Almost as if she was mesmerised, Skye stepped forward. For a moment she could think of nothing save that she must obey the order she had been given and then, as she reached El Diablo’s side and looked out across the terrace and down into the camp below, wild thoughts of screaming, running and fighting ran through her mind only to be checked by some solid common sense at the back of her brain, which told her that it would be useless.

The place seemed transformed from when she last saw it. Along the terrace, down the steps and all round a clearing in the centre of the camp, men stood with flaming torches, which cast a weird barbaric light over the sea of faces that Skye could see turned towards her and El Diablo as they appeared.

For a moment there was a hush before, almost with one voice, the waiting people gave a shout of welcome.

Skye felt El Diablo take her hand and, as if in a dream, she found herself descending the steps and walking between the rows of lighted torches to where, before a roughly improvised altar, the Priest stood waiting.

‘I won’t do it, I won’t!’

She tried to say the words aloud, but she could not force them through the dryness of her lips.

El Diablo’s hand was relentless and inexorable and she knew that to struggle or to fight against him would be utterly useless.

Besides, suddenly she was afraid – not only of him but of all these strange unknown people.

It was difficult to see any of them clearly and yet she had the impression that she had moved backwards in the centuries and this was some barbaric ceremony taking place in the Middle Ages.

If she refused to do what they wanted what might not these people do to her? The whole thing was unreal and it was as if his voice came from a very great distance when she heard El Diablo speak to her.

“The ceremony will be very short,” he said, “for you are not a Catholic.”

They had reached the Priest by now.

Skye realised that the crowd had closed in behind them, encircling them completely so that she was a prisoner not only of one man but also of his followers.

The Priest had opened his book. He was wearing the brown habit of a travelling Friar. He was a middle-aged man with a husky travel-tired voice, and, even when he spoke in Latin, he had a strange accent.

She did not know what was being said. As if she was an automaton, she obeyed the commands El Diablo gave her from time to time.

“Say si,” he commanded her. And then again, “si.”

The Priest took her left hand and gave it to El Diablo. She felt the ring encircle her finger and then they both knelt to receive the Blessing.