was clearly beyond Hodson's ken.
It has been suggested that Hodson lost his nerve upon beholding the crowds.
At the city gate, Hodson ordered the three princes to get off the cart.
Hodson then took out his gun
and himself shot the three unarmed and half-naked princes at point-blank range.
Finding the old man extremely frail with exertion, Hodson bid the Emperor take rest under a shady tree
and accept refreshment.
Hodson explicitly agreed to this, stipulating
only that the princes and the motley crowd of villagers should surrender their arms immediately.
The next morning, Hodson went to the tomb with one hundred horsemen
and demanded the unconditional surrender of the Emperor and princes.
After killing the princes, Hodson personally stripped their bodies of jewellery, being the signet
rings, turquoise arm-bands and bejewelled swords worn by the three princes.
Yet others have suggested that Hodson had made the agreement with the old Emperor in bad faith
and that he had never intended to keep his word.
Agreement being reached, the Emperor, trusting to the word of Hodson as a British army officer,
emerged from the tomb and exchanged greetings in person with Hodson.
He therefore sent a message to Hodson offering the surrender of his party on condition that their lives
and the lives and the crowd who now surrounded them be spared.
As they approached the gates of the city, Hodson found that a crowd of townsmen had gathered
in the expectation of witnessing the return of the Emperor and the princes.
In all events, the idea that breaching a solemn agreement(guaranteeing only life), which he had made minutes before, upon his word of honour as a British army officer, to an old man much respected by these crowds, would serve to blacken the
reputation of the British rather than enhance it, was clearly beyond Hodson's ken.