-pie at night. As Afghans always sleep with their heads
covered in their sheet or quilt, we could not recognize the object
of our search, and to wake all would mean certain defeat. But the
Bannuchies are at home in any night-work requiring stealth, so by
the light of the setting moon my companion lifted the corner of the
sheet from off the faces of the sleepers without waking any of them,
and the last one was Taib himself.

A touch on his shoulder and he was roused, and recognized us. I merely
said to him: "Will you come back with me to Bannu?" He answered,
"Yes, Sahib," and got up, wound on his turban, and left with us
without another word. We had to walk back to Khurram, the village
where we had left our pony-cart, and, finding it still there, drove
back to Bannu with the lost sheep, found none too soon.

Months now passed in study and in learning the work of a ward
assistant in the mission hospital, so that he might be able to earn
his own living, and use the opportunities of the mission hospital
in working among the Afghans attending it. There was a Mullah in a
village not far from Bannu, where he acted as the imam and village
schoolmaster. At one time Taib had himself been his pupil, and was
much attached to him. He had long been desirous of getting this Mullah,
his quondam teacher, or ustad, to study the claims of Christ, and one
day he had visited him with this object. When the Mullah mentioned
that he had been suffering from some deafness for some months past,
"Come to the mission hospital," said Taib; "the Padre Sahib there
will certainly cure you."

The Mullah hesitated at first when he heard that every day an address
on Christian doctrine was given to the assembled out-patients before
they were treated. He thought it hardly seemly that he, a Mullah and
an ustad, should sit and listen to heretical teaching without being
able to protest. However, tales of others who had been under treatment
and recovered won the day, and he decided to go. "After all," he said,
"I need not listen, and I can say extra prayers to atone for any sin
there may be in my going."

He came regularly till the cure was complete, but he did not keep up
his intention of not listening to the preacher; in fact, some things
that were said riveted his attention, and made him go home and search
his Quran, and his curiosity was aroused, and he talked over many
things with Taib Khan, and finally came to me to ask me if I would
read the Gospels