'Just a fat little fellow dying,' Sharpe said as he climbed over the barrier of the dead.

'Did he have any loot?'

'Nothing,' Sharpe said, 'nothing worth the trouble. Place is full of shit, too.'

The Sergeant frowned at Sharpe's unkempt dress and unpowdered hair. 'What regiment are you?'

'Not yours,' Sharpe said curtly, and walked away through the crowds of celebrating redcoats and sepoys. Not all were celebrating. Some were massacring trapped enemies. The fight had been brief but nasty, and now the winners took a bloody revenge. On the far side of the inner wall Colonel Wellesley had brought his men into the streets and they now surrounded the palace to preserve it from plunder. The smaller streets were not so fortunate, and the first screams sounded as the sepoys and redcoats found their hungry way into the unprotected alleys. The Tippoo's men, those that still lived and had escaped their pursuers, fled eastwards while the Tippoo, left alone in the tunnel, lay dying.

Sergeant Richard Sharpe slung the musket and walked around the base of the inner wall, seeking a passage into the city. He had only a few moments of freedom left before the army took him back into its iron grip, but he had won his victory and he had pockets full of stones to prove it. He went to find a drink.

Next day it rained. It was not the monsoon, though it could have been, for the rain fell with a ferocity that matched the fury of the previous day's assault. The pelting warm rain washed the blood off the city's walls and scoured the hot season's filth out of its streets. The Cauvery swelled to fill its banks, rising so high that no man could have crossed the river in front of the breach. If the Tippoo's prayers had been answered and the British had waited one more day, then the floods would have defeated them.

But there was no Tippoo in Seringapatam, only the Rajah, who had been restored to his palace where he was surrounded by red-coated guards. The palace, which had been protected from the ravages of the assaulting troops, was now being stripped bare by the victorious officers. Rain drummed on the green-tiled roof and ran into the gutters and puddled in the courtyards as the red-coated officers sawed up the great tiger throne on which the Tippoo had never sat. They turned the handles of the tiger organ and laughed as the mechanical claw savaged the redcoat's face. They tugged down silk hangings, they prised gems out of furniture and marvelled at the simple, bare, white-painted room which had been the Tippoo's bedchamber. The six tigers, roaring because they had not been fed and because the rain fell so hard, were shot.

The Tippoo's father, the great Hyder Ali, lay in a mausoleum east of the city and, when the rainstorm had stopped, and while the garden around the mausoleum was still steaming in the sudden sultry sunlight, the Tippoo was carried to rest beside his father. British troops lined the route and reversed their arms as the cortege passed. Muffled drums beat a slow tattoo as the Tippoo was borne on his sad last journey by his own defeated soldiers.

Sharpe, with three bright white stripes newly sewn onto his faded red sleeve, waited close beside the domed mausoleum. 'I do wonder who killed him.' Colonel McCandless, restored to a clean uniform and with his hair neatly cut, had come to stand beside Sharpe.

'Some lucky bastard, sir.'

'A rich one by now, no doubt,' the Colonel said.

'Good for him, sir,' Sharpe said, 'whoever he is.'

'He'd only waste the plunder,' McCandless said severely. 'He'll fritter it on women and drink.'

'Don't sound like a waste to me, sir.'

McCandless grimaced at the Sergeant's levity. 'That ruby alone was worth ten years of a general's salary. Ten years!'

'A shame it's vanished, sir,' Sharpe said guilelessly.

'Isn't it, Sharpe?' McCandless agreed. 'But I hear you were at the Water Gate?'

'Me, sir? No, sir. Not me, sir. I stayed with Mister Lawford, sir.'

The Colonel gave Sharpe a fierce glance. 'A sergeant of the Old Dozen reports he saw a wild-looking fellow come out of the Water Gate.' McCandless's voice was accusing. 'He says the man had a coat with scarlet facings and no buttons.' The Colonel looked disapprovingly at Sharpe's red coat on which Sharpe had somehow found time to stitch the sergeant's stripes, but not a single button. 'The man seems very certain of what he saw.'

'He was probably confused by the battle, sir. Lost his wits, I wouldn't doubt.'

'So who put Sergeant Hakeswill in with the tigers?' McCandless demanded.

'Only the good Lord knows, sir, and He ain't saying.'

The Colonel, scenting blasphemy, frowned. 'Hakeswill says it was you,' he accused Sharpe.

'Hakeswill's mad, sir, and you can't trust a thing he says,' Sharpe said. And Hakeswill was more than mad, he was alive. Somehow he had escaped the tigers. Not one of the beasts had attacked the Sergeant who had been discovered babbling in the courtyard, crying for his mother and declaring his fondness for tigers. He liked all pussy cats, he had said to his rescuers. 'I can't be killed!' he had shouted when the redcoats led him gently away. 'Touched by God, I am,' he had claimed, and then he had demanded that Sharpe be arrested for attempted murder, but Lieutenant Lawford had blushed and sworn that Sergeant Sharpe had never left his side after the mine was blown. Colonel Gudin, a prisoner now, had confirmed the claim. The two men had been discovered in one of the city's brothels where they had been protecting the women from the drunken, rampaging victors.

'Hakeswill's a lucky man,' McCandless said dryly, abandoning any further attempt to drag the truth from Sharpe. 'Those tigers were man-eaters.'

'But not devil-caters, sir. One whiff of Hakeswill and they must have gone right off their feed.'

'He still swears it was you who threw him to the tigers,' McCandless said. 'I've no doubt he'll try to take his revenge.'

'I've no doubt either, sir, but I'll be ready for him.' And next time, Sharpe thought, he would make certain the bastard died.

McCandless turned as the slow funeral procession appeared at the end of the long road that led to the mausoleum. Opposite him, behind an honour guard of the King's 73rd, Appah Rao, now in the Rajah's service, also watched the cortege approach. Appah Rao's family and household all lived. McCandless had sat in Appah Rao's courtyard, a musket on his lap, and turned back every redcoat or sepoy who had come to the house. Mary had thus survived unscathed and Sharpe had heard that she would now marry her Kunwar Singh, and he was glad for her. He remembered the ruby he had once promised to give her and he smiled at the thought. Some other lass, maybe. The Tippoo's ruby was deep in his pouch, hidden like all the other looted jewels.

The muffled drumbeat came nearer and the red-coated honour guard stiffened to attention. Mourners followed the coffin, most of them the Tippoo's officers. Gudin was among them. McCandless took off his cocked hat. 'There'll be more fighting to come, Sharpe,' the Colonel said softly. 'We have other enemies in India.'

'I'm sure we have, sir.'

The Colonel glanced at Sharpe. He saw a young man, hard as flint, and the restless anger in Sharpe's heart made him dangerous as flint and steel, but there was also a kindness in Sharpe. McCandless had seen that kindness in the dungeons, and McCandless believed it betrayed a soul that was well worth saving. 'I may have uses for you if you're willing,' the Colonel said.

Sharpe seemed surprised. 'I thought you were going home, sir. To Scotland.'

McCandless shrugged. 'There's work undone here, Sharpe, work undone. And what will I ever do in Scotland but dream of India? I think I shall stay for a while.'

'And I'd be privileged to help you, sir, so I would,' Sharpe said, then he snatched off his shako as the coffin drew close. His hair, which he had still not clubbed or powdered, fell loose across his scarlet collar as he stood to attention. Far away, beyond the river, rain fell on a green land, but above Sharpe the sun shone, glistening its watery light on the mausoleum's bulging white dome beneath which, in a dark crypt under their silk-draped tombs, the Tippoo's parents lay. Now the Tippoo would join them.