By this time Skye was past praying, past feeling anything save a strange almost terrifying numbness.

Suddenly El Diablo’s hand was beneath her elbow. He helped her to her feet, and half-lifted, half-assisted her on to the platform on which the Priest had been standing and, turning towards the people grouped beneath them, he shouted in Spanish,

“My friends, let me present my wife!”

A great roar of cheering was echoed and re-echoed by the caves behind them.

“There will be wine for all of you,” El Diablo said when he could make himself heard, “and music too. Let there be music on such an auspicious occasion.”

He looked down at Skye as he spoke the last words and she saw the laughter in his eyes and the twist on his lips.

Then, as the guitars started to strum, still drowned by the cheering and shouts of the people, El Diablo led her back the way they had come. They climbed the stone steps to the terrace and, as they reached the entrance to the cave, El Diablo stopped for a moment so that Skye could look back.

Men and women were dancing wildly and wine was being brought in great barrels into the arena in the centre of which a fire was being lit so that the torches should no longer be necessary.

There was something very beautiful about the whole scene. It was like nothing Skye had even seen before in her life and yet, with some part of her critical faculties, she could not fail to appreciate the great shadowy darkness of the caves beneath the starlit sky and the scarlet tongues of flame already leaping from the wood-piled fire.

But before she could see more, El Diablo guided her in through the doorway of the cave and drew the leather curtain across it.

The candles were lit and for a moment the room seemed almost dazzling in contrast to the darkness outside.

And then she saw him turn towards her, a light in his eyes, a smile on his lips, and she remembered that she was alone with El Diablo and that he was now her husband.

Chapter 4

Skye stirred and opened her eyes with a feeling that she had slept for a very long time, the dreamless heavy sleep that comes from utter exhaustion.

The sunshine was percolating into the room making the Indian blankets that covered the walls glow with a soft radiance as if they were made of seventeenth century velvet.

Skye closed her eyes against the light and buried her face deeper in the pillow. She had not lain down on her bed until the dawn had broken and the camp below had begun to stir into life.