It was the answer Rao had feared. 'And did they?'

'No, sir.'

'So what did they find out?' Rao asked, laying the pistol down on the table. 'What did they find out?' he asked in a harder voice.

'Private Sharpe told me that the British shouldn't attack in the west, sir,' Mary said, forgetting to describe Sharpe as her brother. 'That's all he said, honestly, sir.'

'All?' Rao asked. 'Surely not. Why would he tell you that? Did he think you could get the news out of the city?'

Mary stared down at the pistol. 'I was to find a man, sir,' she said at last.

'Who?'

She looked up at the General, fear in her eyes. 'A merchant, sir, called Ravi Shekhar.'

'Anyone else?'

'No, sir! Truly.'

Rao believed her, and felt a wash of relief. His greatest fear was that Sharpe and Lawford might have been given his own name, for although Colonel McCandless had promised to keep Rao's treachery a secret Rao could not be certain that the promise had been kept. McCandless himself had not been questioned under torture, for the Tippoo seemed convinced that the elderly Colonel 'Ross' had indeed been foraging when he had been captured, but Rao still felt the threat of discovery moving insidiously closer. Lawford and Sharpe could not identify Rao himself as a traitor, but they very well might identify McCandless and then the Tippoo's jettis would turn their attentions to the elderly Scotsman, and how long would he endure their merciless treatment? The General wondered if he should make a dash from the city to the British lines, but rejected the thought almost as soon as it occurred to him. Such an escape might secure Appah Rao's own safety, but it would sacrifice his large family and all the faithful servants who were in his employment. No, he decided, this dangerous game must be seen to its finish. He pushed the pistol closer to Mary. 'Take it,' he ordered her.

Mary looked astonished. 'The pistol, sir?'

'Take it! Now listen, girl. Ravi Shekhar is dead and his body was fed to the tigers. It's possible the Tippoo will forget you even existed, but if he remembers then you might need that pistol.' Appah Rao wondered if he could smuggle the girl clean out of the city. It was a tempting thought, but every civilian was stopped at the gates and had to produce a pass stamped by the Tippoo himself, and very few received that pass. A soldier might succeed in escaping the city, but not a civilian. Appah Rao gazed into Mary's dark eyes. 'I am told that placing it in your mouth and pointing it slightly upwards is the most effective.' Mary shuddered and the General nodded to Kunwar Singh. 'I give her to your care,' he said.

Kunwar Singh bowed his head.

Mary went back to the women's quarters while Appah Rao made an offering at his household shrine. He lingered there, thinking how he envied the certainty of men like the Tippoo or Colonel McCandless. Neither man seemed to have any doubts, but rather believed that destiny was whatever they themselves made of it. They were not subject to other men's wills and Appah Rao would have liked such certainty for himself. He would have liked to live in a Mysore ruled by its ancient Hindu house, and a Mysore in which no other nations intruded: no British, no French, no Mahrattas and no Muslims, but instead he found himself caught between two armies and somehow he had to keep his wife, his children, his servants and himself alive. He closed his eyes, touched his hands to his forehead, and bowed to Ganesh, the elephant-headed god who guarded Appah Rao's household. 'Just keep us alive,' he prayed to the god, 'just keep us alive.'

The Tippoo himself came to the courtyard where the tigers had been restored to their long chains. Four infantrymen guarded the two Englishmen. The Tippoo did not come in state, with chamberlains and courtiers, but was accompanied by only one officer and two jettis who watched impassively as the Tippoo strode to Sharpe and tugged the medallion from around his neck. He pulled so hard that the chain cut into the back of Sharpe's neck before it snapped. Then the Tippoo spat into Sharpe's face and turned away.

The officer was a suave young Muslim who spoke good English. 'His Majesty,' he said when the Tippoo turned back to face the prisoners, 'wishes to know why you came to the city.'

Lawford stiffened. 'I am an officer in His Britannic Majesty's...' he began, but the Indian cut him off with a gesture.

'Quiet!' the officer said wearily. 'You are nothing except what we make you. So why are you here?'

'Why do you think?' Sharpe said.

The officer looked at him. 'I think,' he said judiciously, 'that you came here to spy.'

'So now you know,' Sharpe said defiantly.

The officer smiled. 'But maybe you were given the name of a man who might help you inside the city? That is the name we want.'

Sharpe shook his head. 'Didn't give us any names. Not one.'

'Maybe,' the officer said, then nodded at the two jettis who seized hold of Sharpe, then ripped the coat down his back so that its buttons tore off one by one as it was dragged down. He wore no shirt beneath, only the bandages that still covered the wounds caused by his flogging. One of the jettis drew a knife and unceremoniously sliced through the bandages, making Sharpe flinch as the blade cut into the almost healed wounds. The bandages were tossed aside, and the smell of them made one of the tigers stir. The other jetti had crossed to the four soldiers where he had drawn out one of their muskets' ramrods. Now he stood behind Sharpe and, when the Tippoo nodded, he gave Sharpe's back a vicious cut with the metal rod.

The sudden pain was every bit as bad as the flogging. It stabbed up and down Sharpe's spine and he gasped with the effort not to scream aloud as the force of the blow threw him forwards. He broke his fall with his hands and now his back faced the sky and the jetti, slashed down three more times, opening the old wounds, cracking a rib and spurting blood onto the courtyard's sand. One of the tigers growled and the links of its chain jangled as the beast lunged towards the smell of fresh blood. 'We shall beat him until we have the name,' the officer told Lawford mildly, 'and when he is dead we shall beat you until you are dead.'

The jetti struck down again, and this time Sharpe rolled onto his side, but the second jetti pushed him back onto his belly. Sharpe was grunting and panting, but was determined not to cry aloud.

'You can't do this!' Lawford protested.

'Of course we can!' the officer answered. 'We shall start splintering his bones now, but not his spine, not yet. We want the pain to go on.' He nodded, and the jetti slashed down again and this time Sharpe did cry aloud as the stab of pain brought back all the agony of the flogging.

'A merchant!' Lawford blurted out.

The officer held up his hand to stop the beating. 'A merchant, Lieutenant? The city is full of merchants.'

'He deals in metals,' Lawford said. 'I don't know more than that.'

'Of course you do,' the officer said, then nodded at the jetti who raised the ramrod high in the air.

'Ravi Shekhar!' Lawford shouted. The Lieutenant was bitterly ashamed for giving the name away, and the shame was obvious on his face, but nor could Lawford stand by and watch Sharpe beaten to death. He believed, or he wanted to believe, that he could have endured the pain of the beating himself without betraying the name, but it was more than he could bear to watch another man pounded into a bloody pulp.

'Ravi Shekhar,' the officer said, checking the jetti's stroke. 'And how did you find him?'

'We didn't,' Lawford said. 'We didn't know how! We were waiting till we spoke some of your language, then we were going to ask for him about the city, but we haven't tried yet.'

Sharpe groaned. Blood trickled down his sides and dripped onto the stones. One of the tigers staled beside the wall and the smell of urine filled the courtyard with its thin sour stench.