Havelock's heroes! the illustrious warriors who first relieved the garrison of Lucknow. Yes, these brave men before me had performed one of the greatest military feats known to history, and did it, too, notwithstanding that they lost nearly one half of their number in its execution. I looked at their sun-browned faces, and thought of the manly tears they shed when, covered with dust and smoke, they rushed through the last street and into the “Residency” among the men and women whom they had suffered so much to rescue, and, snatching up the children in their arms, thanked God “that they were in time to save them!”
Noble men! I realized, as I stood before them, that their fame belongs to our nation as much as to their own. And I shall ever esteem it one of the highest privileges of my life that I was permitted to preach, and that, too, on the very ground of their last battle-field, to the men that General Havelock led to the relief of Lucknow!
Though it anticipates the time somewhat, I may here mention that Khan Bahadur was captured and brought into Bareilly. He and four or five others were confined in the little fort, awaiting their trial. Wishing to see my old neighbor, and say a word to him before he died, I obtained permission to do so, accompanied by Rev. Mr. Humphrey. There, in his cell, we found Khan Bahadur, his long white beard hanging down nearly to his waist. It was a trying moment for us both. Here was the man who sent to my house to kill me and my family, who expressed his deep disappointment at our having escaped his hands, and who afterward set a price upon my head! This was the man, too, who had deliberately murdered Judge Robertson, Judge Raikes, Dr. Hay, and many more of my acquaintance!
What a curious thing is human nature! Here was a criminal, of whose deep guilt no one that knew him could have the least doubt; and yet an author like Montgomery Martin, who never saw him, and had no adequate knowledge of his desperate wickedness, half undertakes to whitewash his ensanguined fame! But this is consistent with Mr. Martin's course, in his efforts to find cause of commiseration for the Delhi Emperor, while he seems to exhibit
