to carry forward the much needed succour.  In reserve lying near him was the Gurkha company of the Guides, and also a company of the 66th Gurkhas under a native officer.  Taking these troops, with great dash and personal gallantry he led them to the attack, drove back the already exulting enemy, stormed their position, and extricated Lieutenant Turner and his party from their perilous position.  It was a noble deed, nobly and gallantly carried out; and when it had been achieved, the brave fighter returned to the tender care of the wounded, and to alleviate the pains of the dying.

And now Hodson had got together the threads of his retirement, and using one to help the other, gradually and slowly drew back, covering the brigade with a net of safety.  Thus quietly falling back, and meeting wild charges with ball and bayonet, he kept the open valley till all the force had safely passed the defile of exit.  Then, while the last of his infantry got safely to commanding posts on the lower slopes, he himself, with the ready resource of the born fighter, changed his game, and from the patient role of the steady infantry commander, became a cavalry leader.  Mounting his horse and calling on the Guides’ cavalry to follow him, he suddenly charged the astonished enemy, and hurling them back with slaughter secured for the rest of his men a peaceful retirement.  But before they laid themselves on the hard ground, this paladin of the fight and his staunch warriors had spent eighteen hours in desperate warfare with little food and no water.

So far as the records show this was the first occasion on which Hodson had led a cavalry charge, and was an auspicious opening to a cavalry career of remarkable brilliancy,—­a career which was brought to a brave, but untimely end, only four years later before the walls of Lucknow.

Amongst other historic figures who watched this fight, and who added their generous meed of praise, were John Lawrence, the saviour of the Punjab, who later, as Lord Lawrence, was Viceroy of India, Major Herbert Edwardes, now Commissioner of Peshawur, who as a subaltern had won two pitched battles before Mooltan, and Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Napier, afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala and Commander-in-Chief of the Army in India.

CHAPTER V

THE STORY OF DILAWUR KHAN.

The story of Dilawur Khan, subadar of the Guides, is one which kindles many a kindly memory of the rough brave fellows who, under a sprinkling of English officers, upheld British supremacy on the North-West Frontier of India in the early ’fifties.

When Lumsden was raising the Guides he looked about for men who, as he expressed it, were “accustomed to look after themselves and not easily taken aback by any sudden emergency,”—­men born and bred to the sword, who had faced death a hundred times from childhood upwards, and who had thus instinctively learnt to be alert, brave, and self-reliant.  To these hardy warriors Lumsden explained the simple doctrine that they were enlisted for three years, had to do what they were bid, and would receive a certain fixed salary every month for their trouble.