"Hast thou not heard of what he did to Alladad Khan?" asked one of the men.

"Tell it, good Rasul," said Ahmed.

"Why, Alladad Khan, being guardian to his nephew--a boy--seized upon his inheritance and drove him from the village. By and by, when the boy's beard was grown, he went to Nikalsain and besought him that he would do him right. But Alladad was a great man, and mightily feared, so that when Nikalsain sent to his village to seek witnesses of the truth of the matter, no man durst for his life speak for the boy. One morn, ere the sun was up, a man of the village went forth to his fields, and lo! there was Nikalsain's grey mare grazing just beyond the gate. The man shook with amaze and fear, and when his trembling had ceased, ran back again to tell Alladad Khan. And soon all the men of the village flocked to the gate to see the sight, and they marvelled greatly. Alladad also was in dread, for his conscience p.r.i.c.ked him, and he bade some to drive the mare to the gra.s.s of some other village, lest evil should come upon them. And as they went forth to do his bidding, in a little s.p.a.ce they came to a tree, and lo! tied to it, was Nikalsain himself. Some fled away in great fear; others, thinking to win favour with the hazur, went forward to loose him. But Nikalsain cried to them in a loud voice--verily his voice is like thunder--and bade them stand and say on whose land they were. In their fear none could speak, but they lifted their fingers and pointed to Alladad Khan, and he came out from among them with trembling knees and said in haste: 'Nay, hazur, the land is not mine, but my nephew's.' Then Nikalsain bade him swear by the Prophet that what he said was true, and when Alladad had sworn, the hazur permitted the cords to be loosed. And next day in his court he decreed that the nephew should receive his inheritance, since his uncle had sworn it was his; and Alladad, shamefaced at the manner of his discomfiture, and at the laughter of the people, went straightway on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and the place knew him no more."

"Nikalsain is just, and very terrible," said Sherdil.

"Is he not like one of the heroes of old? A tall man, with a face as grave as a mullah's, and a black beard thicker than mine, and he holds his head high in the air as if he scorned to see the ground. Jan Larrens sent him to us; his troops are yet on the way; and when they come there will be hot work in the gates of Delhi."

A few days later Nicholson rode out to meet the movable column of which he was in command, and which had been raised by the energy of John Lawrence in the Panjab. It was an inspiriting sight when, on the fourteenth of August, the column, 3,000 strong, British and natives, marched into camp behind their stately leader, amid the blare of bands and the cheers of the weary holders of the Ridge. Their arrival infused the hearts of the besiegers with new courage and cheerfulness; every man, from the general down to the meanest bhisti, hailed Nicholson's coming as the beginning of the end.

About three weeks before, the siege-train for which General Wilson had been for weeks anxiously waiting, left Firozpur. It stretched for five miles along the Great Trunk Road, and was furnished with an inconsiderable escort. On the twenty-fourth of August, General Wilson learnt that a large force of rebels, with sixteen guns, had left Delhi for Najafgarh, with the object of intercepting the siege-train and cutting off supplies from the Ridge. Nicholson, ever eager for active work, was given the task of dealing with the mutineers.

Early on the morning of August 25, in pouring rain, Nicholson left camp at the head of two thousand five hundred men, consisting of horse and foot, British and native, and three troops of horse artillery under Major Tombs. To their great delight, Sherdil and Ahmed were among the squadron of Guides that formed part of the force. The march reminded them of the former expedition to Alipur. For nine miles they struggled through swamp and quagmire, the mud so deep that the guns often sank up to the axles and stuck fast, the rain falling in torrents all the time.

Some of the artillery officers despaired of getting their guns through, but when they saw Nicholson's great form riding steadily on as if nothing was the matter, they took courage, feeling sure that all was right. A short halt was made at the village of Nanghir, and while the troops were resting, two officers rode forward to reconnoitre a nullah that crossed the road about five miles away. They found that a crossing was practicable, and from its bank they descried the enemy's outposts.

It was five o'clock before the column had forded the nullah, under fire of the rebels. Darkness would soon fall, and if the enemy was to be routed no time could be lost. Nicholson himself rode forward to reconnoitre their position. It extended for two miles, from the town of Najafgarh on the left to the bridge over the Najafgarh ca.n.a.l on the right. The strongest point was an old serai at their left centre, where they had four guns; nine other guns lay between this and the bridge.

This serai he resolved to attack with his infantry, the guns covering the flanks, and the 9th Lancers and Guides to support the line.

As soon as the line was formed, Nicholson ordered the infantry to lie down while the guns made an attempt to silence those of the enemy. He rode along the line, addressing each regiment in turn, aptly suiting his words to what he knew of their previous achievements in war. One order he gave to them all: to reserve their fire until they came within forty yards of the serai, then to pour in one volley and charge home.

The bugles sounded the advance. The eager men--British riflemen, Bengal fusiliers, Panjab infantry--sprang to their feet with a cheer, and followed Nicholson amid a storm of shot over the oozy swamp that divided them from the enemy. They reached the serai, dashed into it, swept the defenders away, and seized the guns, the sepoys resisting with the desperate bravery they almost always displayed behind defences. The serai cleared, the cheering infantry formed up on the left, and with irresistible dash fell on the rebels as they fled toward the ca.n.a.l bridge in mad haste to save their guns.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Lumsden, brother of Lumsden of the Guides, had driven the enemy out of Najafgarh itself. But just as the sun was setting on the brief battle, Nicholson learnt that a band of mutineers had halted in a cl.u.s.ter of houses between the serai and the ca.n.a.l.

Determined not to leave his victory incomplete, he ordered Lumsden to drive them out at the point of the bayonet. The Panjabis followed their gallant leader into the hamlet; but the rebels were well defended, and fought with the stubborn valour of despair. Lumsden fell, shot through the heart; many of his men were killed with him; and it was not until the 61st Foot came up that the last position was won.

This was the only shadow on the brilliance of the victory. Nicholson had routed a force of trained sepoys, double the number of his own men, after a long day's march in the worst of conditions. He had captured twelve of their sixteen guns, and all their stores and baggage. Their slaughter had been great; the demoralized survivors were in full flight for Delhi. On the British side, the casualties were less than a hundred killed and wounded.

The troops bivouacked on the field. Sherdil, lying that night beside Ahmed on a horse-rug, said--

"What will happen to thee, Ahmed-ji, when the city is taken?"

"What indeed, save that I go back with thee and the Guides to Hoti-Mardan!"

"But that cannot be the end of things for thee. Thou art of the sahibs: the secret cannot be kept for ever. The Guides notice something in thee that is different from the rest, and they ask me about it, and I tell them thou art the son of a chief; but they are not satisfied. Dost thou not yearn to be among thy true people?"

"What wouldst thou, Sherdil? I have had such thoughts, but now that I have seen the sahibs, who am I that I should claim kinship with them? I cannot speak their speech; I know nothing of their learning. It were better, maybe, to remain a Guide and in due time become a dafadar like thee; and then some day go back to s.h.a.gpur, and do unto that fat Dilasah as he deserves. I came thence to win freedom for my father; and he is now free, and needs not my help. Him I know, and his people; among the sahibs I am but as an ignorant little child."

"Thou sayest true; yet a stone does not rot in water, and though thou remain among Pathans a thousand years thou wilt never be other than a sahib. Well, what must be, will be. Small rain fills a pond: peradventure when thou hast been a little longer with the sahibs the cup of thy desire will run over."

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH

The Storming of Delhi

Nicholson's victory at Najafgarh encouraged the little army on the Ridge as much as it dismayed the enemy. The former needed encouragement. More than a thousand Englishmen were in hospital. General Wilson was anxious and depressed; urged on the one side by Lawrence to strike a blow and save India, on the other fearing to risk an a.s.sault which, if it failed, would mean annihilation or at best ignominious retirement. But Nicholson inspired officers and men with confidence. The sight of his great form stalking or riding day after day from end to end of the position, made men feel that when the long-expected siege-train arrived no time would be lost in putting all to the hazard. He went carefully over the ground, deciding with Baird Smith, the head of the Engineers, the sites for the breaching batteries, arranging the composition and disposition of the attacking columns, gaining all possible information about affairs in the city.

In Delhi, meanwhile, it was beginning to be felt that the hour of retribution was at hand. The dissensions between the rival commanders became more acute; one day the king would refuse to see Bakht Khan, holding that he had disgraced himself; the next he would shower compliments on him and a.s.sure him of his continued good favour. The army still complained of lack of pay; the princes still plundered the bankers and merchants; the whole city was in a state of terror. Day by day sepoys deserted, going away unarmed to seek their homes. Yet when a postal-runner from the Ridge fell into the rebels' hands, and, being questioned in the king's presence as to what was going on in the camp, declared that the sepoys would never prevail against the English, his outspoken opinion enraged the courtiers, and they sentenced him to death.

At last, on September 4, the siege-train arrived, a long line of heavy guns and mortars drawn by elephants, with miles of bullock-carts loaded with shot and sh.e.l.l and ammunition of all kinds, enough to grind Delhi to powder. During the next week all energies were strained to make ready for the a.s.sault. Nicholson and Baird Smith had settled the plan. The most vulnerable part of the wall lay between the Water gate and the Mori bastion. Upon this it was decided to concentrate the artillery fire. On the night of September 6, the first battery was begun just below the Sami-house, a half-ruined mosque six hundred yards from the city, and next day, when it was completed and began to belch its shot on the doomed walls, strong pickets took advantage of the distraction to occupy Ludlow Castle, a large country-house of European make towards the left of the position, and the Kudsia gardens opposite the Kashmir gate and overlooking the river. Each night a new battery was erected and armed, to begin each morning its fierce work. The second battery stood in front of Ludlow Castle, five hundred yards from the walls; the third, consisting of four heavy mortars, was made in the Kudsia gardens, and placed in command of the gallant Major Tombs; the fourth, a triumph of the daring and skill of Captain Taylor of the Engineers, had crept within a hundred and sixty yards of the Mori bastion. Nor were these feats of engineering done without loss. As soon as the rebels perceived what was afoot, they directed a storm of musketry on the heroic workers who toiled day and night in the hot moist air. British and natives, officers and men, soldiers of all arms--for Lancers and Carabineers lent a hand in the work--laboured incessantly with unflinching courage. As soon as one man was killed or disabled, another took his place.

By the night of the 11th, all the batteries were complete, and on the 12th more than fifty guns and mortars were pounding the walls. The din was deafening, and mingled with the roar of the guns was the crash of shattered masonry as the red walls crumbled away. At nightfall every post of vantage on the Ridge was crowded with sightseers, watching the living sh.e.l.l flying through the air like falling meteors. The rebels at first attempted to answer the fire, but the gunners could not hold their posts on the shot-swept ramparts. Parties of rebel horse sallied forth from time to time, as if to charge the batteries; but they were met by showers of grape-shot, or set upon by troops of Hodson's Horse, which drove them back in frantic haste to find cover. Nicholson rode from battery to battery, encouraging the men, taking counsel with Baird Smith, watching the effect of these tremendous salvos that shook the ground.

So the bombardment continued until the night of the 13th. Then the roar suddenly ceased. A thrill of expectation ran through the camp. Captain Taylor had reported that the breaches in the walls were practicable; every man knew that the moment for the great a.s.sault was at hand. And in the city men knew it too. The old king spent many hours in his private mosque praying for victory. The traders had all closed their shops, for fear of being carried off to serve at the fortifications. The officers wrangled; there was no commanding spirit like Nicholson among them.

Bakht Khan was brave enough, but he was merely a fighter; he had no genius for leadership. On the night of the 12th a proclamation was carried with beat of drum through the streets, commanding all the men of the city, Hindu and Mohammedan alike, to a.s.semble at the Kashmir gate, bringing picks and shovels; the king himself would lead them forth, and they would fall on the infidels and sweep them away. The Hindus paid no heed; but ten thousand faithful Mohammedans, inflamed with fanatic ardour, their religious feelings wrought upon by shrieking fakirs and mullahs, congregated at the gates waiting the arrival of their king. But he came not. Till midnight they remained; then hope died away, and with despairing hearts the great throng dispersed to their homes.

On the night of the 13th, ere the bombardment ceased, every available man in the British force, including men just risen from their sick beds in the hospital, went to his appointed station. The a.s.sault was to be made in four columns. A thousand men,--detachments from the 1st Fusiliers, the 15th Regiment, and the 2nd Panjab Infantry--under Nicholson himself, were to storm the breach in the Kashmir bastion, and escalade the walls. The second column, also a thousand strong, under Colonel Jones of the 61st, was simultaneously to storm and scale the Mori bastion. Meanwhile the Kashmir gate was to be blown up, and the third column, under Colonel Campbell of the 52nd, would sweep in through the breach. The fourth column, commanded by Major Reid, who had gallantly held Hindu Rao's house throughout the summer, was to attack the suburb of Kishenganj and enter by the Lah.o.r.e gate. A fifth column, of 1,500 men, was held in reserve to give support to the first, and Colonel Hope Grant was to post himself on the Ridge, with the cavalry six hundred strong, to prevent the rebels from re-entering the city when thrust out of Kishenganj. The whole force consisted of some 7,000 men.

Ahmed had been looking forward with great eagerness to the fight. The Guides' cavalry, commanded now by Captain Sandford, formed part of Hope Grant's brigade, and they expected warm work at Kishenganj when Major Reid had driven the rebels into the open. But on the evening of the 13th Ahmed was summoned to Nicholson's tent, and learnt, with mingled pride and disappointment, that he was to accompany the first column. When the troops entered the city they would require a guide through its network of streets and lanes, and Hodson had recommended Ahmed for the duty. He was proud at being selected to serve Nicholson, but at the same time disappointed that he was not to go side by side with Sherdil into the fight. Sherdil himself was envious.

"In very truth thou art favoured above all men," he said. "I myself would fain serve the great Nikalsain."

"But thou dost not know Delhi, Sherdil-ji," replied Ahmed.

"True, but by often asking one can find the way. Wah! I will nevertheless fight as befits one of my name, and I promise thee that when the day is done the Purbiyas shall lie around me like gra.s.s from the scythe."

Dawn was just breaking on that sultry September 14, when the bugle sounded the advance. The Rifles led the way in skirmishing order; the first column, with Nicholson ahead, marched on steadily until they reached the edge of the jungle. Then the Engineers and the storming party, with their ladders, rose from cover, and sprang forward to the breach near the Kashmir bastion. A storm of musket-shots a.s.sailed them as they gained the crest of the glacis; scores of men fell; but the survivors let down their ladders, the British officers ran down them into the ditch, the men close behind, and with a great cheer they rushed up the scarp and into the breach. The sight of their gleaming bayonets was too much for the sepoys. They fled, and Nicholson led his men into Delhi.

Meanwhile, at the Mori bastion, Colonel Jones had been met by a tremendous fusillade that mowed down three-fourths of his ladder-men, and a great number of his storming party. But while his men were still struggling with the ladder, twenty-five of the 8th Foot slid into the ditch, and scrambled up into the breach at a point where attack had not been expected. The rebels were taken aback; Jones seized the moment of hesitation, and in a few minutes the rest of his column were upon the ramparts. They swept on towards the Kabul gate, driving the enemy before them, and a wild whoop rose from the panting men as they saw their flag planted on the summit of the gate.

The progress of the third column had been marked by an act of heroism.

The Kashmir gate must be blown open before they could enter. Home, a subaltern of the Engineers, with two British sergeants and a dozen natives, ran forward to the gate under a heavy fire, carrying twenty-five pound powder-bags. A step or two behind came Lieutenant Salkeld with a firing party and a bugler. They ran across the ditch by the planks of the drawbridge, and came unscathed to the foot of the great double gates, the rebels seeming to be scared into inaction by the very audacity of the feat. They laid the bags against the gate; then a terrible fire was again directed upon them. A sergeant fell dead; Home dropped unhurt into the ditch; Salkeld, holding the portfire, was shot through arm and leg, and fell back helpless. He handed the portfire to Corporal Burgess, who was shot dead before he could light the fuse.

Carmichael took the portfire and had just lighted the fuse, when he received a mortal wound. Smith, fearing that Carmichael had failed, sprang forward, match-box in hand; but the portfire exploded just as he reached the gate, and he plunged into the ditch to escape the greater explosion. Next moment the gate was shattered to fragments. Now was the bugler's turn. Three times he sounded the advance, but amid the din all around it was not heard. The explosion itself, however, gave the signal, and Colonel Campbell led his men forward at the double, and dashed into the city but a few minutes after the first and second columns had entered it.

The fourth column had meanwhile suffered a disastrous check. The guns which were to accompany it were late in arriving, and when they did come, the gunners were only sufficient to work one out of the four.

Major Reid was waiting until others could be found, when he heard the explosion at the Kashmir gate and learnt that a portion of his native troops were already engaged at the Idgah. It was time to be up and doing, so he set off to the attack of Kishenganj, leaving his guns behind. But a musket-ball struck him on the head, and he fell insensible into the ditch. There was some disorder among the men, and a doubt as to who was now in command of the column; and when Reid settled that, on returning to consciousness, by ordering Captain Lawrence to take the command, the fire of artillery and musketry from the unbreached walls of Kishenganj was so heavy as to necessitate the withdrawal of the column to their starting-place at Hindu Rao's house. Hope Grant's cavalry, drawn up to guard their flank when they pressed forward to the city, as had been the intention, were forced to sit their horses for two long hours without a chance of doing anything, under a hurricane of lead and iron from the Burn bastion. Only a third of them were British, but the troopers of the Guides and Hodson's Horse behaved as steadily under this critical ordeal as the British Lancers. In the excitement of action men may face lightheartedly dangers to which they are oblivious: it needs more heroism to sit like sentries at the Horse Guards while b.a.l.l.s are flying thick around. By and by they were helped to hold their ground by Captain Bourchier's battery of horse artillery. And not till they learnt that the three storming columns had entered the city, and established themselves there, did they fall back to their bivouac around Ludlow Castle.

In the city the ramparts were in British hands, from the Kashmir gate to the Kabul gate, and Colonel Campbell had pushed on across the Chandni Chauk, and as far as the great mosque, which had been fortified. From it and the surrounding houses a deadly fire was poured upon the British, and Campbell, finding that the support he had expected from the other columns was not forthcoming, fell back upon the Begam Bagh, a vast walled garden, where he bivouacked.

Meanwhile, Nicholson had pressed on along the foot of the walls towards the Kabul gate, where British colours now flew. The plan had been to clear the ramparts as far westward as the Lah.o.r.e gate, and Nicholson expected that Major Reid's column would by this time have entered the city there. Nothing daunted by Reid's failure, Nicholson determined to push forward without this support.

Between the Kabul and the Lah.o.r.e gates was the Burn bastion, the strongest part of the defences, whence a galling fire was being kept up both on the cavalry drawn up outside and on the infantry in the narrow streets within. A narrow lane, three hundred yards long, and varying from ten feet to three in width, ran between the Kabul gate and the bastion, lined with mud huts on one side and on the other by the ramparts. The rebels, taking heart at the one success they had achieved in the repulse of the fourth column and the havoc wrought by the Burn bastion, had come crowding back into the lane, the further end of which they defended with two bra.s.s guns posted behind a bullet-proof screen.

Nicholson knew that his task would not be finished until the bastion was taken. The enemy would exult if it remained even for a day in their hands. So he called on the 1st Fusiliers to charge along the lane, ordering the 75th to rush along the ramparts and carry the position above. The men, tired as they were, gallantly responded. On they went, reached the first gun, overwhelmed the gunners, then dashed on with a cheer to the second. But ere they reached it a storm of shot--musket-b.a.l.l.s, grape, canister, round shot, even stones flung by hand--burst upon them. They recoiled. Again they formed up, again charged up the lane, again captured the first gun, which Captain Greville spiked. Once more they dashed forward to the second gun and the bullet-proof screen. Men fell fast, blocking the narrow lane. Major Jacob, of the 1st Fusiliers, and six other officers were struck down, and Captain Greville was withdrawing the men from what he deemed an impossible task.

But at this moment the great voice of Nicholson himself was heard calling on the men to make one more charge and follow him. He rushed to the front, and turned his back for a moment to the enemy, so that his men might see his face and take courage. A shot from the bastion struck him in the back; he reeled and fell. A sergeant caught him, and laid him in one of the recesses below the ramparts. He was taken back to the Kabul gate, and by and by was placed in a dooli and entrusted to native bearers to carry to the field hospital below the Ridge.

Lieutenant Frederick Roberts, an engineer on General Wilson's staff, had been sent into the city to discover the truth of reports carried to him--that Nicholson had fallen, and Hope Grant and Tombs were both dead.

As he rode through the Kashmir gate, Lieutenant Roberts saw a dooli by the roadside with a wounded man in it, but no bearers. The lieutenant dismounted to see what he could do. He found that the wounded man was John Nicholson, deserted by the bearers, lying in helpless agony alone.

The bearers had run off to plunder. Four men were found to supply their places; a sergeant of the 61st Foot was put in charge of the party, and the dying soldier was carried to Captain Daly's tent on the Ridge.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH