Naig shrugged.
“They must have been captured from the supply convoys. Please, sahib,
take them. I want no trouble. How was I to know they were stolen?” He
turned and pleaded again with the Company cavalry Captain who was a
tall, lean man with a long face, but the cavalryman turned and walked a
short distance away. A crowd had collected now and watched the drama
silently, and Sharpe, looking along their faces, suspected there was
not much sympathy for Naig. Nor, Sharpe thought, was there much hope
for the fat man. Naig had been playing a dangerous game, but with such
utter confidence that he had not even bothered to conceal the stolen
supplies. At the very least he could have thrown away the government
issue boxes and tried to file the lock markings off the muskets, but
Naig must have believed he had powerful friends who would protect him.
The cavalryman seemed to be one of those friends, for Naig had followed
him and was hissing in his ear, but the cavalryman merely pushed the
Indian away, then turned to Sharpe.
“Hang him,” he said curtly.
“Hang him?” Sharpe asked in puzzlement.
“It’s the penalty for theft, ain’t it?” the cavalryman insisted.
Sharpe looked to the Scottish Captain, who nodded uncertainly.
“That’s what the General said,” the Scotsman confirmed.
“I’d like to know how he got the supplies, sir,” Sharpe said.
“You’ll give the fat bastard time to concoct a story?” the cavalryman
demanded. He had an arrogance that annoyed Sharpe, but everything
about the cavalryman irritated Sharpe. The man was a dandy. He wore
tall, spurred boots that sheathed his calves and knees in soft,
polished leather. His white breeches were skin tight, his waistcoat
had gold buttons, while his red tail coat was clean, uncreased and
edged with gold braid. He wore a frilled stock, a red silk sash was
draped across his right shoulder and secured at his left hip by a knot
of golden braid, his sabre was scabbarded in red leather, while his
cocked hat was plumed with a lavishly curled feather that had been dyed
pale green. The clothes had cost a fortune, and clearly his servants
must spend hours on keeping their master so beautifully dressed. He
looked askance at Sharpe, a slight wrinkle of his nostrils suggesting
that he found Sharpe’s appearance distressing. The cavalryman’s face
suggested he was a clever man, but also that he despised those who were
less clever than himself.
“I don’t suppose Sir Arthur will be vastly pleased when he hears that
you let the fellow live, Ensign,” he said acidly.
“Swift and certain justice, ain’t that the penalty for theft? Hang the
fat beast.”
“That is what the standing orders say,” the Scotch Brigade Captain
agreed, ‘but does it apply to civilians?”
“He should have a trial!” Sharpe protested, not because he was so
committed to Naig’s right to a hearing, but because he feared the whole
episode was getting out of hand. He had thought to find the supplies,
maybe have a mill with Naig’s guards, but no one was supposed to die.
Naig deserved a good kicking, but death?
“Standing orders apply to anyone within the picquet lines,” the cavalry
Captain averred confidently.
“So for God’s sake get on with it!
Dangle the bastard!” He was sweating, and Sharpe sensed that the
elegant cavalryman was not quite so confident as he appeared.
“Bugger a trial,” Sergeant Lockhart said happily.
“I’ll hang the bastard.”
He snapped at his troopers to fetch a nearby ox cart. Naig had tried
to retreat to the protection of his guards, but the cavalry Captain had
drawn a pistol that he now held close to Naig’s head as the grinning
troopers trundled the empty ox cart into the open space in front of the
pilfered supplies.
Sharpe crossed to the tall cavalryman.
“Shouldn’t we talk to him, sir?”
“My dear fellow, have you ever tried to get the truth out of an
Indian?”
the Captain asked.
“They swear by a thousand gaudy gods that they’ll tell the truth, then
lie like a rug! Be quiet!” Naig had begun to protest and the
cavalryman rammed the pistol into the Indian’s mouth, breaking a tooth