to—to the Philippines.”

  Tod looked at her. “You worried?” he asked.

  “Not particularly—if you’ll walk along this cliff and down onto—the dark beach with me. That is—after we build a single smoke fire!”

  Tod Kinley, sometimes known as R-8, looked at his companion in this adventure. In the light of the setting sun, her lithe figure glowed like burnished bronze. The jutting cones of her lovely breasts rose and fell with each breath—then trembled slightly as she dropped her eyes before his gaze. He turned away and stared down into the darkening waters. There was no dark head visible.

  “At your service, Lill,” he snapped. “As soon as I build the fire!”

  HOT BLOOD, by Arthur Wallace

  Originally published in Spicy Adventures, April 1935.

  The thick-shouldered, heavy-set Miura bull, black as the ebony mantillas of the Señoritas in the gallery, charged at the mounted picador, head lowered, massive body tensed in a frenzy of anger.

  The crowd rose as a man, eyes centered on the thundering beast already enraged by five thrusts with the sharp, steel-pointed pica. They could see there was no way for the picador to turn his mount away from the bull’s sharp horns. The horse would be gored and if the rider did not fall free, he, too, would be trampled under foot or even fatally pierced. A wave of sound swept the Plaza De Toros as the impact came. The bull’s long, curled horns drove into the horse’s belly, lifting the dazed animal’s forefeet high off the ground and sending the picador spinning into space. Pulling his horns free, the bull charged again, but the squealing horse was out of range, wobbling crazily on its thin legs, blood-soaked entrails hanging from the rent in its belly like red sausages. Momentarily it remained erect, reeling like a drunken sailor. Then, as death came, it folded up and dropped clumsily to the sandy floor of the ring. The blood gushing from its wounds was hot and steaming.