Then crossing the Sutlej, he entered the friendly States of the Protected Sikh Chiefs, who had been saved by the British from absorption under Runjit Sing, the Lion of Lahore, and whose loyalty had shown like white light during the darkest days of recent months. Having exchanged with them all the heartiest congratulations, he passed on to Delhi and to the scenes of his younger days. With what emotions must he have revisited the imperial city--to all men associated with the majestic march of historic events, but to him fraught with the recollections of that period of life which to the eye of memory almost always seems bright,--yet just emerging from a condition of tragic horror, the darkness of which had been lighted up by the deeds of British prowess and endurance. As he rode through the desolate bazaars, the half-deserted alleys, the thoroughfares traversed by bodies of men under arms but no longer crowded with bustling traffic--he must have grieved over the fate which the rebellious city had brought on itself. His penetrating insight taught him that in this case, as in nearly all similar cases, the innocent suffer with the guilty, and the peace-loving, kindly-disposed citizens are involved in the sanguinary retribution which befalls the turbulent and the blood-seeking. He found the fair suburbs razed, the fortifications partly dismantled, the famous Muri bastion half-shattered by cannonading, the classic Cashmere Gate riddled with gunshot, the frontage of houses disfigured by musketry, the great Moslem place of worship temporarily turned into a barrack for Hindoo troops. The noble palace of the Moguls alone remained intact, and he passed under the gloomy portal where some of the first murders were perpetrated on the morning of the great mutiny, and so entered the courtyard where the Christian prisoners of both sexes had been put to the sword. Then he proceeded to the inner sanctum of the palace to see his imperial prisoner, the last of the Great Moguls. He could not but eye with pity this man, the remnant of one of the most famous dynasties in human annals, reduced to the dregs of misery and humiliation in the extremity of old age. Yet he regarded with stern reserve a prisoner who, though illustrious by antecedents and drawn irresistibly into the vortex of rebellion, was accused of murder in ordering the execution of the European captives. He was resolved that the ex-emperor should be arraigned on a capital charge, and abide the verdict of a criminal tribunal.