Sharpe's Tiger

And as those new enemies appeared, the Tippoo's charmed luck turned. One bullet struck his thigh and another punched his left arm to leave a splash of blood bright on the white linen sleeve. He staggered, but kept his balance. It seemed that not a man of his bodyguard was left unwounded, but a score of them still lived and could walk. In a moment, though, the enemy must triumph and the Tippoo knew it was time to bid his city farewell. 'We go,' he told his relieved aides, and limped towards the tu

A shot crashed out of the Water Gate's smoky gloom and the man leading the Tippoo's escape was snatched backwards from the tu

'Go, Your Majesty!' A wounded aide thrust a rifle into the Tippoo's hands, then dared to push his monarch into the tu

'Open the gate!' the aide shouted, then he saw the shadow within the shadow at the end of the tu

Sharpe stood and gri

The Tippoo recognized the hard, bloody face in the gloom. He smiled. Fate was most strange, he thought. Why had he not killed this man when he had the chance? Behind him his bodyguard was dying and the victorious redcoats were plundering their bodies, while in front of him was freedom and life, except for one man to whom the Tippoo had shown mercy. Just one man.

'Bastard,' Sharpe said again. He wanted to be close when he killed the Tippoo, close enough to make certain of the man's death.

Behind the Tippoo the bright daylight was dulled by the swirling gun smoke where dying men gasped and victorious men looted. 'Mercy is God's prerogative, not man's,' the Tippoo said in Persian, 'and I should never have been merciful to you.' He aimed the rifle at Sharpe and pulled the trigger, but the gun did not fire. In the panic of the last seconds the aide had handed the Tippoo an unloaded rifle and the flint had sparked on an empty pan. The Tippoo smiled, tossed the gun aside and unsheathed his tiger-hilted sword. There was blood on his arm, and more on his chintz trousers, but he showed no fear, he even seemed to relish the moment. 'How I do hate your cursed race,' he said calmly, giving the sword a cut through the smoky air.

Sharpe did not understand the Tippoo any more than the Tippoo understood Sharpe. 'You're a fat little bastard,' Sharpe said, 'and you took away my medal. I wanted that. It's the only medal I've ever got.'

The Tippoo just smiled. His helmet had been dipped in the fountain of life, but it had not worked. The magic had failed and only Allah was left. He waited for the snarling redcoat to shoot, then a shout sounded in the mouth of the tu

But no bodyguard appeared and the Tippoo turned back to face Sharpe. 'I dreamed of death last night,' he said in Persian as he limped forward and raised the curved blade to strike at the redcoat. 'I dreamed of monkeys, and monkeys mean death. I should have killed you.'

Sharpe fired. The bullet went higher than he intended. He had thought to put it through the Tippoo's heart, but instead it struck the King in the temple. For a second the Tippoo wavered. His head had been whipped back by the bullet's force and blood was soaking into his cloth-padded helmet, but he forced his head forward and stared into Sharpe's eyes. The sword fell from his nerveless hand, he seemed to smile a last time, then he just slumped down.

The booming echo of the musket shot still battered Sharpe's ears so he was not aware that he was talking as he crouched beside the Tippoo. 'It's your ruby I want,' Sharpe said, 'that bloody great ruby. I wanted it from the very first moment I saw you. Colonel McCandless told me, he did, that it's wealth that makes the world turn and I want my share.' The Tippoo still lived, but he could not move. His expressionless eyes stared up at Sharpe, who thought the Tippoo was dead, but then the dying man blinked. 'Still here, are you?' Sharpe said. He patted the Tippoo's bloodied cheek. 'You're a brave fat bastard, I will say that for you.' He wrenched the huge ruby off the blood-spattered feather plume, then stripped the dying man of every jewel he could find. He took the pearls from the Tippoo's neck, twisted off an armlet bright with gems, tugged off the diamond rings and unlatched the silver-hung necklace of emeralds. He pulled on the Tippoo's sash to see if the dagger with the great diamond called the Moonstone in its hilt was there, but the sash held nothing except the sword scabbard. Sharpe took that, but left the tiger-hilted sword. He lifted the blade from a puddle of sewage and placed it in the Tippoo's hand. 'You can keep your sword,' he told the dying man, 'for you fought proper. Like a proper soldier.' He stood up and then, awkwardly, because of his burden of jewels and because he was suddenly conscious of the dying King's gaze, he saluted the Tippoo. 'Take your blade to paradise,' he said, 'and tell them you were killed by another proper soldier.'

The Tippoo's eyes closed and he thought of the prayer that he had copied into his notebook that very morning. 'I am full of sin,' the Tippoo had written in his beautiful Arabic script, 'and Thou, Allah, art a sea of mercy. Where Thy mercy is, where is my sin?' That was a comfort. There was no pain now, not even in his leg, and that was a comfort too, but still he could not move. It was like one of the dreams he copied each morning into his dream-book and he wondered at how peaceful everything suddenly seemed, as peaceful as though he was floating on a gilded barge down a warm river beneath a blessed sun. This must be the way to paradise, he thought, and he welcomed it. Paradise.

Sharpe felt a pang of sorrow for the dying man. He might have been a murderous enemy, but he was a brave one. The Tippoo had fallen with his right arm trapped beneath his body, and though Sharpe suspected there was another jewelled armlet on that hidden sleeve, he did not try to retrieve it. The Tippoo deserved to die in peace and, besides, Sharpe was rich enough already, for his pockets now held a king's ransom while a leather scabbard sewn with sapphires was hidden under his shabby coat, and so he picked up one of his empty muskets and splashed through the tu