s charger after the long forced
march from Agra, had taken a spare troop horse, saddled with a _hunting
saddle_.

When the round shot began to fall, there was no time to get his charger.
There was nothing for it but to put on sword and pistol and ride
straight in to the enemy's ranks. No wonder the poor people shut up in
Agra were enthusiastic over this "charge of cavalry in their shirt
sleeves," as they called it.

In 1891 I was staying in Agra, at the hotel, with my friend of the Delhi
incident. A certain Major Pulford, who had come to Agra to race some
ponies, divided us at the _table d'hote_. He and I had been neighbours
for two or three days, when he asked me carelessly one evening what _I_
had been doing that afternoon, as my friend confessed to having taken a
"day off."

Now I had spent the afternoon at the Taj, and had made many inquiries
about the tradition that this building had once been turned into a
hospital. No one knew anything about it. One old Hindoo, evidently
thinking I wished him to say "_Yes_," remembered hearing that this _had_
been the case "_about eighty years ago_." This last artistic touch of
accuracy was fatal to his _bona fides_, and I turned away in disgust.

So I told Major Pulford my story, and we laughed over the well-known
fact that a Hindoo of that class always tries to find out what you wish
him to say, and _then says it!_

Major Pulford asked why I was so keen on the subject.

"Because a very old friend of mine was badly wounded at Agra during the
Mutiny, and from a child I have had the impression that he was nursed in
the Taj."

"No," he answered. "I am sure the Taj was never used as a hospital, but
I think the Pearl Mosque may have been. This would account for the
mistake, probably."

Now the point in this incident is the fact that I _had not mentioned my
friend's name to Major Pulford_.

Had the name been a more distinctive one, I might have mentioned it,
although realising that Major Pulford was too young a man to have known
anything about the Mutiny at first hand.

We talked casually on the subject for a few minutes, and then he said:
"Of course, I was a baby at the time, but I have read and heard any
amount about it, naturally. _My_ boyish hero was a fellow named Jones of
the 9th Lancers, who was so awfully plucky in their celebrated charge,
when surprised by the enemy on the Agra parade-ground. I know nothing
about the fellow except what I have read. I believe he i