At sunrise on the morning of September 21 a royal salute rang over Delhi, its pulses of deep sound proclaiming to all India that the sacred city, the home and stronghold of the revolt, was once more in British hands. That same day Wilson moved in from his rough camp on the Ridge, and established his headquarters in the Dewan-i-khas, the king’s private hall of audience.
But if Delhi was captured, the King of Delhi, with all the leading figures in the Mutiny, yet remained free, and might easily become the centre of new troubles. The rebel commander-in-chief felt that the game was up when the Burn Bastion was carried, and he fled from the city that night, carrying with him most of his troops. He urged the king to flee with him, and to renew the war in the open country, where his name would have all the magical charm of a spell on the imagination of the common people. But the unhappy king was old and tired. His nerve had been dissolved in the sloth and sensualities of an Indian court. His favourite wife strongly opposed flight, in the interests of her child, whom she hoped to see succeeding the king.
The unhappy monarch, in a word, could neither flee nor stay, and he took refuge in a stately cluster of famous buildings named Humayon’s Tomb, some seven miles out of Delhi. Hodson, the daring and famous captain of Light Horse, ascertained this, and with some trouble extracted from Wilson permission to attempt the capture of the king, with strict instructions to promise him his life. Taking fifty picked men from his regiment, Hodson rode out on one of the most audacious expeditions ever undertaken.
The road to Humayon’s Tomb at one point runs underneath a strong tower, where the king had at first taken refuge, and which was still filled with his adherents. Fierce dark faces looked down from its parapets and from every arrow-slit in its walls as Hodson, with his little cluster of horsemen, rode past. But in the Englishman’s stern face and cool, unflurried bearing there was something which awed those who looked on him, and not a shot was fired as the party rode by on their stern errand.
Hodson and his men reached the spot where the tomb lifts its dome of stainless marble high in the air. In one of the chambers of that great pillar sat, trembling, the last heir of the house of Timour; in the cloisters at its foot were some thousands of the servants and hangers-on of the palace, armed and excited.
For two hours Hodson sat in his saddle before the gate, his men posted—a slender chain of cavalry—round the tomb, while messengers passed to and fro between him and the king. “Picture to yourself,” said Hodson’s brother, when telling the story, “the scene before that magnificent gateway, with the milk-white domes of the tomb towering up from within. One white man, amongst a host of natives, determined to secure his prisoner or perish in the attempt!”
The king at last consented to come out and deliver himself to Hodson, but only on condition that he repeated with his own lips Wilson’s promise of safety for his life. Presently the king came out, carried in a bullock-carriage, and Hodson spurred his horse forward and demanded the king’s arms. The king asked him whether he were Hodson Bahadur, and if he promised him his life. Hodson gave the required promise, but added grimly that if any attempt were made at a rescue he would shoot the king down like a dog! Then the procession, at a foot walk, moved on to the city, thousands of natives following and gazing in wonder at the lordly figure of that solitary Englishman carrying off their king alone. But Hodson’s calm and dauntless bearing acted as a spell on the crowd.
Bit by bit the multitude slunk away, and, with his fifty horsemen and his group of prisoners, Hodson rode up to the Lahore Gate. “What have you got in that palkee?” asked the officer on duty. “Only the King of Delhi!” said Hodson. The clustering guard at the gate were with difficulty kept from cheering. The little group moved up the stately Silver Bazaar to the palace gate, where Hodson delivered over his royal prisoners to the civil officer in charge. “By Jove, Hodson,” said that astonished official, “they ought to make you Commander-in-Chief for this!” When Hodson reported his success to Wilson, that general’s ungracious and characteristic comment was, “Well, I’m glad you’ve got him. But I never expected to see either you or him again!”
Hope Grant tells how he went to see the fallen monarch in his prison:—
He was an old man, said by one of the servants to be ninety years of age, short in stature, slight, very fair for a native, and with a high-bred, delicate-looking cast of features. Truly the dignity had departed from the Great Mogul, whose ancestors had once been lords of princely possessions in India. It might have been supposed that death would have been preferable to such humiliation, but it is wonderful how we all cling to the shreds of life. When I saw the poor old man he was seated on a wretched charpoy, or native bed, with his legs crossed before him, and swinging his body backwards and forwards with an unconscious dreamy look. I asked him one or two questions, and was surprised to hear an unpleasantly vulgar voice answering from behind a small screen. I was told that this proceeded from his begum, or queen, who prevented him from replying, fearful lest he might say something which should compromise their safety.