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quickly, swinging her legs off the bed without thinking. To her relief she saw that she was still wearing her bra and pants, but then the room started spinning round again and she fell back on the pillow with a little groan of frustration.
    The woman clucked like a worried hen. ‘There, there, you are still very weak. Do not worry, I will get Vasco to carry you. It is why I brought him. Vasco is my nephew. I am Benita.’
    Dr Porva came into the room behind her, full of apologies.
    ‘I am so sorry, I cannot keep you here. I was on the telephone to Benita because she is a good woman and will look after you.’ He came and put a hand on her forehead, then took her pulse, and the twinkle was back in his eyes. ‘I must take this first, young lady, before you see Vasco. He is a very handsome boy, and I have told him you are a beautiful girl. He cannot wait to see you.’
    ‘We will put these on,’ said Benita. She was holding Minella’s jeans and sweat-shirt which had been rough-dried. They were hard and uncomfortable, but she felt happier with them on, especially when Benita signalled for her nephew to come in.
    The tiny room was overcrowded, yet she could breathe more easily than when Sam had been standing there. His aversion had created an atmosphere and his size had been intimidating. But Vasco was different. Minella had a knack of making good spot judgments, and decided at once that he would be a friend she could trust. He looked to be about her own age and had real Latin charm; black hair, a lithe, sinewy body, and shining black eyes which lighted on her with equal appreciation.
    ‘The doctor, he was right,’ said Vasco, smiling warmly.
    ‘Hello,’ said Minella.
    Dr Porva was still full of apologies while he made sure the blanket was securely wrapped round her.
    ‘I wish I could take you to Benita’s myself, but already I am late with my visits, so I have a taxi waiting. Vasco will take you out to it.’
    ‘But I can walk,’ Minella protested.
    ‘And disappoint him? No, it is better not.’
    She held out her hands to the doctor and thanked him for all he had done, then once again she was picked up in masculine arms, only this time it was not the same. Vasco was not so tall or so broad as Sam, and he was clumsy.
    ‘Be careful with her,’ Benita warned, as he carried her out into the sunshine.
    ‘I shall see you again,’ said Henrique Porva, and the words were comforting, because Minella had a momentary feeling of unease once she left the security of the four walls. She had recollections of bandits on foreign islands who abducted people and held them to ransom. Not that it would be worth the trouble where she was concerned, but she was at their mercy and she wished, illogically, that the Englishman hadn’t disappeared quite so quickly.
    She looked around and saw that she was in a fishing village where low stone walls climbed gradually upwards from a bay, and square cottages were only a stone’s throw from the whaleboats pulled up on the beach. There was an air of tranquillity about the place, as if time stood still.
    The taxi was an old, bulbous Chevrolet. Vasco deposited her on the back seat while the driver held open the door, and they talked together in their peculiar Portuguese which could almost have been mistaken for French. She smiled, knowing they were talking about her, and when Benita settled her bulk in the seat beside her, giving the car a decided tilt to one side, it was hard to keep a straight face.
    The taxi revved and coughed, and started an uncomfortable journey out of the village along a lonely road where other motor transport seemed to be nonexistent. But the jolting was soon forgotten. Minella had never seen such colourful landscape, or realised there were so many shades of green, and she gazed out of the window in wonder. A patchwork of fields, richly green and yellow and blue, was stitched together with low rocky walls, and meadows were edged unbelievably with beautiful blue