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She called and he went in

The rooht, which she had turned on

'Sleep well,' she said

Bond got out of his coat He quietly slipped the wedges firht side on the coht for the future fell into a deep sleep, lulled by the pounding gallop of the train

A few cars away, in the deserted diner, a negro waiter read again what he had written on a telegraph blank and waited for the ten-minute stop at Philadelphia

CHAPTER XI

ALLUMEUSE

THE crack train thundered on through the bright afternoon towards the south They left Pennsylvania behind, and Maryland There cah his dreaines and the soft think-speak of the public-address systeinia Here the air was already softer and the dusk, only five hours away froht frosty breath of New York , sroup of negroes, walking home frohing silver rails and one would pull out his watch and consult it and announce, 'Hyah coht on time'

'Sho nuff,' one of the others would say as the great beat of the Diesels cahted coaches streaked past and on towards North Carolina They awoke around seven to the hasty ting of a grade-crossing alar train nosed its way out of the fields into the suburbs of Raleigh Bond pulled the wedges fro for the attendant

He ordered dry Martinis and when the two little 'personalized' bottles appeared with the glasses and the ice they seemed so inadequate that he at once ordered four ued over the'Made From Flaky Tender Boneless Filets' and the chicken as 'Delicious French Fried to a Golden Brown, Served Disjointed'

'Eyewash,' said Bond, and they finally ordered scraes, a salad, and some of the domestic Camembert that is one of the most welcome surprises on American menus

It was nine o'clock when Baldwin ca else they wanted

Bond had been thinking 'What tiet into Jacksonville ?' he asked

'Aroun' five 'n the , Suh'

'Is there a subway on the platforside'

'Gould you have the door open and the steps down pretty quick?'

The negro sood care of that'

Bond slipped him a ten-dollar bill 'Just in case I,' he said

The negro grinned 'Ah greatly preeshiate yo kindness, Suh Good night, Suh Good night, Mam'

He went out and closed the door

Bond got up and pushed the wedges firmly under the two doors

'I see,' said Solitaire 'So it's like that'

'Yes,' said Bond 'I' he had had froirl when he had finished 'They ot a whole team of spies called "The Eyes" and when they're put out on a job it's alot on the train You can be certain it's a negro, either a Pullman attendant or someone in the diner He canhe likes'

'So it seeot on them?'

She looked out of theinto the tunnel of darkness through which the lighted train was burning its thundering path Then she looked back across the table into the cool wide grey-blue eyes of the English agent She thought: how can one explain to soround of co the warhted streets? How can one explain to someone who hasn't lived close to the secret heart of the tropics, at the er and stealth and poison; who hasn't experienced the ic and the mortal dread it inspires? What can he know of catalepsy, and thought-transference and the sixth sense of fish, of birds, of negroes; the deadlyof a white chicken's feather, a crossed stick in the road, a little leather bag of bones and herbs? What of Mialis and the death by wasting?

She shivered and a whole host of dark memories clustered round her Above all, she remembered that first time in the Houmfor where her black nurse had once taken her as a child 'It do yuh no harood juju Care fe yuh res 'f yo life' And the disgusting old iven her How her nurse had held her jaws open until she had drunk the last drop and how she had lain awake screaht for a week And how her nurse had been worried and then suddenly she had slept all right until, weeks later, shifting on her pillow, she had felt so it out from the pillow-case, a dirty little packet ofshe could not find it She had continued to sleep well and she knew it must have been found by the nurse and secreted somewhere under the floorboards

Years later, she had found out about the Voodoo drink -a concoction of rurave-dirt and human blood She almost retched as the taste came back to her s or of her half-belief in them?