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room
    might have thrown her, like an
    unexpected laugh at a serious moment in
    a play.
    The air was so thick with cigar smoke
    that she could hardly see across the
    room for the first moment or two, and the
    acrid fumes caught at her throat. There
    were six of them altogether, all men
    sitting round a table covered in a green
    cloth. There were bottles and glasses,
    cards and a scatter of money, and she
    felt bitterness rise in her throat as she
    surveyed them. So this was the pressing
    engagement which the hotel-keeper did
    not want to disturb.
    Her gaze flickered round the table. She
    could read amazement on their faces,
    and
    the
    beginnings
    of
    a
    lewd
    appreciation in some of their smiles.
    And on one face—contempt. Her eyes
    registered this and passed on, and almost
    in spite of herself, looked back as though
    she had not believed what she saw the
    first time.
    He was younger than his companions—
    the mid-thirties at the very most—dark
    as they all were, with raven black hair
    springing back from a peak on his
    forehead. A thin face, as fierce and
    arrogant as a hawk's, its harshness
    shockingly emphasised by the black
    patch he wore where his left eye should
    have been.
    The man nearest the door pushed back
    his chair and stood up, smiling
    ingratiatingly at. her. 'Come in, chica.
    You want to take a hand with us?' He
    spoke with a strong North America
    accent. The man next to him said
    something in Spanish, and a ribald roar
    of laughter went round the table.
    But the man with the eye-patch didn't
    join in the general amusement. Rachel
    found her eyes being drawn unwillingly
    back to him yet. again. He was dressed
    from head to foot in black, his shirt
    unbuttoned
    to
    halfway
    down
    his
    muscular chest. He leaned back in his
    chair,
    one
    booted
    leg
    swinging
    carelessly over its low wooden arm, but
    it seemed to Rachel that he was about as
    relaxed as a curled spring, or a snake
    rearing back to strike.
    Isabel's voice sounded in her brain:
    ' Bandidos and other evil men.'
    The others seemed harmless enough—
    lecherous, perhaps, but harmless, but the
    man with the eye-patch was a very
    different proposition. She could believe
    that he was a bandit. She could see him
    in black velvet centuries before, a
    bloodstained sword in his hand as he cut
    down the defenceless Indians who stood
    between him and his dream of El
    Dorado. She could see him on the deck
    of some pirate ship, his face bleak and
    saturnine under that eye-patch as his
    ship's cannon raked the forts at
    Cartagena and Maracaibo.
    And she could see him on the other side
    of this table looking at her as if she was
    dirt.
    'Have a drink, chica.' The man who had
    got to his feet was leering at her, pushing
    a tumbler into her hand. The spirit it
    contained smelled sharp and raw, and
    her nose wrinkled in distaste, but she
    smiled politely as she refused. After all,
    he might turn out to be this Vitas de
    Mendoza, and she didn't want to offend
    him.
    She smiled again, but this time there was
    a tinge of frost with it, setting them all at
    a distance. All except the man opposite,
    of course, who had already distanced
    himself, and him she would just have to
    ignore. She wondered what he was
    doing here. The others were obviously
    local
    businessmen
    enjoying
    the
    relaxation of a weekly card game. But
    who was he? A professional gambler,
    perhaps, if they had such things in
    Colombia. Certainly he seemed to have
    a larger pile of money lying in front of
    him than any of the others—ill-gotten
    gains, she thought, and caught at herself.
    This was ridiculous. She was standing
    here being fanciful and wasting precious
    time.
    She said quietly but making sure her
    voice carried, 'I'm here to see Vitas de
    Mendoza, and I'd like to speak to him
    privately.'
    She waited for one of the bronzed
    perspiring men around the table to step
    forward and identify himself, but no one
    moved, and a cold sick feeling of
    apprehension began to swell and grow
    inside