The hundred-odd men and women of Scorpia shivered in the darkness beyond the stage. All had heard tales of Cho-San’s torture room. Some even had visited the vaulted chamber and seen old bloodstains on those devilish machines.

They remembered their fellow agents who had disappeared to be “tried” later in this same underground auditorium. In such cases the accused were brought on the stage to give their “confessions”; but their broken bodies and fear stricken tones told plainer than words of secret torments. Not even the few who were released after trial ever told exactly what had happened to them.

And now these members of Scorpia’s Inner Council were to see with their own eyes the fate of two who had defied the Scorpion’s power. Their cruel natures were as thrilled by the prospect as they were awed by thought that their own turn might come some day.

Such was the mind of the audience which heard Cho-San’s grim accusation. With savage eagerness they drank in the Scorpion leader’s every word, while their eyes gloated over those helpless victims on the wheel and rack.

With the tread of a great jungle beast, Cho-San approached the half-conscious Lotus.

Facing the assembly, the Chinese raised his voice.

“This girl, this fickle traitoress,” he cried, “has gone over to the enemy, body and soul. In a few minutes you will hear her confess her guilt under mortal pain. But first—”

Cho-San paused dramatically.

“First,” he repeated, “she will listen to the screams of this other enemy of Scorpia—the man who was once a member of this very Inner Council—Count AndrÉ Borg! We shall see what confession another turn of the ropes will wring from him ... Dr. Skell!”

Into the spotlight moved a tall man garbed in a white laboratory coat. His bald, skull-like head turned to face Cho-San.

“One turn?” he asked, laying a bony hand upon the rack’s windlass.

The Chinese nodded. Slowly the rack’s wooden crank moved downward, tightening the ropes. Count Borg’s body stiffened under the frightful tension. Through his clenched jaws issued a grinding sob of pain.

“Another turn and his bones snap out of their sockets,” came the dry croak of Dr. Skell. “Shall I go on?”

“No! No!” came Lotus’ frantic cry. “Torture me, Cho-San, but not AndrÉ! Anything—anything but that!”

“Tear him apart!” snarled the Scorpion leader. “Put your weight on that windlass, or—”

CR-RACK!

The whipping report of a rifle slapped against the walls. With a queer, animal whine, the bony Skell shrank back, his bullet grazed hand dripping red.

For a moment paralysis seemed to grip the assembled Council of Scorpia. Then through tense silence the voice of Don Winslow cut like a knife.

“Hold it, Cho-San! We’ve got every exit covered. You’d better give up!”

Quick as a cat, the big Chinese leaped. Outside the spotlight, his figure was a swift vanishing blur. The slam of an automatic pistol came seconds too late, as Michael Splendor charged onto the stage at the head of twenty fighting men.

Leaping down across the footlights, Don Winslow, Red Pennington and a dozen of Hammond’s men lined up with ready guns. Yet in the face of that threat more than half the Scorpion assembly had drawn concealed pistols.

A single shot would touch off a battle to the death. None knew it better than Michael Splendor as he perched on the shoulders of a powerful deputy, full in the spotlight’s glare. He knew also that men and women, however desperate, can sometimes be bluffed.

“Every exit to this room is blocked by armed men!” he announced in a ringing voice. “Throw down your weapons and ye’ll take no harm. Fight and ye’ll get licked anyway. Which will ye choose?”

A low muttering began among the trapped councilmen of Scorpia. Above the babel of whispers a single voice rose clear.

“Cho-San escaped!” rang the defiant shout. “The secret corridors are NOT blocked. We will scatter—and catch these fools in their own trap!”

A roar of approval went up from the crowd. In three scrambling groups the assembly broke for the sides and rear of the auditorium, avoiding the platform. A few of the nearest kept their eyes and pistols trained on the line of riflemen, but they clearly wished to postpone the shooting.

To the mob’s angry surprise, this means of escape had been forestalled. When the paneled exit doors slid back, a squad of deputies barred each opening with clubbed guns. At the same time Splendor’s bellow rose above the tumult.

“On with your gas masks, boys!” he ordered. “We’ll have these wastrels chokin’ for breath in two minutes.”

Suiting action to words, the veteran pulled the ring of a tear gas grenade and flung it. Twice more he repeated the motion before bullets from the ranks of Scorpia drilled him and his human mount. With a groan the big deputy sank to his knees, spilling his wounded chief to the floor.

From the embattled exits more gas grenades were being hurled, but there the press of fighting bodies was too close for pistol work. The same sort of struggle was taking place where Don Winslow and his squad of fighters held back a rush for the stage exits.

The only shooting appeared to be aimed at Splendor and the fallen deputy, sprawled in the white glare of the spotlight.

It was Mercedes Colby who acted in the nick of time to save them. Already she had cut loose the racked body of Count Borg and freed his sobbing companion. Now, braving the bullets that clipped across the stage, she started to drag Michael Splendor out of the light.

At that moment two Malay councilmen broke through Don’s thin line of fighting deputies. Maddened by the smart of tear gas they leaped onto the platform, armed with long, glittering knives. Their yells of tigerish fury announced that they had gone amok.

Bullets could not have stopped them in time, yet Mercedes sprang to face them. Her left hand pistol barked. White smoke from the tear gas cartridges belched in the face of her attackers.

Their yells ended in choking grunts. Clawing at their blinded eyes, the Malays staggered back to plunge over the platform’s edge.