“I don’t know,” she admitted. “There was a lot of shooting and our men returned their fire. I was concerned only with getting you away. Juan and another man, I don’t know his name, carried you down a side alley and we brought you to the yacht in a grocer’s van.”

“I must get back!”

El Diablo tried to sit up, but the pain in his shoulder was too much for him.

“Don’t be so ridiculous,” Skye said. “How can you go back like this? Besides, we are going to Montevideo for you to see a doctor.”

“But the men. I must be with them!”

“Juan knows what to do,” Skye said firmly. “They are going back to the camp to wait until you can be with them. They will hold it against Alejo, whatever happens.”

“How can you be sure of that?”

“Juan told me that was what they would do and you can trust him.”

“Yes, I can trust Juan, but will the others follow him? That’s what matters.”

“If he tells them it is what you want, they will do it,” Skye said positively.

“I ought to be with them. Blast this shoulder!”

He took his right hand, which was uninjured, up from under the bedclothes, but, as he went to touch his bandaged shoulder, he put it to his forehead.

“My head too?” he asked. “What happened there?”

“A glancing bullet knocked you unconscious,” Skye told him. “You had to have six stitches in the wound.”

“I suppose that is why my head aches,” he said. “Well, it is no thanks to Alejo that I am not dead. That is what he intended.”

“If that boy had not warned us,” Skye said, “I suppose there would have been little chance of any of us escaping alive.”

“None, I imagine,” El Diablo said grimly. “We should have been caught between two crossfires. It would have been impossible to miss us in that narrow street. It was a clever idea and I ought to have anticipated it.”

“But how – could you?”

“I was expecting something to happen at the Palace and that is where I made my mistake. Alejo’s plan was shrewd, we were to have been killed in the town and he would have disclaimed all responsibility. He was waiting for us at the Palace, he would have explained, how could he help our having unknown enemies in the streets? We can be thankful that Marcos found out in time.”

“Marcos was your spy in the Palace, I suppose?”

“One of them,” El Diablo replied briefly.

He tried to move again, but the pain made him close his eyes for a moment and press his lips together.

“How soon shall we arrive in Montevideo?” he asked.

“Noon today.”

He opened his eyes and looked at her.

“I suppose you are not kidnapping me as I kidnapped you?” he said.

“Is that likely?”