I think everyone has made great suggestions here, and for me I remain inclined to see this as a M1796 light cavalry blade. As Iain has noted, the British inspection stamps were crowns over numbers and punched singly in the forte region without other marks.
The idea of the warranted banner is excellent as the blades of these times into early years of the 19th often had warranted placed at some location, it seems like most often however they were on officers blades. Also, it does appear that the word ran out of room in its placement if that be the case.
Also, the name of the maker or contractor in these times was usually punched at the blade spine just under hilt. I have not seen a crowned lion as far as I recall in this manner on British blades.
The Manding in these regions were profoundly merchants and traders in this hub of trade in the Sahara, so all manner of foreign blades were available to them. Mostly we see French cavalry blades or Solingen sabre blades, but British are sometimes seen, usually later in the 19th.
The British M1796 seems to have had a long and quite diffused life, and many of these ended up in the Spanish colonial (often termed Berber) sabres, usually reprofiled tips. These are often cold stamped with names of importers etc. Perhaps this might be one of such coming into the Maghrebi entrepots and traded to the south?
BTW, I think Helleri has a very good point, often these hallmark symbols seem to have become in some degree associated with markings used on blades, and their characteristics and configurations as in multiples. In most hallmarking it seems there are groupings of several together.
With the note on East India Company, the rampant lion was indeed the bale mark for the Company c. 1810 which replaced the quadrant heart V/E/I/C
but according to David Harding ("Small Arms of the East India Company") such marks were never used on swords, only on firearms.
I would note here that though that be the case, industrious armourers in the Northwest Frontiers of India, where among other arms, these blades certainly prevailed, it does not seem unlikely that these artisans might have reproduced such marks just as they have long done on gunlocks.
This might account as well for the misplacement of the warranted banner.
It seems plausible such 'recycled' blades among other materials would have entered Red Sea trade networks via Omani traders and perhaps into the routes into the interior where they might have eventually reached Mali.
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