"I am surprised that during all the years that you have passed in the mountains, you have never communicated the fact of your existence to friends in India," remarked the Chaplain.
"I could not, though most anxious to do so," replied Walter. "I was a kind of prisoner on parole. Had I not pledged my honour as an Englishman to do nothing of the kind, I should have been chained up, as a dog, by the chief."
"And how were you released from your promise?"
"I was released by the death of the chief, Assad Khan, which occurred not many weeks ago," replied Walter. "His relative and successor is a Christian, one whom I shall have the joy of presenting to you to-day."
"And have you indeed, in this most wild and weed-choked corner of the mission-field, been privileged to gather in seven sheaves?" asked the Chaplain.
"Not through my efforts were the seven brought in," replied Walter with a smile. "The first convert made the more successful missionary. She was the means of winning for Christ her husband, her grandmother, and two female friends."
"What, a woman—and an Afghan!" exclaimed the Chaplain.
"A woman with the ardour of a Martha, and the faith of a Mary; an Afghan—with her naturally proud spirit softened and subdued by the love of Christ which constraineth."
"Most wonderful!" ejaculated the Chaplain.
"Dear sir," said Walter Gurney, "if we could have seen the painted savages who roamed in old times through our Britain, with their rude idols and barbarous rites, we might have thought that the Afghan suffers little by comparison with his brothers in the West. What is it that has made old England glorious and free but the Gospel? and what does Afghanistan need but the Gospel to make her the same!"