e is given, and a hint that if only he will say for what
price he will speedily heal it, they will go all lengths to pay him;
for it must be unwillingness, not incapability, that prevents his
doing so.

So two months passed away, but still the limb was swollen and sore,
still was he unable to rise from his bed of pain.

Then they determined to send a messenger to the neighbouring town
of Ghuzni, and call in a doctor of great repute from there. True,
his charge was high--one of the three camels must be sold to defray
it--but what hope was there for them with the breadwinner hopelessly
crippled? So the messenger went and the doctor came, and his remedy
was tried. Two bunches of wool were thoroughly soaked in oil and then
set fire to, and fastened on the skin near the knee; the pain was
great, but Manak Khan stood it bravely, tightly biting his turban-end
and grasping his friend's arm in a spasmodic grip. When the burnt
flesh separated after a few days the ulcers left were dressed with
some leaves from a plant growing on the shrine of a noted saint,
and renewed every two or three days. Still there was no improvement,
though charms and amulets were bought at high prices from many a saint,
and the Ghuzni doctor came again and took away his second camel.

Manak Khan and Sadura were beginning to lose all hope, when one day
a traveller was passing through their village on the road to Kabul,
and as he was sitting with the villagers, telling them the latest
news from India, one of them asked him about a scar on his left arm.

"Ah," he said, "when I was in Dera Ismail Khan I had a terrible
abscess; but there was an English doctor there, and he lanced it, and
got it quite well in a couple of weeks; and," he went on, "numbers of
people have been going to him, and I have seen some wonderful cures."

"Really!" say they; "and had you to pay him a great deal?"

"No; that is the strange part: he will not take any money from
anyone, but sees all the people that go to him, be they ever so poor,
for nothing."

"That cannot be; he must have a reason behind it all."

"No, not unless it be this--that you know he is a Feringi, and, like
all other Feringis, an unbeliever; but, more than that, he seems
to want all the people to believe on Hazrat 'Esa" (Lord Jesus) "as
being the Son of God" (here the Mullah and several of the men spit
on the ground and say, "Tauba, tauba"), "and to this end he has got
an assistant who preaches to all the