She felt herself thrill and tingle again at the thought of his excitement and at his goodnight when he had finally risen from the couch to go to bed. The candles had gutted low and it was nearly dawn.

“Are you very tired?” he had asked gently, his consideration unexpected.

“Very.”

“It’s your own fault for being so lovely, you go to a man’s head, Skye.”

He sat down again.

“What is it about you that drives me mad?” he had asked. “I even find myself thinking of you when I am busy.”

Skye moved her head wearily.

“I must leave you,” he said, but he had not gone.

Instead he bent forward to trace with his finger the dark circles beneath her eyes.

“One day you will become a woman, little Skye,” he said, “and you will be infinitely more beautiful and infinitely more desirable, although I cannot imagine how. As you are now, you drive me mad.”

He had bent his head as if to kiss her cheek, but instead he found her mouth. It was soft with tiredness and his lips had suddenly grown hard and possessive, holding her captive. Then with an effort, he had broken free and risen to his feet.

“I think you bewitch me!” he had said roughly and had gone from the caves as the candles flickered and went out.

Why had she not reached out to him then, Skye asked herself now.

She was so deep in her own thoughts that she did not hear someone come aboard or hear a step behind her on deck, until a well-known voice said,

“There you are!”

She started up at that and threw out her hands with a little cry of delight.

Jimmy Donaldson stood there, dapper and neat in a suit of light tweeds, his hat in his hand and the sunshine on his greying hair.

“Jimmy! You are the last person I expected to see!”

“I wonder why? I caught an aeroplane at dawn this morning as soon as I heard the news.”

“What news?”

“About the revolution, of course. I expected you would be involved in it.”

“But what revolution? What are you talking about?”

Jimmy looked at her as if she were half-witted and then sat down in a deckchair.

“Listen, Skye, are you being dense or am I? It was announced on the wireless last night that there was a revolution taking place in Jācara. I thought you might be in trouble and I jumped an aeroplane at dawn and got to Jācara about eleven o’clock. I found the revolution had petered out because the rebels had won and General Alejo had been bumped off.”

“Alejo dead?” Skye exclaimed.

“So I was told,” Jimmy said, “and that the bandit’s men, you know the ones we met when we were riding have taken over the palace.”

“Jimmy! But what is going to happen?”