Hakeswill looked to his left and saw that the wall of the Inner Fort was built on an almost sheer slope. No man could climb that and hope to assail a wall, even a breached wall, which meant that Dodd was right and the attackers would have to try — and batter down the four gates that barred the entranceway, and those gates were defended by Dodd's Cobras.
"And my men have never known defeat, Sergeant, " Dodd said.
"They've watched other men beaten, but they've not been outfought themselves. And here the enemy will have to beat us. Have to! But they can't. They can't." He fell silent, his clenched fists resting on the fire step
The sound of the guns was constant, but the only sign of the bombardment was the misting smoke that hung over the far side of the Outer Fort. Manu Bappoo, who commanded there, was now hurrying back towards the Inner Fort and Dodd watched the Prince climb the steep path to the gates. The hinges squealed as, one after the other, the gates were opened to let Bappoo and his aides in. Dodd smiled as the last gate was unbarred.
"Let's go and make some mischief, " he said, turning back to the steps.
Manu Bappoo had already opened the letter that Gopal had given to him. He looked up as Dodd approached.
"Read it, " he said simply, thrusting the folded paper towards the Colonel.
"He wants to surrender?" Dodd asked, taking the letter.
"Just read it, " Bappoo said grimly.
The letter was clumsily written, but intelligible. Beny Singh, as Killa-dar of the Rajah of Berar's fortress of Gawilghur, was offering to yield the fort to the British on the sole condition that the lives of all the garrison and their dependants were spared. None was to be hurt, none was to be imprisoned. The British were welcome to confiscate all the weaponry in the fort, but they were to allow Gawilghur's inhabitants to leave with such personal property as could be carried away on foot or horseback.
"Of course the British will accept! " Manu Bappoo said.
"They don't want to die in the breaches!»
"Has Beny Singh the authority to send this?" Dodd asked.
Bappoo shrugged, "He's Killadar."
"You're the general of the army. And the Rajah's brother."
Bappoo stared up at the sky between the high walls of the entranceway.
"One can never tell with my brother, " he said.
"Maybe he wants to surrender? But he hasn't told me. Maybe, if we lose, he can blame me, saying he always wanted to yield."
"But you won't yield?"
"We can win here! " Bappoo said fiercely, then turned towards the palace as Gopal announced that the Killadar himself was approaching.
Beny Singh must have been watching his messenger's progress from the palace, for now he hurried down the path and behind him came his wives, concubines and daughters. Bappoo walked towards him, followed by Dodd and a score of his white-coated soldiers. The Killadar must have reckoned that the sight of the women would soften Bappoo's heart, but the Prince's face just became harder.
"If you want to surrender, " he shouted at Beny Singh, 'then talk to me first!»
"I have authority here, " Beny Singh squeaked. His little lap dog was in his arms, its small tongue hanging out as it panted in the heat.
"You have nothing! " Bappoo retorted. The women, pretty in their silk and cotton, huddled together as the two men met beside the snake pit.
"The British are making their breaches, " Beny Singh protested, 'and tomorrow or the day after they'll come through! We shall all be killed!»
He wailed the prophecy.
"My daughters will be their playthings and my wives their servants." The women shuddered.
"The British will die in the breaches, " Bappoo retorted.
"They cannot be stopped! " Beny Singh insisted.
"They are djinns."
Bappoo suddenly shoved Beny Singh back towards the rock pit where the snakes were kept. The Killadar cried aloud as he tripped and fell backwards, but Bappoo had kept hold of Beny Singh's yellow silk robe and now he held on tight so that the Killadar did not fall.
Hakeswill sidled to the pit's edge and saw the monkey bones. Then he saw a curving, nickering shape slither across the pit's shadowed floor and he quickly stepped back.
Beny Singh whimpered.
"I am the Killadar! I am trying to save lives!»
"You're supposed to be a soldier, " Bappoo said in his hissing voice, 'and your job is to kill my brother's enemies." The women screamed, expecting to see their man fall to the pit's floor, but Manu Bappoo kept a firm grip on the silk.
"And when the British die in the breaches, " he said to Beny Singh, 'and when their survivors are harried south across the plain, who do you think will get the credit for the victory? The Killadar of the fort, that is who! And you would throw that glory away?"
"They are djinns, " Beny Singh said, and he looked sideways at Obadiah Hakeswill whose face was twitching, and he screamed.
"They are djinnsl' "They are men, as feeble as other men, " Bappoo said. He reached out with his free hand and took hold of the white dog by the scruff of its neck. Beny Singh whimpered, but did not resist. The dog struggled in Manu Bappoo's grip.
"If you try to surrender the fortress again, " Manu Bappoo said, 'then this will be your fate." He let the dog drop. It yelped as it fell into the pit, then howled piteously as it struck the rock floor.
There was a hiss, a scrabble of paws, a last howl, then silence. Beny Singh uttered a shriek of pity for his dog before babbling that he would rather give his women poison to drink than risk that they should become prey to the terrible besiegers.
Manu Bappoo shook the hapless Killadar.
"Do you understand me?" he demanded.
"I understand! " Beny Singh said desperately.
Manu Bappoo hauled the Killadar safely back from the pit's edge.
"You will go to the palace, Beny Singh, " he ordered, 'and you will stay there, and you will send no more messages to the enemy." He pushed the Killadar away, then turned his back on him.
"Colonel Dodd?"
"Sahib?"
"A dozen of your men will make certain that the Killadar sends no messages from the palace. If he does, you may kill the messenger."
Dodd smiled.
"Of course, sahib."
Bappoo went back to the beleaguered Outer Fort while the Killadar slunk back to the hilltop palace above its green-scummed lake. Dodd detailed a dozen men to guard the palace's entrance, then went back to the rampart to brood over the ravine. Hakeswill followed him there.
"Why's the Killadar so scared, sir? Does he know something we don't?"
"He's a coward, Sergeant."
But Beny Singh's fear had infected Hakeswill who imagined a vengeful Sharpe come back from the dead to pursue him through the nightmare of a fortress fallen.
"The bastards can't get in, sir, can they?" he asked anxiously.
Dodd recognized Hakeswill's fear, the same fear he felt himself, the fear of the ignominy and shame of being recaptured by the British and then condemned by a merciless court. He smiled.
"They will probably take the Outer Fort, Sergeant, because they're very good, and because our old comrades do indeed fight like djinns, but they cannot cross the ravine. Not if all the powers of darkness help them, not if they besiege us for a year, not if they batter down all these walls and destroy the gates and flatten the palace by gunfire, because they will still have to cross the ravine, and it cannot be done. It cannot be done."
And who rules Gawilghur, Dodd thought, reigns in India.
And within a week he would be Rajah here.
Gawilghur's walls, as Stokes had guessed, were rotten. The first breach, in the outer wall, took less than a day to make. In mid-afternoon the wall had still been standing, though a cave had been excavated into the dusty rubble where Stokes had pointed the guns, but quite suddenly the whole rampart collapsed. It slid down the brief slope in a cloud of dust which slowly settled to reveal a steep ramp of jumbled stone leading into the space between the two walls. A low stub of the wall's rear face still survived, but an hour's work served to throw that remnant down.