[ They saw Nicholson himself fastened with ropes to a tree ]
[ Portrait of John Nicholson ]
[ He saw Nicholson's great form riding steadily on as if nothing was the matter ]
[ A sepoy leaned out . . . and pointed his musket at the tall figure beneath him ]
JOHN NICHOLSON
CHAPTER I.
EASTWARD HO!
High up on the crest of the wild and rugged Margalla Pass, on the north-western frontier of India, stands a plain stone obelisk. It looks down on to the road that winds from Rawal Pindi to Hasan Abdal, the road where once only the Afghan camel-train passed on its way to and from Peshawur, but where now a railway marks the progress of modern India. Severely simple in its exterior, the obelisk is yet one of the most notable monuments to be seen in our great Eastern Empire, for it commemorates a soldier-hero of high fame. On its base is inscribed the name of John Nicholson.
This Margalla monument is not the only memorial to Nicholson in India: there is a tablet to his memory in a church at Bannu, the scene of his administrative work; and there is at Delhi, where he lies buried, a fine bronze statue of recent erection. But the stone obelisk in the frontier pass will stand for ever as the most striking tribute to the man who played so prominent a part in the saving of India. Its very position appeals strongly to the imagination. Here it was, in the district which he ruled so wisely and well, that Nicholson's early reputation was made; and here it is that among the wild tribesmen whom he tamed to his will his memory is still fondly cherished.