lum he sought, and dragged
him trembling and begging for mercy from among the tombs.

Hodson was a man of remarkable character and determination and
was willing to assume responsibility, and "Hodson's Horse," as
the volunteer battalion was called, were the Rough Riders of the
Indian mutiny. He took the aged king back to Delhi and delivered
him to the British authorities alive, but almost imbecile from
terror and excitement. The two princes, 19 and 22 years of age,
he deliberately shot with his own revolver before leaving the
courtyard of the tomb in which they were captured.

This excited the horror of all England. The atrocities of the
mutineers were almost forgotten for the moment. That the heirs
of the throne of the great Moguls should be killed by a British
officer while prisoners of war was an offense against civilization
and Christianity that could not be tolerated, although only a
few weeks before these two same princes had participated in the
cold-blooded butchery of fifty Christian women and children.
There was a parliamentary investigation. Hodson explained that
he had only a few men, too few to guard three prisoners of such
importance; that he was surrounded by fifty thousand half-armed
and excited natives, who would have exterminated his little band
and rescued his prisoners if anyone of their number had possessed
sufficient presence of mind and courage to make the attempt.
Convinced that he could not conduct three prisoners through that
crowd of their adherents and sympathizers without sacrificing
his own life and that of his escort, he took the responsibility
of shooting the princes like the reptiles they were, and thus
relieved the British government from what might have been a most
embarrassing situation.

Hodson was condemned by parliament and public opinion, while
the bloodthirsty old assassin he had captured was treated as
gently and as generously as if he had been a saint. Bahandur
Shah was tried and convicted of treason, but was acquitted of
responsibility for the massacre on the ground that his act
authorizing it was a mere formality, and that it would have occurred
without his consent at any rate. Instead of hanging him the British
government sent him in exile to Rangoon, where he was furnished
a comfortable bungalow and received a generous pension until
November, 1862, when he died. Bahandur Shah had a third son, a
worthless drunken fellow, who managed to escape the consequences
of his part