LAST SCENE OF ALL. 331 



we could reach our new encamping-ground. As it 

 was, it was dark before we reached it. Just as 

 I dismounted, Hodson's orderly rode up to me 

 telling me that his master had been dangerously 

 hit, and had sent for me." ^ 



Soon after midday, having received his last orders 

 from the commander-in-chief, Hodson walked into 

 the tent of Captain (afterwards General) Hutchinson 

 of the Engineers. " Where is Napier ? " he asked of 

 the friend whom he had not met since the Satlaj 

 campaign. Hutchinson replied, " He is in the city, 

 and will probably be taking the Begam Koti this 

 afternoon." At Hutchinson's entreaty his visitor 

 stayed to luncheon. 



" I well recollect," writes his host, " the deeply 

 interestino' account I led him into of his hand-to- 

 hand conflicts. Noticing his large pistol (revolver), 

 I asked him if he could trust it (it was a Colt I 

 think), and told him how a revolver had twice 

 failed me, — once in a cavalry charge with Forbes 

 when the military police mutinied in Oudh in 1857, 

 and once in a mine in Lucknow. He said No, the 

 bullet does not always give sufficient shock to the 

 system to stop a man, and mentioned one case 

 in which though he had shot an assailant through 

 the throat, yet he had after that a stiff sword-fight 

 with him before he could kill him. 



" He left me after luncheon to see Napier." ^ 



In a letter to Mrs Hodson, Napier tells us what 

 happened then : — 



" On the morning of our taking a range of palaces 

 called the Begam Koti, I was reconnoitring the 



1 MS. letter to Mrs Hodson. 



- MS. letter to the Rev. G. H. Hodson. 



