The Spicy-Adventure

by Robert Leslie Bellem

  Hawkins became suddenly affable “No, we ain’t, Mister.” He jerked a thick thumb toward his companion. “Ainslee and me are loyal subjects of His Majesty, King George.”

  No Americans in the party?” Kane persisted. “I see quite a few women.”

  “All English girls. We’re transportin’ ’em up to Khartum. Singers and dancers they are, hired to act in some kind of music hall entertainment. They ain’t much to look at, but they’ll do for Khartum all right.”

  Kane fenced adroitly. “You’ve come up from the Cape?”

  They glanced at one another—Hawkins and Ainslee. “No, Johannesburg,” Hawkins said.

  Kane knew he was lying, knew his suspicions were justified. This was the flesh ring. All he needed was confirmation.

  “How many girls have you along, Mr. Hawkins?” he questioned.

  “Oh, ten…maybe twelve.”

  Kane stepped forward. “Mind if I look around? I haven’t seen a white woman for a long time.” He winked licentiously. “You know how it is.”

  Hawkins’ hand tensed around the butt of his gun. “Well, the girls don’t like to be disturbed, y’know. They ain’t standin’ up so good under the trip as it is.”

  As he spoke, a girl stumbled out of a tent and staggered towards them. Ainslee leaped forward.

  “Get back in there!” he barked. A short, black whip flashed in his hand. The girl eluded him and came straight for Kane. She was not young—about thirty, Kane judged—and in her present condition looked twice that age. Her peroxide-blonde hair, dark at the roots, was scraggly and disheveled. Her vacuous blue eyes burned with a peculiar fire. She was wearing breeches, but above the waist nothing but a cheap, dirty brassiere covered her body. It raised her slightly pendant breasts, but could not restrain them from swaying loosely as she lurched at Kane and threw her nude, insect-bitten arms about his neck.

  She was drunk—the vile odor of her breath left no doubt—and doped, Kane felt certain. He held her away, his hands resting on her fleshy waist.

  “I’m an American,” he said, looking at her intently.

  Her weak lips quivered as though she were trying to understand. Hawkins threw his arm across her breasts, tried to pull her away.

  “I’m an American,” Kane repeated, watching the brittle brightness of her contracted pupils.

  She laughed: a crooked, insane laugh; clung with her arms about Kane’s shoulders. Hawkins’ fingers had ripped away her brassiere. Her breasts were bare, flattened against Kane’s chest.

  “Hooray!” she screamed. “How’s Broadway and Times—”

  Hawkins’ hand slapped down hard on her mouth, snapping her head back. The girl reeled, tripped over her own legs and dropped clumsily to the ground. At that instant, Kane’s Mauser snapped out of its holster.

  “Put ’em up!” he commanded. Hawkins paled, but only for a split second. A rifle barked behind the American and he felt the hiss of a bullet as it winged by his ear. He remembered his instructions to the five Nubians. No shooting until his revolver spoke first. He ducked and fired into the air. The roar of rifles thundered in the clearing. Hawkins and Ainslee, still covered, slid to their knees. Lead messengers of death whizzed by from every direction. Kane stepped back, facing the row of tents. He made the move just in the nick of time. An instant later, a glittering knife hissed over the spot where he had been standing.

  A solid mass of crouching figures—the slave traders’ Cape Town negroes—moved out into the clearing. Kane loosed a shot into their midst as another knife leaped from the hand of a big black. The bullet plowed into the buck’s belly, doubling him up in a knot. In rapid order, one…two…three of them dropped. Kane’s Nubians were getting in some telling shots, their fierce fire spraying the clustered blacks in a sweeping arc. He backed further away, his forefinger tensed on the Mauser trigger. His eye caught the figure of a negro raised to his full height, knife arm drawn back. The Mauser spat, boring out a rolling white eyeball.

  Kane wheeled as a gun boomed close at hand. A snub-nosed automatic flashed in Hawkins’ hand. Again it belched flame, but the Englishman’s aim was bad. Kane fired, nipping him on the cheek, retreating step by step in order to take in the entire clearing. He was abreast of his own Nubians when one of them slid to the ground with a knife in his throat. Kane spotted the killer and pumped two shots into his body. They were low and the negro screamed out in agony before he died, clutching at his belly until spurts of blood geysered through his spread fingers.

  From the tents came the high-pitched wails of hysterical women. That, mingled with the gun-fire, lent horror to the pitched battle. Another Nubian dropped as one of Hawkins’ wide shots reached his heart. Three left and only two bullets remaining in the Mauser! It was a hopeless task, Kane decided. There were too many of them. But there was one thing he could accomplish! Two slugs would finish Hawkins and Ainslee.

  Uncannily, the slave traders seemed to read Kane’s mind. Like rats, they scrambled to the supine body of the doped harlot, crouched behind it. Kane held his fire, unable to bring himself to endanger the girl’s life.

  She stirred, made as though to rise. Hawkins twirled the gun in his hand and cracked the butt of it down on her skull. Kane saw red. Foolishly he winged a shot at the weaving mark of the man’s head. It tore through the tall crown of Hawkins’ hat, spun it into the sand. One more bullet left! He glanced at the Nubians. Another was down, curled in a heap. Two to go! Cold sweat broke out on Kane’s face. He thought of Margot, waiting with the caravan. A knife flashed in the sun and dropped at his feet, short of its mark. He bent quickly, picked it up and slipped it into his empty gun holster. He must get back to the caravan for Margot. Undoubtedly, the negro horde led by Hawkins and Ainslee would follow. In case…in case… His teeth clicked together. There would be the one bullet and the knife! Enough for both of them!

  He snapped into action as one of the two remaining Nubians whirled about with a slug in his shoulder. Sprinting to where the camels were down on the sand, Kane leaped to the nearest back. The beast came to his feet, reacted to the crack of Kane’s palm on his rump. It was off in a long, loping stride as a volley of shots from Hawkins and Ainslee whistled around it. Glancing back, Kane saw the remaining Nubian pick his wounded comrade up in his arms and follow suit. But luck was not with him. A knife caught him in the back, its sharp blade buried to the hilt between his ribs. He pitched forward and dropped face down in the sand.

  Driving the speedy animal to the limit of its strength, a full mile separated him from the slave traders’ encampment before they began pursuit. The desert beast was in a foaming lather when Kane reached the caravan and slid from its back. There was not a moment to be lost. Ignoring the leader’s voluble protests, Kane selected two fresh animals, lifted Margot on one of them, mounted the other, and was off just as black specks on the horizon offered mute warning of danger.

  It was a long, frantic hour before Kane signaled Margot to draw up her mount. Then, gasping for breath, he explained what had happened. Her eyes were pools of horror and her cheeks went ghastly pale. One hand clutched at her breasts, heaving like billows beneath their thin covering.

  “It’s a two day ride back to the post,” he panted. “We’ve got to make it in one! We’ll ride all night!” He drew a nervous hand over dry lips. “Can you stand it…without water?”

  Her jaw tightened. “Yes.”

  It was hell, even when the glowing ball of the sun set behind the sand dunes. The hardy camels wheezed and panted as gusts of hot, sand-flecked air tortured their throats. Kane watched Margot like a hawk. He was waiting for the moment when she would droop over the hump like a wet rag. Hour by hour he admired her indomitable courage, her silent stoicism in the face of blistering torture. He felt the hot, stabbing pains shooting up his own loins; the smart of millions of tiny holes made by the whipping sand in his face. He could imagine what she was going through and the thought tore at his he
art. Her soft woman’s body was probably wracked with agony; her white throat and virginal breasts raw and swollen.

  * * * *

  Dawn came, bringing with it a fresh breeze that was nectar to their shriveled throats. But it was only the forerunner of a nightmare to come. They were three hours’ ride from the post when the wind whipped like the suffocating blasts from a furnace. Ahead of them, the sand was an opaque sheet in the air, whirling and screaming like devils.

  “A simoon!” Kane gasped.

  Trained in the tricks of the desert, the tired camels dropped and buried their soft noses in the sand. Kane dug frantically behind their chunky bodies, forming holes for himself and Margot to crawl into. Almost instantly the sand storm broke over them. Kane cradled Margot in his arms, buried her face in his chest. His hands covered her throat and the upper swell of her breasts, sparing her tender flesh from the needlepoint sting of the whipping sand.

  It was impossible to talk. The wind, hellishly hot, screeched in its speed. As though to add to the agony, the sun came up, its intense heat shriveling the hair on Kane’s hands.

  All through the long African day the storm raged. At nightfall, the air calmed as quickly as it had gone into a mad fury. Margot’s breath was coming in hoarse gasps. Her lips were dry and cracked and she licked almost eagerly at the salty blood trickling from them. Kane cleared away the sand drifts and rested her head on his shoulder. It was cool now and he was thinking that maybe she could sleep. He leaned his own head against the camel’s rump and closed his eyes.

  It seemed like minutes later that a gasping cry of fear broke the silence. Kane cracked his eyes to look up into the weirdly painted faces of black savages. He saw Margot struggling in the arms of one of them. The Monbuttus! The word pierced Kane’s mind like a knife. They surrounded him like an ebony wall. There was no escape. His hand shot to his hip, drew the Mauser. There was one escape! The last bullet for Margot and the knife for himself! His finger tensed on the trigger, but the man-eating blacks were down on him before the gun roared, deflecting his arm. The lead pellet spat harmlessly into the sand. He reached for the knife but it was snatched out of his belt. The next moment he was lifted bodily and crushed against a damp, stinking chest. All the breath was forced from his lungs. Before darkness came, he heard the plaintive wheeze of Margot’s parched cries. Then all was silence.

  * * * *

  Kane regained consciousness with a start. The odor of human sweat stung his nostrils, but above it, as a breeze shifted, came the almost pleasant pungency of roasting meat. He readied out his hand and touched a woman’s naked breast. It quivered beneath his fingers. Then, as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he saw himself surrounded by white bodies; female bodies, stripped of clothes.

  “Margot!” he called softly.

  There was an answering moan behind him. Frantically he spun around and clutched at a dark, huddled figure. She was still clothed, but her cotton waist had been ripped by savage fingers. It hung in shreds from her bowed shoulders, baring the white mounds of her breasts and the dimpled flatness of her stomach. Kane held her close, kissing her feverishly. When his dry lips reached the soft hollows of her throat, his mind gave birth to a mad plan of release. He would choke her to death with his own hands! Yes, kill her rather than have her suffer the fate that faced them!

  A dancing light of flame flickered through the wooden posts of the prison hut. Kane released Margot and scrambled over the nude bodies of the Cape Town women. His hands gripped the posts, tugging at them, but they were stout and refused to budge. In the clearing he saw the Monbuttus, their teeth filed to gleaming points, dancing madly about three burning pyres. A high-pitched screech rose above the cannibals’ bloodcurdling yells. The wind shifted, blowing aside a wall of flame at the center pyre. For a brief, horrific moment, Kane saw the red torch of a woman’s body, licked with fire. Her breasts seemed to have swollen to twice their normal size. The next moment, hooked sticks shot into the hearts of the flames and snatched out the scorched bodies. Before they had dropped to the ground, the blacks were upon them, ripping at the sizzling flesh, tearing at it greedily with nails and teeth.

  Three at a time, the girls in the hut were dragged out through a door and fed to the flames. Kane hurled himself at the entrance, only to be thrown back. Finally, spent and numb with pain, he dropped beside Margot. His hands traveled up her body, over her sweet breasts, and up to her throat. He could feel the faint beat of a pulse. His thumbs found her wind-pipe, hesitated before exerting pressure. He leaned over and kissed her parched lips as though in farewell. As he did so, something hard pressed against his thigh. One hand left her throat, leaped to a side pocket of her breeches. It came out clutching a searchlight. Instantly, Kane was on his feet, lifting the electric torch high above him. The ceiling of the hut had openings in it. He found one with the beam of light shot it far up into the blanket of a black sky. Click…click…click! The light went on and off, flashing the Morse code signal of distress. Again and again, until his arm was numb and the skin of his thumb torn, Kane sent out the plea. Somebody at the post would see it! Even if they couldn’t read the dots and dashes, someone would realize none of the cannibals possessed a flashlight! He stopped when the flesh-eaters came for more victims, continued when they were gone. So intent was he on keeping the light directly above him that he failed to realize he and Margot were the last two in the hut. Only when the black horde swooped down on them, ripping their clothes from their bodies and dragging them out to the pyres, did he curse himself for not having followed his first plan.

  He fought with all the remaining vestiges of his waning strength. Margot, in a coma, was oblivious to the impending torture. Kane went cold as he watched her being carried close to the flames, saw the bloodthirsty blacks gloat over the white symmetry of her body. In a mad frenzy, he broke away from his captors, almost reached her. But heavy hands felled him before he had taken a step. As he dropped, a volley of shots rang out. A black gorilla fell into the fire with a bullet in his heart.

  The boom of rifles was music to Kane’s ears and balm to his pains. He was on his feet instantly. The cannibals, wheeling to the attack from the dark jungle, dropped the inert body of Margot. Kane picked her up in his arms, staggered towards the fringe of matted undergrowth. Circling, he came up behind the massed British soldiers, willingly surrendered Margot to her father’s arms.

  Even then, he was not through. He issued curt commands to the squadron of Tommies. They spread out, enclosing the Monbuttus as they fired into the screeching ranks of the blacks. At once, when the circle was complete, they kneeled and fired the dry underbrush with matches. Flames leaped high as the dry wood caught. Trapped in a wall of roaring fire, the flesh-eaters split the black night with their mad screams.

  In an hour the clearing was a mass of smouldering bodies, orange-red as the wind fanned the hill of flesh, like charcoal when one blows on it.

  Out of the range of heat, Kane kneeled beside Margot and lifted her up to rest against him. She had been given water and her lips were damp now. Unashamed, Kane kissed her and pressed the precious softness of her to him. Her eyes fluttered open and she smiled wanly. She took his hand and pressed it to her breast.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  RED BAMBOO, by Jason Lyttell

  Originally published in Spicy Mystery Stories, June 1935.

  A burnished jet serpent of men and beasts crawled across the gleaming ocean of sand and lost itself among the dunes. At the head of the safari rode a lone white man and a girl. The man’s murky white shirt lay open halfway down the front, exposing a chest matted with hair that glistened with moisture. His hat was broad and drooping, and beneath it two small boar-eyes glistened with expectation. A deep layer of tan had obliterated all traces of Caucasian skin, but there still remained the thin, cruelly curved lips of the European.

  He lolled on the camel’s back in a crouching position peculiarly suggestive of
the expression on his face. His body admitted fatigue, but there was determination in every muscle…determination to reach a goal.

  He looked covertly at the girl by his side. Her once soft, white silk blouse was plastered with sweat to fit the delicious roundness of her undulating breasts. They swayed gently to the slow plod of the beast beneath her, and the man had an insane desire to crush one firm globule in his hairy hand. He licked his lips as his eyes strayed down her body…down her slim waist to the lithe boyish thighs encased in tight-fitting riding breeches. Even the breeches could not hide the seductive curve of hips and legs which they covered. His eyes traveled back to the little pulse that beat in her creamy throat, and he felt his muscles swell with desire. He would have taken her long before this if John Evans hadn’t been so watchful. He mentally cursed the man.

  Sally Trevors, looking up caught his eye, and read his mind rightly. She shuddered fastidiously, and made a swift movement to draw her beast aside.

  The man chuckled derisively as he glanced warily up the trail. He knew how to bide his time. Behind him strode seven stalwart blacks, their somber skins shining with the sweat of fourteen hours’ steady toil. Their bodies were naked except for breech-clouts, from each of which protruded the hilt of a modified type of kris, their only weapon.

  Riding wearily behind the blacks, his head lowered against the sun, was another white man.

  He was tall and gangling, but with a fine ripple of muscles showing through his opened khaki shirt. His legs swung aimlessly out and then back, with the sway of his camel.

  The man in front bit viciously on his lips. “Your friend seems a bit stove up with the heat, Sally…