and others into conversation about the claims of
Christ and the witness of the Quran to Him. Those were perhaps the
happiest days he ever experienced.

Then came a new trial. Taib had been betrothed to a girl in his
village, and his relations, having heard of his baptism, came to
Bannu. In nothing is the honour and sharm of the Pathan more nearly
touched than in his marital relation, and the taunt that he had lost
the sharm which every Pathan so dearly loves, came nearer home to him
than persecution or loss of land and patrimony. One morning I found
that Taib had disappeared. No one knew exactly when or how, but he
had been seen with the people from his village the night before, and
nothing more was known. I assumed that by inducement or force they had
taken him away to his village, and therefore would have gone by the
Kohat road; but they had already had at least eight hours' start,
and the sun was now declining. However, no time was to be lost,
so I got an ekka, or native pony-cart, and, taking with me a young
Bannuchi convert, Sahib Khan by name, started off in pursuit.

For a long time we could get no news of the fugitives; then, at a
village thirty-five miles from Bannu, I was told that some Pathans
answering to the description of Taib and his captors had said their
afternoon prayers in the mosque there and then gone on. Our pony
was too tired to go farther; it was already midnight; the next
stage was eleven miles on, and they would certainly leave there
before daybreak. What was to be done? While we were debating this,
we heard the bugle of the tonga with the mails. This runs between
Bannu and Kohat every day in the winter and every night in the summer,
and accommodates three passengers. If the seats had not been taken,
we might go on in this. It so happened that two seats were vacant, so
we got in, and soon arrived at the next stage, a village called Banda.

Here we alighted. It was 1 a.m. The village was silent and dark except
for the light of the half-moon. On the side of the hill above the
village was the village mosque, and we knew that was the most likely
place for travellers to lodge; so we passed through the silent village,
and, removing our shoes, entered the courtyard of the mosque. Thirteen
men were stretched on the ground fast asleep and covered with their
chadars, the sheet or shawl which an Afghan always carries about
him and uses as a girdle or shawl during the day, and wraps himself
up in cap-a