and gashing Naig’s gum.
“Another damned word, Naig, and I’ll castrate you before I hang you.”
The cavalryman glanced at Sharpe, who was frowning.
“Are you squeamish, Ensign?”
“Don’t seem right, sir. I mean I agree he deserves to be hung, but
shouldn’t we talk to him first?”
“If you like conversation so much,” the cavalryman drawled, ‘institute
a Philosophical Society. Then you can enjoy all the hot air you
like.
Sergeant?” This last was to Lockhart. Take the bastard off my hands,
will you?”
“Pleasure, sir.” Lockhart seized Naig and shoved him towards the
cart.
One of the cavalry troopers had cut a length of guy rope from the burnt
remnants of the tent and he now tied one end to the tip of the single
shaft that protruded from the front of the ox cart. He made a loop in
the rope’s end.
Naig screamed and tried to pull away. Some of his guards started
forward, but then a hard voice ordered them back and Sharpe turned to
see that a tall, thin Indian in a black and green striped robe had come
from the larger tent. The newcomer, who looked to be in his forties,
walked with a limp. He crossed to the cavalry Captain and spoke
quietly, and Sharpe saw the cavalryman shake his head vehemently, then
shrug as if to suggest that he was powerless. Then the Captain
gestured to Sharpe and the tall Indian gave the Ensign a look of such
malevolence that Sharpe instinctively put his hand on his sabre’s
hilt.
Lockhart had pulled the noose over Naig’s head.
“Are you sure, sir?” he asked the cavalry Captain.
“Of course I’m sure, Sergeant,” the cavalryman said angrily.
“Just get on with it.”
“Sir?” Sharpe appealed to the Scots Captain, who frowned uncertainly,
then turned and walked away as though he wanted nothing more to do with
the affair. The tall Indian in the striped robe spat into the dust,
then limped back to the tent.
Lockhart ordered his troopers to the back of the cart. Naig was
attempting to pull the noose free of his neck, but Lockhart slapped his
hands down.
“Now, boys!” he shouted.
The troopers reached up and hauled down on the backboard so that the
cart tipped like a seesaw on its single axle and, as the troopers
pulled down, so the shaft rose into the air. The rope stretched and
tightened.
Naig screamed, then the cavalryman jumped up to sit on the cart’s back
and the shaft jerked higher still and the scream was abruptly choked
off.
Naig was dangling now, his feet kicking wildly under the lavishly
embroidered robe. None of the crowd moved, none protested.
Naig’s face was bulging and his hands were scrabbling uselessly at the
noose which was tight about his neck. The cavalry officer watched with
a small smile.
“A pity,” he said in his elegant voice.
“The wretched man ran the best brothel I ever found.”
“We’re not killing his girls, sir,” Sharpe said.
“That’s true, Ensign, but will their next owner treat them as well?”
The cavalryman turned to the big tent’s entrance and took off his
plumed hat to salute a group of said-clad girls who now watched
wideeyed as their employer did the gallows dance.
“I saw Nancy Merrick hang in Madras,” the cavalryman said, ‘and she did
the jig for thirty seven minutes! Thirty-seven! I’d wagered on
sixteen, so lost rather a lot of tin. Don’t think I can watch Naig
dance for half an hour. It’s too damned hot. Sergeant? Help his soul
to perdition, will you?”
Lockhart crouched beneath the dying man and caught hold of his heels.
Then he tugged down hard, swearing when Naig pissed on him.
He tugged again, and at last the body went still.
“Do you see what happens when you steal from us?” the cavalry Captain
shouted at the crowd, then repeated the words in an Indian language.
“If you steal from us, you will die!” Again he translated his words,
then gave Sharpe a crooked grin.
“But only, of course, if you’re stupid enough to be caught, and I
didn’t think Naig was stupid at all. Rather the reverse. Just how did