THE STORMING OF DELHI. 269 



shoulders the risk or the burden of a deed best done 

 at such a moment by himself.^ 



" I heard the whole story," says Sir Hugh Gough, 

 who had not himself been present, " from M'Dowell 

 directly afterwards, and from Risaldar Man Singh, 

 and other native officers, and his and their undivided 

 testimony was, that as Hodson with his small escort 

 of only a hundred sabres was approaching Delhi the 

 natives crowded round in such numbers, and made 

 such unmistakable signs of attempting a rescue, that 

 the only step left was their death. As M'Dowell 

 said, ' Our own lives were not worth a moment's 

 purchase.' " - 



" Stranse," wrote Hodson five months later, " that 

 some of those who are loudest against me for spar- 

 ing the king are also crying out at my destroying 

 his sons. . . . But, in point of fact, I am quite 

 indifferent to clamour either way. I made up my 

 mind at the time to be abused. I was convinced I 

 was right, and when I prepared to run the great 

 physical risk of the attempt, I was equally game for 

 the moral risk of praise or blame. These have not 

 been, and are not, times when a man who would 

 serve his country dare hesitate as to the personal 

 consequences to himself of what he thinks his duty." 



There is no doubt, at any rate, that Hodson and 

 his small escort were in imminent danger from the 

 crowd that pressed around them. "All I can say," 

 as Dr Anderson, surgeon to Hodson's Horse, after- 

 wards assured the dead man's brother, " is, that I 

 dressed the wounds of my own orderly, who came 

 back with his ear half cut off." 



1 Trotter's India under Victoria. ^ Old Memories. 



