Then Mary stepped to the bars. ‘Richard?’ she called. ‘Richard!’
There was a momentary pause. ‘Lass?’ The answer came at last.
Kunwar Singh’s nervousness increased. There were a dozen soldiers on the inner wall immediately above him, and a score of other people were peering dirough windows or above stable doors. No one was yet taking a suspicious interest in his party, but it seemed likely that someone of true authority would soon pass by the dungeons. ‘We should leave,’ he hissed to Mary.
‘We can’t get inside!’ Mary called to Sharpe.
‘Have you got a gun, lass?’ Sharpe called back. Mary could not see him, for the outer cage was far enough back from the dungeon steps to hide the cells.
‘Yes.’
‘Chuck it down here, lass. Chuck it as close to the bottom of the steps as you can. Make sure the bugger’s not cocked.’
Kunwar Singh rattled the gate again. The sound of the clangorous iron prompted a growl from the pit and a moment later the tiger loped up the steps, stared blank-eyed at Kunwar Singh, then turned and went back to the remnants of a half-carcass of goat. ‘We can’t wait!’ Kunwar Singh insisted to Mary.
‘Throw us a gun, love!’ Sharpe shouted.
Mary groped inside the folds of her sari to find the ivory-inlaid pistol that Appah Rao had given to her. She pushed it through the bars and then, very nervously, she tried to
gauge how much effort would be needed to toss the gun into the pit, but not too far from the bottom of the steps. Kunwar Singh hissed at her, but made no move to stop her.
‘Here, Richard!’ she called, and she tossed the gun underarm. It was a clumsy throw, and the pistol fell short of the steps, but its momentum carried it over the edge and Mary heard the gun clattering down the stone stairs.
Sharpe cursed, for the pistol had lodged three steps up. ‘Have you got another one?’ he shouted.
‘Give me your pistol,’ Mary said to Kunwar Singh.
‘No! We can’t get in.’ Kunwar Singh was close to panic now and his six men had been infected by his fear. ‘We can’t help them,’ he insisted.
‘Mary!’ Sharpe called.
‘I’m sorry, Richard.’
‘Not to worry, lass,’ Sharpe said, staring at the pistol. He did not doubt he could pick the lock open, but could he reach the gun before the tiger reached him? And even if he did, would one small pistol ball stop eight feet of hungry tiger. ‘Jesus Christ!’ he swore.
‘Sharpe!’ McCandless chided him.
‘I was praying, sir. Because this is a right bugger-up, sir, a right bugger-up.’ Sharpe took out the picklock and unfolded one of the shafts. He put his hands through the bars and grabbed hold of the padlock, then explored the big keyhole with the hooked shaft. It was a crude lock that ought to be easy to open, but the mechanism was not properly oiled and Sharpe feared that the picklock might snap rather than move the levers aside. Lawford and McCandless watched him, while from across the corridor Hakeswill stared with huge blue eyes.
‘Go on, boy, good boy,’ Hakeswill said. ‘Get us out of here, boy.’
‘Shut your ugly face, Obadiah,’ Sharpe muttered. He had moved one lever, now only the second remained, but it was much staffer than the first. Sweat was pouring down Sharpe’s
face. He was working half blind, unable to pull the padlock to an angle where he could see the keyhole. The tiger had paused in its eating to watch him, intrigued by the hands protruding through the bars. Sharpe manoeuvred the picklock, felt the hook lodge against the lever and gently pressed. He pressed harder, and suddenly the hook scraped off the lever’s edge and Sharpe swore.
And just as he swore the tiger twisted and sprang. It attacked with appalling speed, a sudden unleashing of coiled muscles that ended with a swipe of one unsheathed paw as it tried to hook a claw into the protruding hands. Sharpe recoiled, dropping the picklock, and cursing as the tiger’s slash missed him by inches. ‘Bastard,’ he swore at the beast, then he stooped and reached through the bars for the fallen picklock that lay a foot away. He moved fast, but the tiger was faster, and this time Sharpe got a deep scratch on the back of his hand.