his last chance. One good kick, and hope that Prithviraj doubled over.
Either that or run onto the spear and hope the blade killed him
quickly.
“Sahib!” the voice hissed again. Prithviraj was turning sideways so
that he would not expose his groin to Sharpe, then he beckoned for the
other jetti to close in on the Englishman and drive him out from the
wall with his spear.
“You bugger!” the voice said impatiently.
Sharpe turned to see that Ahmed was on hands and knees among the legs
of the spectators, and what was more the child was pushing forward the
hilt of the tulwar he had captured at Deogaum. Sharpe leaned on the
cloister edge and the crowd, seeing him rest against the stone,
believed he had given up. Some groaned for they had been anticipating
more of a fight, but most of the watching men just jeered at him for
being a weakling.
Sharpe winked at Ahmed, then reached for the tulwar. He seized the
handle, pushed away from the stone and turned, dragging the blade from
the scabbard that was still in Ahmed’s grasp. He turned fast as a
striking snake, the curved steel silver-red in the courtyard’s flame
light, and the jet tis thinking he was a beaten man, were not prepared.
The man with the spear was closest, and the curved blade slashed across
his face, springing blood, and he instinctively clutched his eyes and
let the spear drop. Sharpe moved to the right, scooped up the fallen
spear, and Prithviraj at last looked worried.
The guards raised their muskets. Sharpe heard the clicks as the dog
heads were hauled back. So let them shoot him, he thought, for that
was a quicker death than being dismembered and gelded by a naked giant.
Jama was standing, one hand in the air, reluctant to let his guards
shoot Sharpe before he had suffered pain. The wounded jetti was on his
knees, his hands clutched to his face which was streaming blood.
Then a musket fired, its sound unnaturally loud in the confines of the
courtyard’s carved walls. One of the guards flinched as the musket
ball whipped past his head to chip a flake of stone from one of the
decorated arches. Then a voice shouted from the cloister by the temple
entrance.
The man spoke in an Indian language, and he spoke to Jama who was
staring appalled as a group of armed men pushed their way to the very
front of the crowd.
It was Syud Sevajee who had fired, and who had spoken to Jama, and who
now grinned down at Sharpe.
“I’ve told him it must be a fair fight, Ensign.”
“Me against him?” Sharpe jerked his chin at Prithviraj.
“We came for entertainment,” Syud Sevajee said, ‘the least you can do
is provide us with some.”
“Why don’t you just shoot the bugger and have done with it?”
Sevajee smiled.
“This crowd will accept the result of a fair fight, Ensign. They might
not like it if I simply rescue you. Besides, you don’t want to be in
my debt, do you?”
“I’m in your debt already,” Sharpe said, ‘up to my bloody eyeballs.” He
turned and looked at Prithviraj who was waiting for a sign from Jama.
“Hey! Goliath!” Sharpe shouted.
“Here!” He threw the tulwar at the man, keeping the spear.
“You want a fair fight? So you’ve got a weapon now.”
The pain seemed to have vanished and even the thirst had gone away.
It was like that moment at Assaye when he had been surrounded by
enemies, and suddenly the world had seemed a calm, clear-cut place full
of delicious opportunity. He had a chance now. He had more than a
chance, he was going to put the big bastard down. It was a fair fight,
and Sharpe had grown up fighting. He had been bred to it from the
gutter, driven to it by poverty and inured to it by desperation. He
was nothing if he was not a fighter, and now the crowd would get the
bloody sport they wanted. He hefted the spear.
“So come on, you bastard!”
Prithviraj stooped and picked up the tulwar. He swung it in a clumsy