Sharpe was brought to the triangle. He was bareheaded and already stripped to the waist. The skin of his chest and back were as white as his powdered hair and contrasted oddly with his darkly tanned face. He walked steadily, for though he had the best part of a pint of rum in his belly, the liquor had not seemed to have the slightest effect. He did not look at either Hakeswill or Morris as he walked to the tripod.

'Arms up, lad, the Sergeant Major said quietly. 'Stand against the triangle. Feet apart. There's a good lad.

Sharpe obediently stepped up to the triangular face of the tripod. Two corporals knelt at his feet and lashed his ankles to the halberds, then stood and pushed his arms over the crosswise halberd. They pulled his hands down and tied them to the uprights, thus forcing his naked back up and outwards. That way he could not sag between the triangle and so hope to exhaust some of the blows on the halberd staffs. The corporals finished their knots, then stepped back.

The Sergeant Major went to the back of the triangle and brought from his pouch a folded piece of leather that was deeply marked by tooth prints. 'Open your mouth, lad, he said softly. He smelt the rum on the prisoner's breadi and hoped it would help him survive, then he pushed the leather between Sharpe's teeth. The gag served a double purpose. It would stifle any cries the victim might make and would stop him biting off his tongue. 'Be brave, boy, Bywaters said quietly. 'Don't let the regiment down.

Sharpe nodded.

Bywaters stepped smartly back and came to attention. 'Prisoner ready for punishment, sir! he called to Major Shee.

The Major looked to the surgeon. 'Is the prisoner fit for punishment, Mister Micklewhite?

Micklewhite did not even give Sharpe a glance. 'Hale and fit, sir.

'Then carry on, Sergeant Major.

'Right, boys, the Sergeant Major said, 'do your duty! Lay it on hard now, and keep the strokes high. Above his trousers. Drummer! Begin.

A third drummer boy was standing behind the floggers. He lifted his sticks, paused, then brought the first stick down.

The boy to the right brought his whip hard down on Sharpe's back.

'One! Bywaters shouted.

The whip had left a red mark across Sharpe's shoulder blades. Sharpe had flinched, but the rope fetters restricted his movement and only those close to the triangle saw the tremor run through his muscles. He stared up at Major Shee who took good care to avoid the baleful gaze.

'Two! Bywaters called and the drummer brought down his stick as the second boy planted a red mark crosswise on the first.

Hakeswill's face twitched uncontrollably, but he was smiling under the rictus. For the drumbeat of death had begun.

Colonel McCandless stood alone in the centre of the courtyard of the Tippoo's Inner Palace inside Seringapatam. The Scotsman was still in his full uniform: red-coated, tartan-kilted and with his feather-plumed cocked hat on his head. Six tigers were chained to the courtyard's walls and those tigers sometimes strained to reach him, but they were always checked by the heavy chains that quivered taudy whenever one of the muscled beasts sprang towards the Scotsman. McCandless did not move and the tigers, after one or two fruitless lunges, contented themselves with snarling at him. The tigers' keepers, big men armed with long staves, watched from the courtyard entrance. It was those men who might receive the orders to unleash the tigers and McCandless was determined to show them a calm face.

The courtyard was covered with sand, its lower walls were of dressed stone, but above the stone the palace's second storey was a riot of stuccoed teak that had been painted red, white, green and yellow. That decorated second storey was composed of Moorish arches and McCandless knew just enough Arabic to guess that the writing incised above each arch was a surah from the Koran. There were two entrances to the courtyard. The one behind McCandless, through which he had entered and where the tigers' keepers now stood, was a plain double gateway that led to a tangle of stables and storehouses behind the palace, while in front of him, and evidendy leading into the palace's staterooms, was a brief marble staircase rising to a wide door of black wood that had been decorated with patterns of inlaid ivory. Above that lavish door was a balcony that jutted out from three of the stuccoed arches. A screen of intricately carved wood hid the balcony, but McCandless could see that there were men behind the screen. He suspected the Tippoo was there and, the Scotsman trusted, so was the Frenchman who had first questioned him. Colonel Gudin had struck him as an honest fellow and right now, McCandless hoped, Gudin was pleading to let him live, though McCandless had taken good care not to offer the Frenchman his real name. He feared that the Tippoo would recognize it, and realize just what a prize his cavalry had taken, and so the Scotsman had given his name as Ross instead.

McCandless was right. Colonel Gudin and the Tippoo were both staring down through the screen. 'This Colonel Ross, the Tippoo asked, 'he says he was looking for forage?

'Yes, sir, Gudin replied through the interpreter.

'You believe him? It was plain from his tone that the Tippoo was sceptical.

Gudin shrugged. 'Their horses are thin.

The Tippoo grunted. He had done his best to deny the advancing enemy any food, but the British had taken to making sudden marches north or south of their approach to enter territory where his horsemen had not yet destroyed the villagers' supplies. Not only that, but they had brought a vast amount of food with them. Yet even so the Tippoo's spies reported that the enemy was going hungry. Their horses and oxen were especially ill fed, so it was not unlikely that this British officer had been searching for forage. But why would a full colonel be sent on such an errand? The Tippoo could find ho answer to that, and the question fed his suspicions. 'Could he have been spying?

'Scouting, maybe, Gudin said, 'but not spying. Spies do not ride in uniform, Your Majesty.

The Tippoo grunted when the answer was translated into Persian. He was a naturally suspicious man, as any ruler should be, but he consoled himself with the observation that whatever this Britisher had been doing, he must have failed. The Tippoo turned to his entourage and saw the tall, dark-faced Appah Rao. 'You think this Colonel Ross was looking for food, General?

Appah Rao knew exactly who Colonel Ross truly was, and what McCandless had been looking for, and worse, Rao now knew that his own treachery was in dire danger of being discovered which meant that this was no time to look weak in front of the Tippoo. But nor was Appah Rao ready to betray McCandless. That was partly because of an old friendship, and partly because Appah Rao half suspected he might have a better future if he was allied to the British. 'We know they're short of food, he said, 'and that man looks thin enough.

'So you don't consider him a spy?

'Spy or not, Appah Rao said coldly, 'he is your enemy.

The Tippoo shrugged at the evasive answer. His good sense suggested that the prisoner was not a spy, for why would he wear his uniform? But even if he was, that did not worry the Tippoo overmuch. He expected Seringapatam was full of spies, just as he had two score of his own men marching with the British, but most spies, in the Tippoo's experience, were useless. They passed on rumours, they inflated guesses and they muddled far more than they ever made plain.

'Kill him, one of the Tippoo's Muslim generals suggested.

'I shall think about it, the Tippoo said, and turned back through one of the balcony's inner archways into a gorgeous room of marble pillars and painted walls. The room was dominated by his throne, which was a canopied platform eight feet wide, five foot deep and held four feet above the tiled floor by a model of a snarling tiger that supported the platform's centre and was flanked on each side by four carved tiger legs. Two silver gilt ladders gave access to the throne's platform which was made of ebony wood on which a sheet of gold, thick as a prayer mat, had been fixed with silver nails. The edge of the platform was carved with quotations from the Koran, the Arabic letters picked out in gold, while above each of the throne's eight legs was a finial in the form of a tiger's head. The tiger heads were each the size of a pineapple, cast from solid gold and studded with rubies, emeralds and diamonds. The central tiger, whose long lean body supported the middle of the throne, was made of wood covered with gold, while its head was entirely of gold. The tiger's mouth was open, revealing teeth cut from rock crystal between which a gold tongue was hinged so that it could be moved up and down. The canopy above the golden platform was supported by a curved pole which, like the canopy itself, had been covered with sheet gold. The fringes of the canopy were made of strung pearls, and at its topmost point was a golden model of the fabulous hummah, the royal bird that rose from fire. The hummah, like the tiger finials, was studded with jewels; its back was one solid glorious emerald and its peacock-like tail a dazzle of precious stones arrayed so thickly that the underlying gold was scarcely visible.