There was treachery, too, in Wilson’s scanty force. Their plans were betrayed to the enemy. The slaughter amongst the British officers in the native regiments was such as could only be explained by the fact that they were shot down by their own men from behind, rather than by their open foes in the front. The one good service General Reed did during his brief interval of command was to dismiss from the camp some suspected regiments. Archdale Wilson’s nerve, like that of Barnard and of Reed, his predecessors, was shaken by the terrific strain of the siege, and he contemplated abandoning it. “Wilson’s head is going,” wrote Nicholson to Lawrence on September 7; “he says so himself, and it is quite evident he speaks the truth.” It was due chiefly to John Lawrence’s clear judgment and iron strength of will that a step so evil and perilous was not taken. Lawrence had flung his last coin, his last cartridge, his last man into the siege, and he warned Wilson that the whole fate of the British in India depended on an immediate assault. “Every day,” he wrote, “disaffection and mutiny spread. Every day adds to the danger of the native princes taking part against us.” The loyalty of the Sikhs themselves was strained to the breaking point. Had the British flag fallen back from the Ridge, not merely would Delhi have poured out its armed host, 50,000 strong, but every village in the north-west would have risen, and the tragedy of the Khyber Pass might have been repeated, on a vaster scale, upon the plains of Hindustan. The banks of the Jumna might have seen such a spectacle as Cabul once witnessed. But there were brave men on the Ridge itself, trained in Lawrence’s school, and in whom the spirit of John Lawrence burned with clear and steady flame. Baird Smith and Neville Chamberlain, Norman and Nicholson, and many another, knew that the fortunes and honour of England hung on the capture of Delhi. Lord Roberts tells a curious and wild story that shows what was Nicholson’s temper at this crisis:—