But the months wore on from May to September while Delhi remained untaken, and he knew that week by week the respect of the Punjab people, originally high, for the British Government, was being lowered by the spectacle of unretrieved disaster. He felt also that the patience of the evil-disposed, which had been happily protracted, must be approaching nearer and nearer to the point of exhaustion. He saw that sickness was creeping over the robust frame of the body politic, and that the symptoms of distemper, which were day by day appearing in the limbs, might ere long extend to the vital organs. He learned, from intercepted correspondence, the sinister metaphors which were being applied to what seemed to be the sinking state of the British cause--such as “many of the finest trees in the garden have fallen,” or “white wheat is scarce and country produce abundant,” or “hats are hardly to be seen while turbans are countless.” Yet it was evident to him that the force before Delhi in August would not suffice to recapture the place, although he had sent all the reinforcements which could properly be spared from the Punjab. But if Delhi should remain untaken, the certainty of disturbance throughout the Punjab presented itself to him. He must therefore make one supreme effort to so strengthen the Delhi camp that an assault might be soon delivered. This he could do by despatching thither the one last reserve which the Punjab possessed, namely Nicholson’s movable column. This was a perilous step to take, and his best officers, as in duty bound, pointed out its perils; still he resolved to adopt it. If the column should go, grave risk would indeed be incurred for the Punjab, but then there was a chance of Delhi being taken, and of the Punjab being preserved; if the column should not go, then Delhi would not be taken, and in that case the Punjab must sooner or later be lost; and he had finally to decide between these two alternatives. His intimate acquaintance with the people taught him that if a general rising should occur in consequence of the British failing to take Delhi, then the presence of the movable column in the Punjab would not save the Province. This was the crisis not only in his career, but also in the fate of the Punjab and of Delhi with Hindostan. He decided in favour of action, not only as the safer of two alternatives, but as the only alternative which afforded any hope of safety. He was conscious that this particular decision was fraught with present risk to the Punjab, which had hardly force enough for self-preservation. But he held that the other alternative must ultimately lead to destruction. His decision thus formed had to be followed by rapid action, for sickness at the end of summer and beginning of autumn was literally decimating the European force before Delhi week by week; and even each day as it passed appreciably lessened the fighting strength. So the column marched with all speed for Delhi; and then he had sped his last bolt.