It was also plain to Sharpe that the Puerto Crucero authorities were waiting for instructions from Valdivia, for, once incarcerated, they were left alone for six days. No one interrogated them, no one brought them news, no one informed them of any charges. The only visitors to the high prison room were the orderlies who brought food and emptied the bucket. The food was good, and plentiful enough even for Harper's appetite. Each morning a barber came with a pile of hot towels, a bowl and a bucket of steaming water. The barber shook his head whenever Sharpe tried to persuade the man to bring paper, ink and a pen. "I am a barber, I know nothing of writing. Please to tilt your head back, senor."

"I want to write to my Consul in Valdivia. He'll reward you if you bring me paper and ink."

"Please don't speak, senor, when I am shaving your neck."

On the fifth morning, under a sullen sky from which a sour rain spat, the Espiritu Santo had appeared beyond the northern headland and, making hard work of the last few hundred yards, beat her way into the outer harbor where, with a great splash and a gigantic clanking of chain, she let go her two forward anchors. Captain Ardiles's frigate, like the American brigantine which still lay to her anchors in the roadstead, drew too much water to be safe in the shallow inner harbor, and so she was forced to fret and tug at her twin cables while, from the shore, a succession of lighters and longboats ferried goods and people back and forth.

The next morning, under the same drab sky, the Espiritu Santo raised her anchors and, very cautiously, approached the stone wharf which lay at the foot of the citadel's crag. It was clear to Sharpe that the big frigate could only lay alongside the wharf at the very top of the high tide, and that as a result Captain Ardiles was creeping his way in with extreme caution. The frigate was being towed by longboats, and had men casting lead lines from her bows. She finally nestled alongside the wharf and Harper, leaning as far out as the bars would allow him, described how the contents of a cart were being unloaded by soldiers and carried on board the frigate. "It's the gold!" Harper said excitedly. "They must be loading the gold! My God, there's enough gold there to buy a Pope!"

The frigate only stayed at the wharf long enough to take on board the boxes from the cart before she raised a foresail and slipped away from the dangerously shallow water to return to her deeper anchorage. "Lucky bastards," Harper said as the rattle of the anchor chains echoed across the harbor. "They'll be going home soon, won't they? Back to Europe, eh? She could take us to Cadiz, we'd have a week in a good tavern, then I'd catch a sherry boat north to Dublin. Christ, what wouldn't I give to be on board her?" He watched as a longboat pulled away from the frigate and was rowed back toward the citadel's steps, then he sighed. "One way or another we've made a mess of this job, haven't we?"

Sharpe, lying on one of the mattresses and staring at the cracks in the plastered ceiling, smiled. "Peace isn't like war. In wartime things were simpler." He turned his head toward the metal-studded door beyond which footsteps sounded loud in the passageway. "Bit early for food, isn't it?"

The door opened, but instead of the usual two servants carrying the midday trays, Major Suarez and a file of infantrymen now stood in the stone passageway. "Come," Suarez ordered. "Downstairs. The Captain-General wants you."

"Who?" Sharpe swung his legs off the cot.

"General Bautista is here. He came on the frigate." The terror in Suarez was palpable. "Please, hurry!"

They were taken downstairs to a long hall which had huge arched windows facing onto the harbor. The ceiling was painted white and decorated with an iron chandelier under which a throng of uniformed men awaited Sharpe's arrival. The crowd of officers reminded Sharpe of the audience that had watched Bautista attending to his duties in the Citadel at Valdivia.

Bautista, attended by Marquinez and his other aides, was again offering a display of public diligence. He was working at papers spread on a table on which rested Sharpe's sword and Harper's seven-barrel gun. The strongbox was also there. The sight of the weapons gave Sharpe a pulse of hope that perhaps they were to be released, even maybe allowed to travel home on the Espiritu Santo, for Captain Ardiles was among the nervously silent audience. Sharpe nodded at the frigate's Captain, but Ardiles turned frostily away, revealing, to Sharpe's astonishment, George Blair, the British Consul. Sharpe tried to cross the hall to speak with Blair, but a soldier pulled him back. "Blair!" Sharpe shouted, "I want to talk to you!"

Blair made urgent hushing motions as though Sharpe disturbed a sacred assembly. Captain Marquinez, as beautifully uniformed as a palace guard, frowned at Sharpe's temerity, though Bautista, at last looking up from his paperwork, seemed merely amused by Sharpe's loud voice. "Ah, Mister Sharpe! We meet again. I trust you have not been discommoded? You're comfortable here? You find the food adequate?"

Sharpe, suspicious of Bautista's affability, said nothing. The Captain-General, plainly enjoying himself, put down his quill pen and stood up. "This is yours?" Bautista put his hand on the strongbox.

Sharpe still said nothing, while the audience, relishing the contest that was about to begin, seemed to tense itself.

"I asked you a question, Mister Sharpe."

"It belongs to the Countess of Mouromorto."

"A rich woman! But why does she send her money on voyages around the world?"

"You know why," Sharpe said.

"Do I?" Bautista opened the strongbox's lid. "One thousand, six hundred and four guineas. Is that correct?"

"Yes," Sharpe said defiantly, and there was a murmur of astonishment from Bautista's audience as they translated the figure into Spanish dollars. A man could live comfortably for a whole lifetime on six and a half thousand dollars.

"Why were you carrying such a sum in gold?" Bautista demanded.

Sharpe saw the trap just in time. If he had admitted that the money had been given to him for use as bribes, then the Captain-General would accuse him of attempting to corrupt Chilean officials. Sharpe shrugged. "We didn't know what expenses we might have," he answered vaguely.

"Expenses?" Bautista sneered. "What expenses are involved in digging up a dead man? Shovels are so expensive in Europe?" The audience murmured with laughter, and Sharpe sensed a relief in the assembled officers. They were like men who had come to a bullfight and they wanted to see their champion draw blood from the bull, and the swift jest about the price of shovels had pleased them. Now Bautista took one of the coins from the strongbox, picked up a riding crop from the table, and walked toward Sharpe. "Tell me, Mister Sharpe, why you came to Chile?"

"To collect the body of Don Bias," Sharpe said, "as you well know."

"I heard you were groveling in General Vivar's grave like a dog," Bautista said. "But why carry so much gold?"

"I told you, expenses."

"Expenses." Bautista sneered the word, then tossed the coin to Sharpe.

Sharpe, taken by surprise, just managed to snatch the guinea coin out of the air.

"Look at it!" Bautista said. "Tell me what you see?"

"A guinea," Sharpe said.

"The cavalry of Saint George," Bautista still sneered. "Do you see that, Mister Sharpe?"

Sharpe said nothing. The guinea coin had the head of the King on one side, and on its obverse bore the mounted figure of Saint George thrusting his lance into the dragon's flank. The nickname for such coins was the Cavalry of Saint George which, during the French wars and in the form of lavish subsidies to foreign nations, had been sent to do battle against Bonaparte.

"The British Government uses such golden cavalry to foment trouble, isn't that so, Mister Sharpe?"