“Never mind, you would not understand,” Skye said and then added, “Haven’t you ever wanted to be a man rather than a woman?”

“Me wish to be a man?” Neengai asked, touching her brown breast to emphasise the point.

“Yes, a man,” Skye repeated.

Neengai gave a little gurgling laugh.

“Oh, no, señora. I happy to be woman. One day I wife and mother, have babies, many, many babies.”

There was a softness in her eyes and a tenderness about her lips.

Skye turned away from her. How could she make anyone as stupid as this understand what she felt? ‘Many, many babies’, that was the extent of Neengai’s ambition. She laid her head against the cool bar of the window. There were babies in the camp below, playing outside in the dust or being carried Indian-fashion on their mothers’ backs.

Outside one tent an Indian girl with long hair that rippled over her shoulders was feeding a child, her head bent over it in the protective gesture of universal motherhood.

Skye watched her and suddenly the idea came to her that perhaps after all there were compensations in being a woman.

For a man there could never be that ultimate moment of possession, of knowing that the flesh of one’s flesh lay beneath one’s heart.

And then there came to her the thought that perhaps one day she might bear a child. She had thought of it before. What girl hadn’t? But always she had avoided thinking of the man who must father it – her husband.

She had vowed never to marry but now, with what was almost a sob, she remembered she was married, a wife in name if not in fact. The wife of El Diablo!

Because she was afraid of her own thoughts, Skye ran from the window to throw herself down on the couch, saying as she did so,

“Talk to me, Neengai. Tell me about yourself, tell me about your tribe! What happened to your mother? Tell me anything, but only talk, quickly – quickly!”

Obediently Neengai tried to do as she was told, breaking often into her own language, stumbling over words, finding it impossible to express herself and yet managing to keep Skye’s interest concentrated so that another hour of the afternoon passed by.

The sun was sinking when they heard a cheer break out, followed by another and yet another.

Both Skye and Neengai hurried to the window, to see a dozen men come riding into the camp, El Diablo at their head.

There was no need to wonder if they had been successful, a jaguar skin was flung over the back of one of the horses and the gaucho riding it was grinning from ear to ear.

There was a shrill cry of excitement as everyone came running from the huts, tents and the terraces.

“El Cabeza is back.” Neengai’s eyes were shining with excitement.

“Why not go and meet him?” Skye suggested.