e sweetmeats and gave them to 'Alam Gul, as some amends for the
privations he had been undergoing. Something, however, in his demeanour
made 'Alam Gul suspicious, and he excused himself for not eating the
sweetmeats at once, and put them in a handkerchief by his side.

When his uncle had departed, he gave some of the sweetmeats to one
of the dogs in the house. Very shortly afterwards the dog began to
vomit and show signs of pain. He was now sure that the plan had been
to poison him in such a way that his death might be reported as due to
some ordinary sickness, and he made up his mind to escape at all costs.

It was midday, and nearly everyone was enjoying a sleep during the
oppressive noon of a summer day. Searching about, he found a shirt
and an old turban, and, donning these, he slipped out, and was soon
through the deserted village street out in the fields beyond. He
dared not take the direct route to Bannu, for he knew that pursuit
would be made, and the pursuers would probably take that direction;
so he turned northwards towards Kohat, and came to the village of a
schoolmate, who gave him shelter and food for that night in his house
and a pair of shoes for his feet, which had become blistered on the
hot rocks over which he had been travelling.

The next night he slept in a mosque, and then reached the highroad
from Kohat to Bannu, and got a lift on a bullock-waggon travelling
to the salt-mines of Bahadur Khel. On the fifth day after leaving
his village, very footsore, tired, and ragged, he appeared in the
mission compound at Bannu.

He was now nineteen years of age, so nothing stood in the way of his
being admitted as a catechumen, of which he was greatly desirous,
and the following Easter he was baptized into the Christian Church.

He had, of course, been publicly disowned and disinherited by his
family, who now regarded him as one dead; but he was supremely happy
in his faith, and was always seeking opportunities of leading, not
only his schoolmates, but also Mullahs and others whom he encountered
in the bazaar or elsewhere, into conversation concerning the claims
of Jesus Christ.

His original acquaintance with the Quran and Islam had been deepened
and extended by the study of books of controversy and his knowledge
of Christianity by daily Bible study, so that even the Mullahs found
they had to deal with one who could not be silenced by the threadbare
arguments and trite sophisms which were all that most