farthings by carrying pots of porter to spectators who were
alternatively morose or maniacally excited.
He lay for a long time. He could hear the voices, even sometimes a
burst of laughter. He remembered the fat man in Vinegar Street, whose
trade, rat-catching, took him to the great houses in west London that
he reconnoitred for his thieving friends.
“You’d make a good snaffler, Dicky,” he’d say to Sharpe, then he would
clutch Sharpe’s arm and point to the cockerels waiting to fight.
“Which one’ll win, lad, which one?”
And Sharpe would make a haphazard choice and, as often as not, the bird
did win.
“He’s a lucky boy,” the rat-catcher would boast to his friends as he
tossed Sharpe a farthing.
“Nipper’s got the luck of the devil!”
But not tonight, Sharpe thought, and suddenly the rug was seized,
unwound, and Sharpe was spilt naked onto hard stones. A cheer greeted
his appearance. Light flared in Sharpe’s eyes, dazzling him, but after
a while he saw he was in a great stone courtyard lit by the flames of
torches mounted on pillars that surrounded the yard. Two white-robed
men seized him, dragged him upright and pushed him onto a stone bench
where, to his surprise, his hands and feet were loosed and the gag
taken from his mouth. He sat flexing his fingers and gasping deep
breaths of humid air. He could see no sign of Hakeswill.
He could see now that he was in a temple. A kind of cloister ran
around the courtyard and, because the cloister was raised three or four
feet, it made the stone-paved floor into a natural arena. He had not
been so wrong about the cock-fighting pit, though Vinegar Street had
never aspired to ornately carved stone arches smothered with writhing
gods and snarling beasts. The raised cloister was packed with men who
were in obvious good humour. There were hundreds of them, all
anticipating a night’s rare entertainment. Sharpe touched his swollen
lip and winced at the pain. He was thirsty, and with every deep breath
his bruised or broken ribs hurt. There was a swelling on his forehead
that was thick with dried blood. He looked about the crowd, seeking
one friendly face and finding none. He just saw Indian peasants with
dark eyes that reflected the flame light. They must have come from
every village within ten miles to witness whatever was about to
happen.
In the centre of the courtyard was a small stone building,
fantastically carved with elephants and dancing girls, and crowned by a
stepped tower that had been sculpted with yet more gods and animals
painted red, yellow, green and black. The crowd’s noise subsided as a
man showed at the doorway of the small shrine and raised his arms as a
signal for silence. Sharpe recognized the man. He was the tall, thin,
limping man in the green and black striped robe who had pleaded with
Torrance for Naig’s life, and behind him came a pair ofjettis. So that
was the sum of it. Revenge for Naig, and Sharpe realized that
Hakeswill had never intended to kill him, only deliver him to these
men.
A murmur ran through the spectators as they admired the jet tis Vast
brutes, they were, who dedicated their extraordinary strength to some
strange Indian god. Although Sharpe had met jet tis before and had
killed some in Seringapatam, he did not fancy his chances against these
two bearded brutes. He was too weak, too thirsty, too bruised, too
hurt, while these two fanatics were tall and hugely muscled. Their
bronze skin had been oiled so that it gleamed in the flame light. Their
long hair was coiled about their skulls, and one had red lines painted
on his face, while the other, who was slightly shorter, carried a long
spear. Each man wore a loincloth and nothing else. They glanced at
Sharpe, then the taller man prostrated himself before a small shrine.
A dozen guards came from the courtyard’s rear and lined its edge.
They carried muskets tipped with bayonets.
The tall man in the striped robe clapped his hands to silence the
crowd’s last murmurs. It took a while, for still more spectators were