Live and Let Die: A James Bond Novel Read Online Free PDF

it by the hilt. In a few minutes he was holding it by the blunted end of the blade. Dancing slowly towards him, the Houngenikon reached out and grasped the hilt. The priest retired, and the young man, twirling and leaping, spun from side to side of the ‘tonnelle’. The ring of spectators rocked backwards as he bore down upon them whirling the blade over his head, with the gaps in his bared teeth lending to his mandril face a still more feral aspect. The ‘tonnelle’ was filled for a few seconds with genuine and unmitigated terror. The singing had turned to a universal howl and the drummers, rolling and lolling with the furious and invisible motion of their hands, were lost in a transport of noise.
Flinging back his head, the novice drove the blunt end of the cutlass into his stomach. His knees sagged, and his head fell forward…

There came a knock on the door and a waiter came in with breakfast. Bond was glad to put the dreadful tale aside and re-enter the world of normality. But it took him minutes to forget the atmosphere, heavy with terror and the occult, that had surrounded him as he read.
With breakfast came another parcel, about a foot square, expensive-looking, which Bond told the waiter to put on the sideboard. Some afterthought of Leiter’s, he supposed. He ate his breakfast with enjoyment. Between mouthfuls he looked out of the wide window and reflected on what he had just read.
It was only when he had swallowed his last mouthful of coffee and had lit his first cigarette of the day that he suddenly became aware of the tiny noise in the room behind him.
It was a soft, muffled ticking, unhurried, metallic. And it came from the direction of the sideboard.
‘Tick-tock… tick-tock… tick-tock.’
Without a moment’s hesitation, without caring that he looked a fool, he dived to the floor behind his armchair and crouched, all his senses focused on the noise from the square parcel. ‘Steady,’ he said to himself. ‘Don’t be an idiot. It’s just a clock.’ But why a clock? Why should he be given a clock? Who by?
‘Tick-tock… tick-tock… tick-tock.’
It had become a huge noise against the silence of the room. It seemed to be keeping time with the thumping of Bond’s heart. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. That Voodoo stuff of Leigh Fermor’s has put your nerves on edge. Those drums…’
‘Tick-tock… tick-tock… tick-’
And then, suddenly, the alarm went off with a deep, melodious, urgent summons.
‘Tongtougtongtongtongtong…’
Bond’s muscles relaxed. His cigarette was burning a hole in the carpet. He picked it up and put it in his mouth. Bombs in alarm clocks go off when the hammer first comes down on the alarm. The hammer hits a pin in a detonator, the detonator fires the explosive and WHAM…
Bond raised his head above the back of the chair and watched the parcel.
‘Tongtongtongtongtong…’
The muffled gonging went on for half a minute, then it started to slow down.
‘tong . . tong… tong… tong…tong…
‘C-R-A-C-K…’
It was not louder than a 12-bore cartridge, but in the confined space it was an impressive explosion.
The parcel, in tatters, had fallen to the ground. The glasses and bottles on the sideboard were smashed and there was a black smudge of smoke on the grey wall behind them. Some pieces of glass tinkled on to the floor. There was a strong smell of gunpowder in the room.
Bond got slowly to his feet. He went to the window and opened it. Then he dialled Dexter’s number. He spoke levelly.
‘Pineapple… No, a small one… only some glasses… okay, thanks… of course not… ‘bye.’
He skirted the debris, walked through the small lobby to the door leading into the passage, opened it, hung the DON’T DISTURB sign outside, locked it, and went through into his bedroom.
By the time he had finished dressing there was a knock on the door.
‘Who is it?” he called.
‘Okay. Dexter.’
Dexter hustled in, followed by a sallow young man with a black box under his