Hardly had he returned when that terrible uprising of the native soldiers which we call the Indian Mutiny began, and the first warfare which young Roberts knew was against the well-armed and well-trained sepoys[103] who had broken their oath of loyalty to the Queen, and were striving to drive the British out of the peninsula. Some years ago, when I visited India, I went, as in duty bound, to Delhi,[104] the present capital, and the great storm centre of fighting during the Mutiny. Memorials of that terrible time abound in Delhi. About a mile to the north of the city is the "Ridge," a low, narrow hill on which a band of Britons, the mere skeleton of an army, hungry, fever-stricken, "stormed at with shot and shell," held its own against an army of sepoys during the awful heat of an Indian summer. From the Flagstaff Tower in which the women and children took refuge during that dread time a road runs directly to the city, and on the right of it is a little garden in which stands a bronze statue to John Nicholson,[105] the hero of the siege. Close by the Nicholson statue is the Kashmir Gate, preserved in its ruinous condition to recall the marvellous daring of the six Britons who blew it up, and thus opened a way for the British troops to enter the city. Roberts, as a young subaltern of twenty-five, saw Nicholson lying wounded and dying by the side of the road not far from this gate. Nicholson was the most distinguished of that group of young men who by almost superhuman devotion saved India for the Empire during the Mutiny. It was under the influence of such men as Nicholson--men of lofty ideals of duty, of iron resolution and unfaltering courage--and amidst scenes of the most glorious heroism, that Roberts began his military career. Nicholson was his type and model. When the Mutiny was at an end Roberts was a veteran of ability and experience, and he wore the Victoria Cross on his breast. For forty-one years he served India, taking part in all the important campaigns, and gradually rising in the service until, in 1885, he became Commander-in-Chief. He won great fame in the Afghanistan campaigns, and became the idol of the Indian army, to whom he was known as "Bobs." No Indian commander-in-chief has ever been so admired and loved by the troops under his command. He never strove for popularity, but he could not escape it. His men assayed him, and found him pure gold throughout. [Illustration: Earl Roberts of Kandahar.]