The capture of Attock effected, there still remained much to be done in the immediate neighbourhood. Chuttur Singh’s Hazara forces were moving about with the intention of joining the main army under another Sikh leader, Shere Singh. With his newly raised troop of 700 levies Nicholson dashed hither and thither, striking heavy blows at the scattered portions of the enemy whom he encountered and damping the ardour of other tribesmen who had thoughts of swelling the numbers of the rebels.

Hasan Abdal received one of these sudden and unexpected visits. Here a body of Sikh horse had mutinied and expelled their commander from the fort. Nicholson promptly paraded the garrison, placing the ringleaders under arrest, as he had done at Attock. In this instance, however, he thought it better policy to show some leniency. When the Sikhs begged hard for forgiveness he granted it, wishing to show that he was “not entirely without confidence in them.”

Almost immediately after this incident he learned that a Sikh regiment of some strength, with two guns, was at Rawal Pindi on its way to meet Chuttur Singh’s army. By a quick march he intercepted the rebels at a place called Jani-ka-sang, near the Margalla Pass. The mutineers had taken up a strong position within the walls of a cemetery, and if it came to a fight in the open the advantage lay entirely on their side.

Nicholson made up his mind quickly as to his course of action. Concealing his men in a piece of jungle, he called out the colonel of the disaffected regiment and gave him half an hour in which to decide whether he would surrender or be attacked. What Nicholson would have actually done had the Sikh commander remained obdurate is a question; possibly he would have risked a dash across the open ground in front of the cemetery walls and taken the chance of his men facing the rebels’ fire or turning tail. But he was spared such a crucial test. Before the half-hour was up the Sikh colonel reappeared to announce that he and his men regretted their disobedience, and were ready to place themselves at his service.

Once more Nicholson’s reputation for fearlessness had won him a bloodless victory. Having read them a severe lecture, he dismissed the mutineers with no further punishment, and sent them off to Rawal Pindi.

From now on Nicholson was busy scouring the country round Hasan Abdal, reducing Chuttur Singh’s chances of increasing his army as far as was possible. Wherever mutiny reared its head, there was the young lieutenant with his troop of irregulars ready to crush it at once with a stern hand. There was no temporising with him. He held much the same views at this time as some years later when, in reply to a lengthy despatch from Sir Henry Lawrence calling upon him for a report of the courts-martial he was holding and punishments he was inflicting, he wrote on the other side of the document in large letters: “The punishment of mutiny is death.”

By September 1848 Chuttur Singh, with several regular regiments and nearly a score of field-pieces, was making a determined forward movement. There was also another but smaller force in the field led by a son of the Sikh chief. When Nicholson learned that the latter body was endeavouring to join the main army he made a bold attempt to cut it off, and started off post-haste for the Margalla Pass. At this spot, through which he knew the rebel troops would be compelled to march, was a formidable tower situated high up on the hillside. To gain entrance to this it was necessary to clamber up to an opening in the outer wall some ten feet from the ground, but Nicholson was not daunted by this. It was most essential that the tower should be carried by storm and its position held by his men.

Accordingly he led his troops to the assault in a mad rush that carried the Pathans to the base of the tower before they could realise what a foolhardy undertaking they were engaged upon. The rest of his men very cowardly lagged behind. Then, no ladder being procurable, he set to work to break down the wall, while from above the defenders rained down a storm of stones upon them. One of these missiles hit Nicholson in the face and knocked him over, but the wound was luckily not a severe one.

In the end he was forced to fall back with his handful of men, the tower being practically impregnable and a large body of Sikhs having been observed marching to the relief of the garrison. But the vigour of his attack had its moral effect. The Sikh soldiers, fearing that the assault would be renewed next day, and that Nicholson would take some terrible revenge upon them for their resistance, quietly stole away under cover of the darkness, leaving him master of the situation!

It was somewhere about this time that the famous sect of Sikhs arose which honoured Nicholson by elevating him to the rank of a deity. A certain Hindu devotee in Hazara gave out that he had discovered in “Nikalseyn” the incarnation of the Brahman god, and he soon gathered about him a little company of enthusiastic fellow-worshippers. To their hero’s annoyance, the “Nikalseyns,” as they styled themselves, indulged in open adoration, even prostrating themselves at his feet. In vain did he threaten them with condign punishment, and at last actually resort to flogging. The devotees admired him all the more for his severity, and sang his praises still louder.

“After the last whipping,” says Sir Herbert Edwardes in a character sketch of the hero, “Nicholson released them, on the condition that they would transfer their adoration to John Becher (Abbott’s successor at Hazara), but, arrived at their monastery, they once more resumed the worship of the relentless Nikalseyn.”

In his reminiscences of India Mr. R. G. Wilberforce states that the Sikhs declared they would raise a Taj to Nicholson, beside which the famous Golden Taj at Umritsur should be as nought, did he but openly profess their religion.

“During the time that Nicholson was with the column,” he continues, writing of the days before the march to Delhi, “it was a common sight of an evening to see the Sikhs come into camp in order that they might see him. They used to be admitted into his tent in bodies of about a dozen at a time. Once in the presence, they seated themselves on the ground and fixed their eyes upon the object of their adoration, who all the while went on steadfastly with whatever work he was engaged in, never even lifting his eyes to the faces of his mute worshippers.”

“Sometimes, overcome perhaps by prickings of conscience, or carried away by feelings he could not control, one of them would prostrate himself in prayer. This was an offence against the committal of which warning had been given, and the penalty never varied: three dozen lashes with the cat-o’-nine-tails on the bare back.”

With Chuttur Singh’s open revolt the second Sikh War had fairly begun. Nicholson was now more and more in demand, doing guerilla service, or engaged in such useful work as collecting boats for Sir Joseph Thackwell to cross the Chenab River and acting as intelligence officer to the forces. At the battle of Chillianwallah he did duty as aide-de-camp to Lord Gough, and at Guzerat, which followed soon after, he and his Pathans enjoyed the distinction of capturing nine guns from the enemy.

A striking tribute to Nicholson’s personality, and the valour he displayed on these occasions, is the well-vouched-for story that for many years afterwards, when visitors came to view these battlefields, the country people would begin their accounts by saying, “Nikalseyn stood just there!”

After the conclusion of the campaign, which saw him a brevet-major, Nicholson decided to take a two years’ holiday and return home. What influenced him to this most was the desire to comfort his mother, who, he knew, was grieving over the loss of her two sons, William and Alexander. But it was not easy for him to leave. India, as he wrote, was “like a rat-trap,” more difficult to get out of than into, and it was not until January 1850 that he was at last free to depart. His old friend and colleague, Herbert Edwardes, as it happened, was also of a mind to see “the old country” again, so the two journeyed together down to Bombay, whence they took ship for England.

But before Nicholson was to see his widowed mother again he was to pass through a romantic experience which deserves a chapter to itself.