The Indian girl needed no second bidding. She pulled open the heavy door and sped from it, leaving it ajar, while Skye crossed the room to sit on the couch, determined that he should not think she was interested in his return.

She felt an almost suffocating sense of embarrassment now that the moment of meeting was near – yet her own pride prevented her from retiring into the bedroom.

She was not afraid, she told herself, it was only that it was hard to feel calm and steady with her heart fluttering like a captive butterfly within her breast and the sudden difficulty she had in swallowing.

He came striding into the room. There was no mistaking the triumph in his face. He was a man elated, thrilled with the spoils of the chase.

He walked across the room to Skye and lifting her to her feet, kissed her affectionately and without passion as a man might kiss his wife on his return home from the office.

“We got the jaguar,” he said simply.

That is good,” Skye answered.

He looked down at her and smiled.

“You are safe – and well?”

There was just a little pause before the last words and, despising herself because she could not be calm in his presence, Skye forced herself to answer coldly,

“I am here, as you see.”

His eyes flickered over her, at the exciting redness of her lips, at the golden curls soft against the fairness of her skin.

He stood for a moment just looking and then abruptly he turned away.

“I must go and have a shower,” he said. “There will be a fiesta tonight, so put on one of your prettiest dresses.”

He had gone into his room before she could answer or ask him when the fiesta would be, but when Neengai came hurrying back, full of excitement and descriptions of the jaguar, Skye questioned her.

“What will the fiesta be like?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Neengai answered, “but everyone very excited. Men go out and kill young bullock. El Cabeza give permission.”

That was all Skye could learn and, although she told herself that she was dreading the evening because she must spend it in El Diablo’s company, she was nevertheless curious. Her grandmother had spoken to her of fiestas in Mariposa, but they had mostly been of a religious nature.

This was a camp celebration and she wondered what sort of entertainment would be provided. This was the sort of event that she had come to Mariposa to see, she thought to herself, and if only the circumstances under which it was taking place were different, how interested she would be!

El Diablo was back! She felt herself tremble at the thought of it, yet she told herself that to show weakness or fear of him was to surrender herself even further than she had done already to his tyranny.