The Spicy-Adventure

by Robert Leslie Bellem

  Wu Shang strode, grinning, into the dungeon. “Now I shall stage an entertainment for you!” he grated. “Two others who had the temerity to plot against my regime fell into my hands this morning. Now I shall demonstrate what happens to those who dare rebel against me!”

  He clapped his hands. A group of uniformed men belched into the underground room, shoving two prisoners before them. Shevlin stared. One of the two captives was a woman—a Chinese. Her clothing had been ripped from her cringing body, and her eyes were wide with fear. Her companion was a man—a huge, muscular Asiatic whose bare torso was like that of a wrestler. Both were bound with strong ropes.

  “Now bring my torture-woman!” Wu Shang commanded.

  In a moment a girl entered. She was a half-caste, and she was naked to the waist. Smooth, rippling muscles writhed in her bare shoulders and arms; and she moved with feline, pantherish grace. There was a savage, sadistic gleam in her eyes; a lustful glitter that brought cold chills to Tate Shevlin’s marrow as he watched her. Her firm breasts undulated slightly as she stepped forward.

  “Begin!” Wu Shang snarled.

  The half-caste torturess smiled grimly. Tate Shevlin quivered as she approached the athletic figure of the yellow man who was to be her victim. She gestured; and the prisoner was strapped upright to a stanchion.

  Then the pantherish torture-woman picked up a long, snake-like lash and stepped back four paces. She raised the whip, poised it—

  The singing lash hissed through the air with a sharp crackling noise. The bound man screamed out in sudden agony. Tate Shevlin winced as he saw what had happened. The end of the lash had flicked forward across the prisoner’s face…had plucked out his right eye by the roots, leaving a gory, bleeding hole…

  The soldier of fortune felt a nausea welling into his belly as the lash ripped forward again and again. Now the prisoner’s face was a bleeding shambles of lacerated flesh… The man collapsed, hung limply against his fetters.

  The torturess leaped toward him, pressed her bare breasts against his naked, muscular chest, undulated in a wild frenzy of passion-crazed excitement. Her long fingers caressed the crimson-dripping flesh of her victim’s features; her face contorted in orgiastic pleasure. She withdrew a knife from her breech-clout, slashed at her prisoner’s bonds. He toppled forward at her feet.

  She leaned over him, lifted him with amazing strength. She dragged him to a dangling rope, knotted his wrists to the hanging loop. Again she undulated her bare body against the victim’s muscular torso, as though the contact brought her sensual gratification… Then she leaped toward a winch, began turning its huge wooden crank—

  The Asiatic prisoner’s unconscious form was lifted high into the air as the dangling rope tightened in its overhead pulley. Then Tate Shevlin, watching, felt his scalp prickle. The torture-woman’s victim hung suspended over a huge open vat. Beneath the vat a red fire raged. Shevlin stared. The vat was full to the brim with boiling, bubbling, silver-colored liquid—

  The American’s eyes widened with horror. That huge iron vat contained molten lead! And the Asiatic prisoner was being lowered slowly, inexorably, toward the seething surface of the cauldron!

  The man’s bare feet plunged into the white-hot metal with a hissing, frying sound. Consciousness returned to him. He screamed once, horribly…and then his entire, writhing form plunged downward into the molten metal!

  Wu Shang laughed insanely. “Thus do I end the lives of my enemies!” he exulted. Then he grabbed for the other prisoner—the unclad Chinese girl. “Now it is your turn, little passion-flower!” he gritted. “But first, before you taste the torture-whip, I shall enjoy the beauty of your young breasts, slake my desire with your feminine charms—!” He lifted her, carried her through a doorway.

  Wu Shang’s men leaped aside to let him pass. Then they scrambled toward chinks in the wooden partition separating the dungeon from the adjoining room into which Wu Shang had carried his feminine victim. Chuckling fiendishly, the soldiers peered through the cracks, watching the scene that was taking place. Tate Shevlin heard the girl cry out in sudden fear, in abrupt agony—

  Five minutes later Wu Shang emerged from the next room. In his arms he bore the limp, lifeless figure of the girl he had assaulted. There was a knife thrust into her quivering left breast. She was dead. Callously, brutishly, he tossed her body into that seething vat of molten lead!

  Wu Shang turned to Chen Tsing Gat. “Now will you tell me where you have secreted those four jewels? Or do you wish a taste of the lash—and the torture-vat?” he snarled.

  Chen Tsing Gat’s voice trembled as he answered. “I—I would bargain with you, oh Wu Shang!” he pleaded. “Spare the lives of this American girl and her companion, Tate Shevlin; and in return I will lead you to the four Claws of the Dragon!”

  Wu Shang hesitated. Then he grinned. “It is well. It shall be as you wish. But they will not be released until I have the Claws!”

  Chen Tsing Gat nodded silently.

  CHAPTER III

  It was late that night, and the torture-dungeon was solidly dark. Tate Shevlin sat propped in his corner, staring out into the blackness that surrounded him. By his side, the Golden Girl breathed softly, sobbingly.

  Shevlin spoke in a whisper. “Chen Tsing Gat has been gone a long while,” he said. “Do you suppose he actually intends to lead Wu Shang’s men to the hiding-place of the jewels?”

  “Yes,” the Golden Girl answered bitterly. “He will do it in order to gain your freedom and mine, Tate Shevlin, I—” Abruptly she fell into startled silence. Footsteps sounded in the corridor outside the dungeon!

  Shevlin tensed. And then he saw a figure enter the dungeon—a figure bearing a flickering, smoking torch. He stared. It was the half-caste woman—Wu Shang’s torturess!

  Her slanted eyes gleamed oddly as she thrust the torch into a niche in the wall of the chamber. Then she approached Tate Shevlin, leaned over him. She was still clad only in a breech-clout, and her hard breasts became inverted cones as she stooped forward. She had a short-bladed dagger in her hand!

  The American’s flesh quivered in anticipation of her knife-thrust. But it did not come. Instead, the half-caste woman spoke sibilantly. “Listen, American!” she whispered. “Chen Tsing Gat has returned here with his guards. He has turned over the Claws of the Dragon to Wu Shang. But Wu Shang does not intend to keep his promise. Instead, be plans to kill Chen Tsing Gat, you and the yellow-haired woman!”

  Shevlin’s eyes narrowed. He had feared some such treachery on Wu Shang’s part. But why did the half-caste woman tell him all this?

  The torturess seemed to read his question in his eyes. She smiled.

  “You wonder why I tell this to you?” Abruptly her hands went out, pawed at his muscular shoulders. “It is because I like you! And now I make you an offer. I shall release you, and together we will go away from this place. You will belong to me; we will lose ourselves in passionate drunkenness! Let Wu Shang be satisfied with killing Chen Tsing Gat and this slender yellow-haired woman”—she gestured toward the Golden Girl. “But you and I will escape… She leaned far forward, so that the quivering tips of her breasts stirred the air near Shevlin’s lean cheek…

  The soldier of fortune was silent.

  The torturess stared at him, her eyes narrowing. “You do not think me desirable, oh American?” she hissed. Her hands went to her naked bosoms, cupped those twin resilient mounds suggestively. Her palms traveled slowly downward over her bare body, voluptuously, sinuously. She undulated… “You do not think my passion better than…death?”

  Again Tate Shevlin was silent.

  The half-caste grinned sardonically. “Perhaps you will change your mind when you see the woman you love being put to torture!” she whispered. She flung aside her dagger, stepped over to the cringing form of the Golden Girl, lifted her up.

  The Golden Girl gasped in sudden terror as her sa
vage feminine captor carried her toward the torture-rack at the far end of the chamber. Shevlin cursed, strained at his bonds. And then his eyes lighted savagely as he saw the knife which the torturess had dropped…

  Desperately he struggled forward. His bound hands reached forth, touched the handle of the dagger, grasped it—

  Now the Golden Girl was being bound to the rack with leather thongs. “Your white breasts will not be so beautiful when they have tasted the fire of my branding-irons!” the half-caste torture-woman chuckled evilly. “And when your beauty has been utterly destroyed, your American sweetheart will turn to me—!”

  Silently, with bitter desperation, Tate Shevlin sawed at his hempen gyves. Strand after strand parted. Sweat stood out on his pale features as he saw the half-caste woman draw a glowing iron from a charcoal brazier and approach the Golden Girl—

  Shevlin’s last fetter parted. With a wild cry he leaped to his feet, flung himself forward. The knife glittered in his clenched fist as he sprang.

  The half-caste woman whirled as she heard him. She raised the glowing branding-iron, flung it—flung it straight at Tate Shevlin’s face. He leaped aside, and the red-hot iron smashed into his shoulder. He felt the searing, fiery agony dart through his flesh. Then the iron clattered to the floor amid a shower of sparks. Unmindful of pain, the soldier of fortune closed in.

  The torture-woman backed away, her features suddenly pale. Shevlin sprang at her. She leaped backward—

  Leaped backward, and crashed full against the vat of molten lead! It overturned on its stand. The half-caste woman shrieked in sudden agony as the liquid, white-hot metal cascaded over the sides of the tottering vat and ate into her yellow flesh… She swayed, staggered, grasped at the sides of the vat to steady herself. Then, as she toppled to the floor, she pulled the huge pot of molten metal crashing over on her.

  Bubbling molten lead streamed thickly over the woman’s unclad body in a fiery Niagara of death!

  But Tate Shevlin was not looking. He had flung himself toward the rack upon which the Golden Girl was bound. Now he slashed at her bonds with his knife. The leather thongs parted. He started to lift her—“One more move and I’ll shoot you where you stand, dog!” a harsh voice snarled from the doorway.

  Shevlin whirled—and stared into the muzzle of an automatic in the hands of General Wu Shang!

  The soldier of fortune hesitated a brief instant. Then, desperately, savagely, he launched himself forward in a vicious flying tackle. Wu Shang’s automatic barked a staccato stream of lead; but Shevlin’s sudden dive had spoiled the Chinese general’s aim. With the impact of a hurtling meteor, Tate Shevlin’s hard shoulders crashed into Wu Shang’s knees. The man smashed backward to the floor. Shevlin raised his knife and brought it plunging downward—full into Wu Shang’s constricted throat. Wu Shang choked, gurgled; a crimson gush of blood spewed from his snarling lips. He went limp.

  And then Tate Shevlin heard footsteps coming down the long stairs from above. “Trapped!” he gasped.

  And then a fantastic, tenuous plan leaped into his seething brain. He grabbed at Wu Shang’s body, carried it into the next room—the room into which Wu Shang had dragged that screaming Chinese girl victim hours before. Swiftly, with the speed of desperation, he stripped Wu Shang’s uniform from the yellow man’s limp body, donned it himself. He flung the undressed corpse into a dark corner, behind a couch. Then he leaped back into the torture-chamber, snatched the Golden Girl from the rack.

  “It’s our only chance!” he whispered into her ear, pantingly, bitterly. And as he spoke, a band of Wu Shang’s soldiers eddied into the dungeon.

  Shevlin’s back was toward them as he bore the Golden Girl toward the next room. He raised his voice in harsh simulation of Wu Shang’s tones. “Stay where you are, my braves! I take this woman in here to taste her sweet beauty! Afterward, she is yours—she will be your plaything until you tire of her!” He leaped into the adjoining chamber, slammed the door behind him with a kick of his foot.

  “What—what do you plan to do, Tate Shevlin?” the Golden Girl whispered silently, fearfully.

  The American soldier of fortune kept his back toward the door through which he had come. Gently he laid the Golden Girl on the couch at the far end of the chamber. His pulses raced strangely as he beheld her undraped loveliness… “They’re watching us through the chinks in the wall!” he answered grimly. “They think I’m Wu Shang. For the moment, we’re safe from attack.” Then he raised his voice once more in a rasping counterfeit of Wu Shang’s tones. “Aie, white passion-flower! Now I shall drink my fill of your charms!”

  The Golden Girl blanched as his hands went out, pawed at her naked breasts. “Tate—Tate Shevlin!” she gasped.

  “We’ve got to go through with it! It’s our only chance!” he answered in a silent whisper. His head lowered; his mouth clamped to her parted lips. She panted, struggled weakly in his grasp. He kissed her eyes, her shoulders, the sweet hollow of her flawless throat… His hands touched her breast, pressed gently into the firmly-pliant flesh…

  “Tate—beloved!” the Golden Girl trembled as her slim arms crushed him to her.

  His hands strayed over the smooth perfection of her naked curves. “At last…!” he whispered hoarsely. “After all these months—you are to be mine…my darling! And even though we die, at least we shall have the torture-dungeon.” He raised his voice, once more imitated the harsh tones of the dead Wu Shang. “Now, my men!” he called out. “It is your turn!”

  Then he leaped for the couch, pulled Wu Shang’s stripped corpse from behind it. He grabbed at the Golden Girl in the darkness, pulled her toward the door; together they crouched in the shadows.

  The door punched open. Wu Shang’s soldiers burst ribaldly into the room. One bore a torch. He held it high—

  Abruptly the soldiers saw Wu Shang’s stripped body lying on the floor in a far corner. “What is this?” the torch-bearer cried out. He lunged toward Wu Shang’s body, with his companions at his heels.

  And in that brief instant, Tate Shevlin grabbed the Golden Girl, lifted her in his arms and leaped out of the room, into the torture-dungeon!

  With plunging, racing strides he crossed the dungeon, smashed out into the dark corridor beyond. He gained the stairs that led upward. He vaulted at them, took them three at a time. His shoulder thudded against a closed door at the top, splintered it open.

  He stared about him. He was in Wu Shang’s headquarters—and on the floor beside Wu Shang’s desk lay the trussed form of Chen Tsing Gat!

  The American leaned forward. His knife licked out, slashed at the fetters which bound the ancient Chinese. Chen Tsing Gat staggered weakly to his feet. “Tate—Tate Shevlin! What—?”

  “Come on! No time for talk!” the soldier of fortune rasped. Already he could hear the thudding footsteps of Wu Shang’s men as they plunged upward along the stairs from the subterranean torture-dungeon; already he could hear their savage, vengeful cries. He grabbed Chen Tsing Gat’s arm. “Let’s get going!”

  Then, bearing the Golden Girl in his arms, with Chen Tsing Gat trailing behind him, Shevlin raced through the house to a rear door and plunged outward into the night.

  “But—but the Claws of the Dragon!” Chen Tsing Gat panted.

  “I have them. All five of them. They were in Wu Shang’s tunic—and I’ve got it on!” Shevlin barked.

  “And Wu Shang—?”

  “Dead! Your revolution won’t have him to cope with when you start it!” Shevlin answered grimly. His hand plunged into a pocket of the uniform he wore. He extracted the five glittering Claws, passed them to the ancient Chinese.

  Then, in the darkness before them, Shevlin saw a sleek, speedy-looking automobile. “Wu Shang’s armored sedan!” Chen Tsing Gat wheezed harshly, triumphantly.

  Shevlin leaped for it, flung open its doors. The Golden Girl sped into the tonneau; Shevlin and Chen Tsing Gat f
lung themselves into the front seat. The American crouched behind the steering wheel, stepped on the starter, clashed the gears. The sedan plummeted forward into the night—toward safety!

  CHAPTER IV

  Fanwise, the steamer’s wake spread backward on the blue surface of the Pacific. At the aft rail, Tate Shevlin and the Golden Girl stared backward toward Shanghai Harbor receding in the dim distance.

  The soldier of fortune turned to the girl at his side, captured her tiny hand. It fluttered in his palm, like a captive bird’s wing. Her blue eyes grew misty. She smiled tremulously—

  Tate Shevlin spoke. “Then—you have forgiven me for…what took place in that underground room?”

  She pressed her vibrant body close to his. “There is…nothing to forgive, Tate Shevlin,” she whispered shyly. “I am yours, body and soul. Always and forever!” The soldier of fortune caught her in his arms. “Beloved!” he said… And as the steamer nosed eastward on its long run toward San Francisco, Tate Shevlin knew that adventuring was done—and that at the end of adventure he had found happiness