The Indian women wore gaily patterned dresses of cotton or wool woven on their primitive hand-looms. Their bronze skins were in vivid contrast to the warm darkness of their eyes.

Mingling with them were white skins and black, the parchment yellow of the Japanese and the oriental saffron of the Chinese.

But among the mixture of races the true Mariposans stood out unmistakably. They were easily recognisable by their height and their clear complexions. Their dark eyes, inherited from some Spanish forbear, were offset by finely cut features that gave them a proud almost aristocratic air, while many of their women had a regal loveliness that would have made them outstanding in any European ballroom.

After her first quick appreciation of the scene around her, Skye felt a sudden embarrassment. She realised that she was the object for all eyes. She was being watched from the caves, from the huts on the encampment, by the men sitting on the horses and by the guards posted at advantageous points, rifles in their hands.

Even the children seemed to have stopped their play for the moment as she came down the long flight of stone steps to where the horses were waiting at the foot of them.

In spite of her every resolution to show only complete indifference, she felt the colour rising in her cheeks so that, when El Diablo drew level with her as the steps ended, she said to him,

“Have your people never seen a white woman before?”

“Many,” he answered, “but they are always incurably inquisitive about those who honour me by their presence and especially the one who is unique in that she bears my name.”

It was not his irony that made her angry but the realisation, although perhaps she had been stupid not to guess it before, that she was but one of many women whom El Diablo had brought to the camp.

It came to her with something of a shock and then she remembered those four pairs of moccasins laid out the night she had arrived.

For a moment the humiliation of it made her feel like screaming. Her fingers tightened on her riding whip and it was only with difficulty that she prevented herself from striking him in the face.

With an almost superhuman effort of self-control she said nothing, but the fury vibrating through her must have communicated itself to him, for he looked down at her with a faint smile and repeated,

“It’s still too early for dramatics.”

“One day you will go too far.” She spoke in a low voice between clenched teeth.

He laughed and turned away from her to inspect the horses, which were being held with difficulty by the two Indian grooms. They were both magnificent specimens of horseflesh and, although Skye might hate many things about Mariposa, she could never resist the pleasure that a fine horse gave her.