THE SIEGE OF DELHI. 217 



ing mysterious little scrolls that had been concealed 

 in the most inexplicable manner. These were mostly 

 from Eajab Ali's own connections and friends about 

 Court, and some friendly news- writers whose services 

 he had engaged." 



It is needless here to dwell on the dangers to 

 which our spies were exposed alike from their own 

 countrymen and the British sentries. Some of them 

 disappeared, says Sir T. Seaton, "but our news- 

 writers escaped detection. I have two of these 

 letters now before me, little scrolls of the finest 

 paper — finer and closer than our tissue paper — two 

 and a quarter inches long by one and a half broad. 

 . . . The translation of one scroll fills two and a 

 quarter pages of large blue letter-paper." 



Those spies who brought in verbal intelligence had 

 to undergo a rigorous examination both from Hodson 

 and Eajab Ali. After these two had laid their heads 

 together, Hodson himself would put the messenger 

 through a still more searching examination, in order, 

 as Seaton remarks, to separate the corn from the 

 chaff", — a very necessary process, for however desir- 

 ous a native may be to tell the truth, and even 

 where it is his interest to do so, he cannot help 

 embellishing it a little, like the man regarding whom 

 an Irish friend quaintly said, ' Bedad, colonel, the 

 lad tells too much truth.' . . . Hodson's aptitude 

 for turning a native inside out and getting at the 

 truth was first - rate. Such a marvellous capacity 

 required a complete mastery of the language, a 

 thorough appreciation of the native character, and 

 power to seize at once the peculiarities of the indi- 

 vidual under examination." ^ 



1 From Cadet to Colonel. 



