276 



CHAPTER XVII. 



FKOM DELHI TO UMBALA. SEPT. -NOV. 1857. 



On the morning of September 23 Nicholson's great 

 soul passed away from the scene of his last and 

 most glorious achievements. He had lived, in- 

 deed, to know that he had not fought and fallen 

 in vain. But in every Indian station a cry of sor- 

 row for the loss of such a leader rang out through 

 the general rejoicing over the fall of Delhi and the 

 capture of its king. In the words of the eloquent 

 historian of the ' Sepoy War,' " Then from city to 

 city, from cantonment to cantonment, went the 

 chequered tidings : Delhi had fallen, the king was 

 a captive — but John Nicholson was dead." ^ Among 

 those who mourned most deeply the death of such 

 a man at such a moment was Hodson himself: 

 " With the single exceptions of my ever -revered 

 Sir Henry Lawrence and Colonel Mackeson, I have 

 never seen his equal in field or council : he was 

 pre-eminently our 'best and bravest,' and his loss 

 is not to be atoned for in these days." 



The fall of the imperial city on the Jumna broke 

 the neck of a wide-raging rebellion before a single 

 soldier of the thousands then on their way from 



^ Kaye's Sepoy War, vol. iii. 



