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'Aye aye, Cap'n,' said Quarrel 'You jes leave 'em all to me'

He went out

Bond looked at the whisky bottle, then he lass on top of three ice cubes He took the box of benzedrine tablets out of his pocket and slipped a tablet between his teeth

'Here's luck,' he said to Strangways and took a deep s He sat down and enjoyed the tough hot taste of his first drink for more than a week 'Now,' he said,' tellit takes theh the reef If it's the last ti off an extra six men and some stores Let's try to work it out as closely as we can'

In a moment Bond was immersed in a sea of practical details and the shadow of fear had fled back to the dark pools under the pal but anticipation and exciteure slipped off the rocks into ten feet of water and vanished under the sea

'Go safely,' said Quarrel to the spot where Bond had disappeared He crossed hih the shadows to the house to sleep uneasily in watches and wait fearfully for what ht come

CHAPTER XIX

VALLEY OF SHADOWS

BOND was carried straight to the bottoht of the limpet mine that he had secured to his chest with tapes and by the leaded belt which he wore round his waist to correct the buoyancy of the compressed-air cylinders

He didn't pause for an instant but immediately streaked across the first fifty yards of open sand in a fast crawl, his face just above the sand The long webbed feet would almost have doubled his norht he was carrying and by the light harpoon gun in his left hand, but he travelled fast and in under acoral

He paused and examined his sensations

He ar in the sunshine He found hisas his breath was even and relaxed He watched the tell-tale bubbles streaainst the coral in a fountain of silver pearls and prayed that the s them

In the open he had been able to see perfectly The light was soft and h to melt the mackerel shadows of the surface waves that chequered the sand Now, up against the reef, there was no reflection from the bottom, and the shadows under the rocks were black and ilance with his pencil torch and immediately the underbelly of the mass of brown tree-coral came alive Anemones with crimson centres waved their velvet tentacles at his moved their toledo-steel spines in sudden alarm and a hairy sea-centipede halted in its hundred strides and questioned with its eyeless head In the sand at the base of the tree a toad-fish softly drew its hideous warty head back into its funnel and a nuht down their gelatinous tubes A covey of bejewelled butterfly and angel fish flirted into the light and he -spined Star Shell