Sharpe's Tiger by Bernard Cornwell

Author:Bernard Cornwell [Cornwell, Bernard]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2010-01-30T10:07:21+00:00

'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.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.