"Why, Alladad Khan, being guardian to his nephew--a boy--seized upon his inheritance and drove him from the village. By and by, when the boy's beard was grown, he went to Nikalsain and besought him that he would do him right. But Alladad was a great man, and mightily feared, so that when Nikalsain sent to his village to seek witnesses of the truth of the matter, no man durst for his life speak for the boy. One morn, ere the sun was up, a man of the village went forth to his fields, and lo! there was Nikalsain's grey mare grazing just beyond the gate. The man shook with amaze and fear, and when his trembling had ceased, ran back again to tell Alladad Khan. And soon all the men of the village flocked to the gate to see the sight, and they marvelled greatly. Alladad also was in dread, for his conscience pricked him, and he bade some to drive the mare to the grass of some other village, lest evil should come upon them. And as they went forth to do his bidding, in a little space they came to a tree, and lo! tied to it, was Nikalsain himself. Some fled away in great fear; others, thinking to win favour with the hazur, went forward to loose him. But Nikalsain cried to them in a loud voice--verily his voice is like thunder--and bade them stand and say on whose land they were. In their fear none could speak, but they lifted their fingers and pointed to Alladad Khan, and he came out from among them with trembling knees and said in haste: 'Nay, hazur, the land is not mine, but my nephew's.' Then Nikalsain bade him swear by the Prophet that what he said was true, and when Alladad had sworn, the hazur permitted the cords to be loosed. And next day in his court he decreed that the nephew should receive his inheritance, since his uncle had sworn it was his; and Alladad, shamefaced at the manner of his discomfiture, and at the laughter of the people, went straightway on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and the place knew him no more." "Nikalsain is just, and very terrible," said Sherdil. "Is he not like one of the heroes of old? A tall man, with a face as grave as a mullah's, and a black beard thicker than mine, and he holds his head high in the air as if he scorned to see the ground. Jan Larrens sent him to us; his troops are yet on the way; and when they come there will be hot work in the gates of Delhi." A few days later Nicholson rode out to meet the movable column of which he was in command, and which had been raised by the energy of John Lawrence in the Panjab. It was an inspiriting sight when, on the fourteenth of August, the column, 3,000 strong, British and natives, marched into camp behind their stately leader, amid the blare of bands and the cheers of the weary holders of the Ridge. Their arrival infused the hearts of the besiegers with new courage and cheerfulness; every man, from the general down to the meanest bhisti, hailed Nicholson's coming as the beginning of the end.