248 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



and staunch in their first engagement with the 

 enemy." ^ 



To one incident in that memorable ride to Rohtak 

 especial reference must be made, because it supplied 

 a handle for one of those calumnies which pursued 

 Hodson's memory long after his death. Among the 

 prisoners taken at Kharkauda was one Bisharat Ali, 

 a risalddr, or troop commander, of the 1st Irregular 

 Cavalry. This man having been caught, as it were, 

 red-handed in a village full of armed mutineers, was 

 summarily tried and shot. His execution under 

 such conditions excited no surprise or comment in 

 Wilson's camp. "As there was no doubt of his 

 disloyalty, rendered more open and declared by 

 the resistance of his men, who were all of his own 

 regiment, Hodson was quite justified in his action, 

 and the native officer and those with him fully 

 deserved their fate." ^ 



It is true that Bisharat Ali had lately been 

 decorated with the Order of Merit by Norman's 

 own hands, and that Major (now General) Crawford 

 Chamberlain held strong convictions in favour of 

 his innocence ; but it was a time when the best- 

 grounded belief and the strongest certificates of 

 sepoy loyalty were apt to be wholly stultified by 

 patent facts. 



The Kev. G. H. Hodson tells us that Risaldar 

 Isri Singh of the 19th Bengal Lancers, who had 

 come to England for the Queen's Jubilee in 1887, 

 made the following statement to a general officer 

 with whom he had long been acquainted: "That 

 he lived when young in or near Bisharat All's 

 village, and remembered him well, and how he 



1 Forrest's Selections. * Gough's Memories. 



