For a moment, I was frozen. Incredible, right? I mean, it was hot enough in the jungle to melt an iceberg. But where ice crystals failed, the muzzle of a gun seemed to be wonderfully effective. I felt a chill go down my spine - and I was not as grateful for the relief from the heat as I probably should have been.

How did this happen? How did they catch up to us?

The question answered itself almost as soon as it was posed. Of course, they didn’t catch up! They must have been able to decipher enough of the manuscript to figure out it led into these mountains. And then, they had simply moved on the swiftest path, and lain in wait for us. No wonder we had taken longer, with all the roundabout paths we had taken to avoid detection.

‘Well?’ Colonel Silveira raised an eyebrow. ‘Surrender!’

Mr Ambrose? Surrender?

Yes, of course! And elephants could walk on water.

Mr Ambrose, Karim and Chandresh shared a brief look. One of those ‘We’re men! We can do this!’ looks that only the most infuriating, chauvinistic males on this earth have mastered to perfection.

‘Go, Sahib!’ Karim called out, whipping a rifle off his back and aiming in a blink. ‘Get out of the line of fire! We’ll take care of this!’

I wanted to growl: ‘Not bloody likely!’ No way in hell was I leaving someone else to fight my battles for me. But Mr Ambrose apparently had a more practical, less heroic approach to matters. Grabbing me by the arm, he pulled me behind a rock and off up the mountain as the bullets started flying.

‘Let go!’ I demanded, struggling against his hold. ‘They need our help!’

‘They’re doing their job,’ he told me coolly. His grip did not relax, and neither did his stride slow down for an instant. ‘We’re doing ours. Where is the treasure, Mr Linton?’

‘Who cares about the stupid treasure?’

‘I do. And since I pay your wages, mine is the only opinion that matters.’ He spoke perfectly calmly, as if the barrage of gunfire behind us wasn’t hammering on our ears, deafeningly loud. ‘Now, and I am not going to ask this again, where is the treasure?’

Grinding my teeth, I pointed up one of the paths ahead.

‘Adequate.’

He made a slight course correction, and started pulling me up that way.

‘You really are a ruthless son of a bachelor, aren’t you?’ Without the slightest intention on my part, the words came out sounding almost admiring.

‘Eloquently put, Mr Linton. And correctly.’

‘What if Karim dies?’

His grip on my arm twitched. ‘Then I will have difficulties finding an adequate replacement.’

‘Is that all?’

His fingers twitched again. ‘Yes.’

Liar!

But I didn’t say it out loud. If there was one thing I had learned from Mr Ambrose it was that, sometimes, silence was golden. Especially when there were bullets flying and you had to run.

Running wasn’t easy. The path was rocky, every step a dangerous experiment. But no matter how tough it was, Mr Ambrose never let go of my arm. Eventually, the ground became smoother. The path opened up in front of us and, a moment later, we were standing on the edge of a cliff, staring at a gorge spanned only by a single, rickety rope bridge.

We dashed forward, but had hardly reached the bridge when footsteps came thudding up the path behind us. Mr Ambrose whirled around, shoving me behind him with an air of masculine superiority which I deeply resented. I probably would have resented it even more if the people behind us hadn’t had guns.

‘Stay behind me!’ In a flash, Mr Ambrose had his revolver drawn and cocked. His hand was as steady as a rock as he took aim at the opening of the path.

Shrugging, I slid my hand into my pocket and pulled out my own gun. He had said to stay behind him. He had mentioned nothing about not shooting the sons of bitches that were after us!

But when the first figure burst out from between the rocks, it wasn’t Colonel Silveira or one of his men. It was a mountainous man with a big beard and a turban on his head.

Karim looked even grimmer than usual. He was bleeding out of a gash on his forehead, and there was more blood scattered over his clothes which I guessed probably wasn’t his. Mr Ambrose lowered his firearm a few inches as the Mohammedan came hurtling towards us.

‘There are too many, Sahib! They’re coming up other paths to the side! We can’t hold them! Run! Run!’

Mr Ambrose wasn’t one to ever take commands. But I guess he chose to view this as a friendly recommendation, because he turned and, grabbing my hand again, started to dash across the bridge, Karim hot on our heels. We were halfway across when the sneering voice of Colonel Silveira stopped us in our tracks.

‘Halt! Halt or you’ll all die!’

We whirled around, the bridge swaying precariously underneath us. My eyes zeroed in on Colonel Silveira. He was standing at the edge of the bridge, holding something shiny to one of the ropes. I squinted. It was difficult to make out at this distance, but that almost looked like a…

‘Oh crap!’

Beside me, I saw a muscle in Mr Ambrose’s jaw twitch. ‘My sentiments exactly, Mr Linton.’

The colonel was holding a knife.

‘One step farther,’ he shouted, ‘and I’ll cut this rope! All of you will plummet to your death!’

‘Then you’ll never find the treasure!’ Mr Ambrose called back, his voice as cool as a cucumber on ice. ‘Without the manuscript, nobody can!’

Even at this distance, I saw the colonel’s eyes glitter. ‘I’ll find it eventually. There are only so many peaks in these mountains. The only reason you are still alive is that I don’t want to waste time with an unnecessary search.’

His eyes met those of Mr Ambrose. For a few moments the two men just stared at each other, locked in a silent battle that needed no swords or fists or guns.

‘Throw away your weapons,’ the colonel commanded. ‘Come back and surrender, or I will cut through this rope, and you will plunge to your death!’

It all felt a bit like one of the scenes from my favourite adventure novels: the manic villain, the beautiful heroine with her hero sidekick in deadly danger - only in real life, it wasn’t quite as enjoyable.

‘Last warning!’ the colonel shouted. ‘Throw away your weapons, or I will cut through the rope.’

‘I don’t think so.’ With an ice-cold stare at Colonel Silveira, Mr Ambrose raised his gun, pointing it straight at the rope next to him. ‘Leave now, or I will sever the rope!’

‘What?’ the colonel demanded.

‘What?’ I demanded. This hadn’t happened in any of my adventure novels!

Mr Ambrose cocked his head, like a schoolmaster glancing down at an ignorant pupil. ‘Didn’t you know? This bridge is the only way to the treasure. If I destroy it, you will never get to your goal. Leave. Now.’ He rested the muzzle of the revolver against the old, fraying rope. ‘Or I shoot.’

‘If you shoot, you will all die,’ the colonel pointed out with what I thought was admirable logic. I had been about to make that point myself.

‘Maybe.’ Mr Ambrose gave a barely perceptible shrug, glancing down at the chasm beneath us. ‘Maybe not. I have been told my head is quite hard. It might withstand the impact.’

That might actually be true. But that didn’t exactly make me feel more comfortable about what would happen to the rest of us.

‘What are you doing?’ I hissed at him. ‘Haven’t you read any adventure novels? He’s the villain! He’s supposed to be the one threatening to plunge us into a deadly chasm, not you!’

‘Sorry to disappoint you, Mr Linton,’ he said, his tone, or rather the lack of it, making it clear he wasn’t sorry at all. He directed his gaze at the colonel, hard. ‘Well, colonel? I am waiting.’

An immeasurably long second passed. A second in which anything was possible. The colonel’s aristocratic face was completely unreadable. There was no telling what he might have done if not, at that very moment, from the other end of the gorge, a familiar voice had shouted: ‘Everyone drop their weapons, or I will cut the ropes!’

I whirled around, just in time to see Lieutenant de Alvarez step up to the rope on the other side of the bridge, raising his knife. Behind him, his men fanned out, covering the edge of the gorge, a mirror of the Imperialist troops on the other side.

‘Is that who I think it is?’ Mr Ambrose hissed out from between clenched teeth, his gaze still fixed on Colonel Silveira. The two of us were standing back-to-back now, with Karim standing beside us, looking exceedingly unhappy at being unsure whom to shoot first.

‘I’m afraid so,’ I whispered back. ‘What should we do?’

But before either of us could do anything, the decision was taken out of our hands.

‘He lied!’ I heard the triumph in Colonel Silveira’s voice, and, whirling back to face him, saw the gleam in his eyes. ‘There must be another way across, and those rebel rats found it! His threat is empty! Charge, men! Charge!’

The Brazilian troops raised their weapons, bellowed a battle cry and charged onto the bridge. Lieutenant de Alvarez, who was not about to be outdone by an imperialist pig, shouted: ‘Kill the royalist scum! Charge!’

Both groups rushed onto the bridge, bayonets, raised, ready for the kill. They had apparently forgotten that sweet little me and company still stood in the middle of the bridge, right in their way. Or maybe, they just didn’t care.

I looked at Mr Ambrose. Mr Ambrose looked at me. We both looked at the bloodthirsty hordes of charging soldiers. I saw the resolution form in his eyes a moment before his fingers squeezed the trigger. A shot rang out, rope tore, and then we were falling, falling, falling, and I was thinking: Bloody stinking hell! I’ll never read adventure novels again!

*~*~**~*~*

Did you know that Brazil is one of the largest countries on the planet, and most of its provinces are landlocked, far away from large bodies of water? I had never paid much attention to this fact before, but when I came up sputtering on the shore of whatever river I had plunged into, I had reason to be thankful for it. I was sopping wet, and aching and dirty, but - Yay! - I had managed to hit a river and not be smashed to death on the rocks.

No welcome party of Brazilian soldiers awaited me, rifles raised. No rebel placed his knife at my neck, ready to slit my throat at the first sign of trouble. The only Brazilians who greeted me were a few blueish corpses, strewn across the bank.

‘Hello, fellows,’ I rasped. ‘Had a nice swim, did you?’

Unsurprisingly, none of them replied.

‘Well, it was really nice seeing you. But I’m afraid I’ll have to go now. Just in case any of you are still alive, you know.’

I tried to push myself up - and promptly landed on my face. If I had expected someone to rush to my aid, I was sorely disappointed. No Mr Ambrose came dashing towards me, eager to help me up. Ha! Who needed him anyway? I was not a helpless damsel in some cheap novel! I was a strong woman and could stand on my own two feet. At least after a couple of tries.

When I finally managed to stagger to my feet, every bone in my body was aching from the effort. I hobbled along the bank in a meandering path, avoiding dead Brazilians left and right. A bit farther downstream, I came upon Mr Ambrose, who was glaring at a few mud stains on his ten-year-old mint-condition tailcoat, and Karim, who was wringing water out of his beard.

‘Hello there,’ I croaked.

Mr Ambrose looked up. ‘Ah. You are alive.’

‘Don’t overdo it with the joyous shouts of welcome and happy dancing. I know you’re delighted to see me.’

‘Indeed I am. You have the manuscript.’

‘Ah, yes. A woman’s greatest worth lies not in her looks, but in the contents of her pockets.’ Reaching into my backpack, which I had somehow managed to cling onto, I pulled out the sodden bundle of pages. Incredibly, most were still legible. ‘I am happy to be of service.’

Mr Ambrose gave me a curt nod. Karim gave me a look which said clearly that he could have done without the manuscript, if he could have got rid of me.

Ah, friends! Aren’t they wonderful?

‘We will move into the jungle and rest,’ Mr Ambrose ordered. ‘It’s almost sunset, and we can’t climb up into the mountains at night.’

‘Not to mention the fact that I’m wet as a drowned weasel and aching all over,’ I pointed out, politely. ‘Thanks to the brilliant plan of a certain someone, which got us all dunked into the river.’ He ignored me.

‘Let’s go. We haven’t got all day.’

Turning, he started to walk away - but I made a grab for his arm.

‘You don’t think you’re going to get off as easily as that, do you?’ I hissed into his ear. ‘Shooting through the rope of the bridge while we were standing on it? What kind of insane idea is that! Did you lose your mind?’

He cocked his head, coolly. ‘Do my ears deceive me, or do I detect a certain amount of criticism in your voice, Mr Linton?’

‘You bet you do! We could have been killed!’

‘But we were not.’

‘Pure luck!’

‘I prefer to call it a calculated risk.’

‘A calculated risk, eh?’ My grip tightening, I stepped closer. My eyes burned into him, screaming the words that my lips were too afraid to say: You could have died! I could have lost you! ‘Well, tonight, when the two of us are alone, I’m going to show you exactly what I think of your calculated risks!’

And I did show him. All night long. The problem was: he didn’t seem properly chastened. Not at all. On the contrary, he only wanted more.

*~*~**~*~*

When I opened my eyes next morning, a light mist lay over the jungle and the mountains. I yawned, dragging in big mouthfuls of the cool air streaming down from the peaks.

‘What time is it?’

‘Time to go mountain climbing,’ Mr Ambrose’s voice came from above me. My clothes landed in front of me with a thud. ‘Get dressed. Up in the mountains, you’ll need all the warmth you can get.’

‘Mountains?’ I blinked up at him groggily. ‘You honestly mean for us to go climbing up into the mountains this early in the morning? My bones feel like lead and I’m sore all over!’

‘Really?’ His face remained perfectly expressionless. ‘I feel perfectly fine. Whatever can you have been up to last night?’

I gave him a glare, which he ignored.

Bloody hell! Oh, well. If he could pretend he was perfectly fit after last night’s shenanigans, then so could I! Groaning, I pushed myself onto my feet and slipped into my clothes. They felt alien on my skin after so much time spent walking around half-naked. I could only hope that once we were back home again, I would get used to them quickly, and not accidentally come down to breakfast one morning dressed only in my drawers.

Wait a minute…half-naked. That reminded me of something. And no, I wasn’t thinking about Mr Ambrose.

‘What about the Indians?’ I demanded. ‘What happened to them?’

‘They slipped away once it became clear that the Brazilians were too many to handle,’ Karim grunted. ‘I cannot blame them, really. They only signed on to be guides, not bodyguards.’

Very true. I wasn’t one for praying, usually, especially not to a patriarchal God who kicked humans out of paradise because a woman wanted to satisfy her perfectly natural curiosity, but I sent up a quick prayer to whatever heathen gods the natives prayed to, asking them to guide Amana and all the others safely back to their village. These people had truly been my guides, and not just through the jungle of South America.

‘Let’s go!’

Mr Ambrose’s command pulled me from my reverie. I looked up, just in time to catch the end of the rope he threw at me.

‘What am I supposed to do with that?’

‘It’s a safety measure. Tie it around your waist - if it’s long enough.’

My eyes narrowed. ‘Thanks so much for the compliment.’

‘You’re welcome. Some of those mountain paths look pretty steep to me. If one of us falls, hopefully the other two will be able to catch him-’ he glanced at me and reluctantly added, ‘or her.’

Well, well, well. Will you look at that? Mr Rikkard Ambrose has learned a new pronoun. So miracles do happen, after all.

Smiling, I tied the rope around myself.

‘Enough chit-chat. It’s time we got moving.’ And he marched off towards the nearest mountain.

‘What about breakfast?’ I demanded.

‘There’s a piece of bread in your knapsack. We have no time to waste.’

‘But- ah!’

Feeling a sudden tug on the rope around my waist, I stumbled forward.

‘No buts, Mr Linton!’

Another tug, and I staggered forward again.

Safety measure my foot! This was why he had done it! So he could tug me around on a leash, like a little obedient puppy! And the worst thing was: I couldn’t even find reasonable grounds for complaining! Gah!