A loud click interrupted Panjit. It was not a single click, but more like a loud metallic scratching that ended in the solid sound of a pistol being cocked, and Panjit turned to see that a red-coated British officer with black hair and a scarred face was standing beside his cousin, holding a blackened pistol muzzle at Nana Rao’s temple.
The bodyguards glanced at Panjit, saw his uncertainty, and some of them hefted their staves and moved toward the steps, but Sharpe gripped Nana Rao’s hair with his left hand and kicked him in the back of the knees so that the merchant dropped hard down with a cry of hurt surprise. The sudden brutality and Sharpe’s evident readiness to pull the trigger checked the bodyguards. “I think you’d better make me an offer,” Sharpe said to Panjit, “because this dead cousin of yours owes me fourteen pounds, seven shillings and threepence ha’penny.”
“Put the pistol away,” Panjit said, waving his bodyguards back. He was nervous. Dealing with a courteous naval captain who was an obvious gentleman was one thing, but the red-coated ensign looked wild, and the pistol’s muzzle was grinding into Nana Rao’s skull so that the merchant whimpered with pain. “Just put the pistol away,” Panjit said soothingly.
“You think I’m daft?” Sharpe sneered. “Besides, the magistrates can’t do anything to me if I shoot your cousin. He’s already dead! You said so yourself. He’s nothing but ashes in the river.” He twisted Nana Rao’s hair, making the kneeling man gasp. “Fourteen pounds,” Sharpe said, “seven shillings and threepence ha’penny.”