Nicholson, "the tramp of whose war-horse might be heard miles off," as was afterwards said of him by a rough Sikh who wept over his grave.
The siege and storming of Delhi was the most illustrious event which occurred in the course of that gigantic struggle, although the leaguer of Lucknow, during which the merest skeleton of a British regiment—the 32nd—held out, under the heroic Inglis, for six months against two hundred thousand armed enemies, has perhaps excited more intense interest. At Delhi, too, the British were really the besieged, though ostensibly the be siegers; they were a mere handful of men "in the open"—not more than 3,700 bayonets, European and native—and they were assailed from day to day by an army of rebels numbering at one time as many as 75,000 men, trained to European discipline by English officers, and supplied with all but exhaustless munitions of war. The heroic little band sat down before the city under the burning rays of a tropical sun. Death, wounds, and fever failed to turn them from their purpose. Thirty times they were attacked by overwhelming numbers, and thirty times did they drive back the enemy behind their defences. As Captain Hodson—himself one of the bravest there—has said, "I venture to aver that no other nation in the world would have remained here, or avoided defeat if they had attempted to do so." Never for an instant did these heroes falter at their work; with sublime endurance they held on, fought on, and never relaxed until, dashing through the "imminent deadly breach," the place was won, and the British flag was again unfurled on the walls of Delhi. All were great—privates, officers, and generals.
