Quran in his shawl, hurried
off. Finding their champion gone, another in the crowd called out:
"All who are Mussalmans go away; he is no true Mussalman who stops
to listen to these kafirs. There is no God but God, and Muhammad
is the Prophet of God." And then with one voice all the crowd took
up the last sentence and shouted in unison: "La ilaha ilia 'llahu,
Muhammadun rasulu 'llah!" till the bazaar echoed with the sound;
and then, with jeers and curses at the two preachers, in which Taib
thought it the proper thing to join, the crowd dispersed.

"Who were those two kafirs?" said Taib to a Bannuchi talib who was
walking away with him.

"The one in the dress of a Mullah is a feringi whom we call the
Padre Sahib. He has built a hospital here, where he preaches to the
people about Hazrat 'Esa, and he has, indeed, misled many; in fact,
the other kafir who was with him was led astray by him: he is an
Afghan from Laghman, and has brought disgrace on the Prophet. May
God destroy them both!"

Taib thought here would be good opportunities for acquiring the art
of theological polemics, so he came regularly every day with other
talibs to support the Muslim champion and jeer at the Christians if
they appeared at all discomfited. He could not help, however, being
struck by the forbearance of the Laghmani, who preserved an equable
temper, though the talibs tried to excite him by all the opprobrious
epithets with which their repertory is so well supplied. He saw,
too, that the more difficult their champions found it to answer his
arguments, the more they resorted to the expedient of crying him
down with derisive shouts and jeers, and he began to have a feeling
of sympathy, if not admiration, for him.

Then one day he waited behind till the talibs with him had gone,
and the Afghan preacher, seeing him lingering, took him by the arm
and entered into conversation with him. They went on talking till
they reached the mission compound, and Taib accepted the invitation
of the preacher to stop the night with him. Instead of finding him a
reviler of the Prophet and a miscreant, as he expected, he found that
all he said was quite reasonable and free from the rancour which his
talib friends always introduced into their theological arguments. Then
the peace and comfort of a Christian home, where the wife, instead
of being a chattel or a drudge, was a real helpmate, opened up new
trains of thought in his mind. The Laghmani, too, was a Pathan