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my right hand. Now I was calm. I didn’t scream or tremble.

Maybe I shouldn’t try it. I hesitated. It might just make him mad, and then he might attack me. But then I pushed down on the spray button and lit the lighter.

It worked. The spray caught fire and spewed an enormous blaze. I could smell the scorched hair on my left hand, and I was completely blinded. I held it for a few minutes, until the spray ran out and the flame of the lighter grew weaker. My makeshift flamethrower was exhausted.

My sight returned gradually, in concentric circles of fading darkness, and finally I could see the beam of the flashlight. The jaguar was gone. I shined the light around in fear, right and left, in back of me. The jaguar had vanished. I thought I could hear receding footsteps. Had it worked? Had I scared it off? I felt neither joy nor relief. I kept the flashlight on for a while but was afraid of running it down and turned it off.

I sat inside the mosquito net, wide awake, my heart jumping wildly at every sound until the merciful morning light. The sunlight gave me a tremendous sense of security, as if no danger could befall me. I packed up my gear while I murmured a hasty prayer of thanks and got out of there as fast as I could.

Now that the sun was shining, I remembered exactly in which direction the river should be and walked on rapidly. ‘Straight and to the left, straight