Something hidden here might prove to be a weapon against him and why should she scruple to use any methods, however morally reprehensible, to get the better of her opponent?

It was a British passport! There was no mistaking the dark blue cover, the neat inlet for the owner’s name and the number.

Skye stood very still, staring at the name that was inscribed on the passport and then, quickly, she opened it.

El Diablo’s face looked back at her.

He had obviously been much younger when the photograph was taken, yet there was no mistaking those strong hawklike features, the deep-set eyes under straight eyebrows, the square chin, determined mouth and the way his dark hair grew back from his forehead.

Yes, the photograph was of El Diablo, but the name was Guy Tremayne!

It was written clearly on the outside of the passport – Mr. Guy Tremayne and under the photograph the signature, in El Diablo’s writing, was the same!

This was something Skye had never expected and now she scanned the opposite page for particulars of him.

He had been born at Bredon in Worcestershire, he was thirty-four this October and he was of British nationality!

She gave a sudden exclamation that was almost a cry. Somehow it did not seem possible that El Diablo could be British. From the very beginning she had thought of him as being Mariposan and now she realised how stupid she had been not to have guessed before that he was not what he seemed.

In appearance he undoubtedly had some of the more characteristic features of the race and the sun had tanned him until he appeared as dark as, if not darker than, the average Mariposan with his Spanish ancestors.

But Skye guessed now that where his skin had not been exposed to the sun it was as white as hers.

She might have guessed he was not entirely what he seemed on the surface. For instance there was the way he spoke, not only his command of the English language, but the idioms he used. And she remembered the slip he had made the night he spoke of Rowland Ward.

She had been sure at the time that it had been a mistake on his part and yet – British!

She could hardly believe it, especially as she knew only too well how much he apparently hated England.

He never spoke of the country of his birth without sneering or saying something unpleasant about it. Hundreds of times he had made disparaging remarks about British people, especially women.

There was a mystery here, but for the moment Skye could only grasp that El Diablo was British and in some subtle way that she could not clarify to herself it made it infinitely worse that her captor and conqueror should be of her own blood.

She remembered now that she had asked him why he was called El Diablo.

“A woman christened me!” he had replied.