The disarmament of the sepoy regiments, and the executions at Peshawar, convinced the populations of the Punjab that the British were masters. There may have been some of the old Sikh soldiers of the Khalsa, who were still yearning for the expulsion of the British from the land of the five rivers; but even in their case the old hostility was forgotten in the feverish longing to be revenged on Delhi for the persecution and slaughter of their saints. Possibly they were still more eager to plunder the palaces and bazaars of Delhi. The mountain tribes outside the British frontier, who professed to be Mohammedans, were as enthusiastic as the Sikhs to share in the sack of Delhi. They implored pardon for all past offences, paid up all fines, and volunteered to help the British to capture the revolted city. [Sidenote: Sore peril.] John Lawrence sent the Punjab Guides to Delhi, and raised nineteen or twenty regiments of Sikhs and others. But he could not spare more Europeans. Mutiny threatened him on all sides. At Julinder three Bengal regiments murdered their officers, broke open prisons, and ran off to Delhi before the flying column under Neville Chamberlain could overtake them. [Sidenote: John Nicholson, the sainted warrior.] §17. At this crisis Neville Chamberlain was sent to join the British force on the Ridge, and John Nicholson took the command of the flying column. He disarmed several sepoy regiments without firing a shot, but had no mercy for rebels. He was a fine type of the zealous and single-minded European officers of the old East India Company's army; a hero who was reverenced by Asiatic soldiery for his dash and valour, and worshipped by his men as one of the demigods of India. Indeed in one case the worship of Nicholson was literal. A religious fraternity of Sikhs took the name of "Nicholsons"; or as they pronounced it "Nikkal Scynes." They wore salmon-coloured garments and black felt hats as a distinctive garb, and they sang hymns with a chorus of "Guru Nikkal Scyne." In 1854 a deputation of these worshippers waited on Nicholson, threw themselves at his feet and chanted his praises. He remonstrated, but they persisted, and he ordered his native servants to whip the nonsense out of them. The devotees, however, gloried in being flogged, and declared that it was a just punishment for their sins. Nicholson was obliged to run away from his worshippers. It will be seen hereafter that he fell in the storming of Delhi. When the news of his death reached the fraternity, two of them committed suicide, whilst the third embraced Christianity out of respect for the memory of his "Guru." [Sidenote: Proposed withdrawal from Peshawar.]