"Jemadar," Crosby shouted, "turn out the guard!"

"Sahib!" The Jemadar acknowledged the order. Other sepoys were dragging the thorn gates open.

He'll want dinner, Crosby thought sourly, and wondered what his servants were cooking for the midday meal. Kid, probably, in boiled rice.

Well, Sullivan would just have to endure the stringy meat as a price for not sending any warning, and damn the man if he expected Crosby to feed his sepoys as well. Chasalgaon's cooks had not expected visitors and would not have enough rations for a hundred more hungry sepoys.

"Is that Sullivan?" he asked Leonard, handing the Captain the telescope.

Leonard stared for a long time at the approaching horseman.

"I've never met Sullivan," he finally said, "so I couldn't say."

Crosby snatched back the telescope.

"Give the bastard a salute when he arrives," Crosby ordered Leonard, "then tell him he can join me for dinner." He paused. "You too," he added grudgingly.

Crosby went back to his tent. It was better, he decided, to let Leonard welcome the stranger, rather than look too eager himself. Damn Sullivan, he thought, for not sending warning, though there was a bright side, inasmuch as Sullivan might have brought news. The tall, good-looking Sergeant from Seringapatam doubtless could have told Crosby the latest rumours from Mysore, but it would be a chill day in hell before Crosby sought news from a sergeant. But undoubtedly something was changing in the wider world, for it had been nine weeks since Crosby last saw a Mahratta raider, and that was decidedly odd.

The purpose of the fort at Chasalgaon was to keep the Mahratta horse raiders out of the Rajah of Hyderabad's wealthy territory, and Crosby fancied he had done his job well, but even so he found the absence of any enemy marauders oddly worrying. What were the bastards up to? He sat behind his table and shouted for his clerk. He would write the damned armoury Sergeant a note explaining that the loss of seven thousand cartridges was due to a leak in the stone roof of Chasalgaon's magazine. He certainly could not admit that he had sold the ammunition to a merchant.