She had not believed that time could pass so slowly. How often had she wanted to be alone, how often had she sought solitude! Yet now she had it she felt the hours dragging wearily and she was, if she was frank, exceedingly bored with her own company.

Enforced solitude was not the same when one had planned it oneself and, although she always dreaded El Diablo’s return, she was beginning to feel that it was preferable to the boredom of being imprisoned with no one to talk to except Neengai.

She had not seen El Diablo since the night he had beaten her.

Mentally as well as physically exhausted, Skye had made no effort to get up the next morning. Her body ached and worse still was the suffering inflicted on her pride.

She lay in bed, drinking the maté Neengai had brought her, but refusing all food until late in the afternoon she learnt from the Indian girl that El Diablo had gone off on a hunt for the man-eating jaguar.

When she realised that he would not be back that evening, Skye fell into a deep dreamless sleep and awoke to find that it was morning.

With the elasticity of youth the dark despair of the day before was forgotten. Her shoulders were still very sore and a hasty movement made her wince with pain, but the colour had come back into her face and the dullness had gone from her eyes.

Even if she had been tortured and beaten, she was still alive and the sun was still shining. There was always the chance that she might get away another time.

She dressed in her riding clothes, although she realised that, unless El Diablo returned, she would be kept a close prisoner inside the caves. There were two guards outside and, to Skye’s astonishment, a door had been placed in the opening, which until now had been veiled by a curtain of hide.

There were bolts inside and out made of iron, the handles ornamented with a curious little pattern, which told her that they had been fashioned by the Indians. Always the craftsmen in them came out in whatever they did.

To Skye the door at the mouth of the cave was in some ways a greater menace to her hopes of freedom than anything else.

She remembered now that, as she had lain in a kind of half-unconscious stupor the day before, she had heard the sound of hammering. It had only seemed part and parcel of the noise that always came flooding in through the windows from the camp below.

Now she realised that El Diablo was taking no chances. Two guards outside, a bolted door, two men to serve her meals who came in together and left together and finally Neengai to sleep across the threshold of her bedroom.

“You will get cold lying there,” Skye said sharply when she found the Indian girl. “Go to your own quarters.”