“You are determined – to make our last dinner a memorable one.”

He pushed back his chair as if to look at her more comfortably.

“I really believe that I shall miss you,” he said. “It is not often that I have been able to say that to a woman with any semblance of truth.”

“How flattered I should be!” Skye replied sarcastically.

She realised as she spoke that he was not really listening to her, but was thinking of tomorrow.

There was silence for some minutes before he said,

“I shall ride in with a hundred men, but I don’t want to appear aggressive. I will leave another hundred outside. Alejo will know about them, of course, but it might make him think twice before trying any tricks.”

“Only two hundred in all!”

“That is a point,” he replied. “I don’t want to take any more in case this is a ruse to draw me away from here so that he can attack the mountains in my absence. I don’t think that is his idea, because he would have to have his troops ready by now and there has not even been a whisper of any movement. But I cannot afford to take chances. It is a moment when I don’t know whom I can trust or whom it is safe to believe.”

El Diablo’s voice had a worried sincerity about it that moved Skye to an unexpected sympathy. For the first time she realised the strain that he was labouring under. How little he had to support him in his stand against the acknowledged leader of the country!

As he said himself, it was difficult to know whom to trust, how to sift the information that was worthwhile from the rubbish.

They rose from the table and the Indians came to clear away. Dinner had been much later than usual and already the noise and music of the camp was fading away into the silence of the night.

“We must start early,” El Diablo said, “not because it takes so long to get to Jācara, but because it would be a mistake to arrive with tired men and tired horses. We shall do the ride in easy stages, resting and taking both a meal and a siesta before we arrive at the Palace.”

Skye seated herself on the couch and, as the Indians left the room, El Diablo sat down beside her.

“And now I want to forget everything for the moment and think only of you,” he said. “That is your job, didn’t you know it? It is what women are for, to soothe men, to minister to them and to make them forget the strain and worry and toil of the day so that they are fresh for the morrow.”

“A chattel,” Skye retorted, moving as far away from him as she could.