An hour or so later Ahmed emerged from the house with the precious book concealed in his clothing, for his friend had warned him that he feared that a good Mohammedan would not read it and that he believed that it was the book of another faith. As such his friend had decided that he would read it no more. But Ahmed had said that it mattered not to him what faith it was, he thought it beautiful and he wanted to read it still more. So instead of permitting his friend to burn it as he had wanted to do, Ahmed had insisted upon taking it to his home for further study.
He did not notice as he left Elid's house that a man slipped out from the shadows and followed him to his own door. Nor did he know that this man turned as soon as he had entered the house and made haste back to the crossing of the Sidar Ways where he aroused the strange old man from his paroxysm of fear and talked earnestly with him for some time.
Within his mother's room by the light of the oil lamp Ahmed read and read, while his mother watched him and sewed on the wedding garments. Too engrossed to read aloud or even talk about what he was reading, he read on and on. Long after his mother had given up her vain efforts to get him to go to rest and had rolled herself in her blanket, he still bent over the book. He read until sleep finally blurred his mind and closed his eyes and the lamp burned out at his side.
But Ahmed had noticed before he slept a name on the first page of the book, "Mission Press, Bangalore, India." It must be that those people could explain to him what this book meant. If he could only go to them! Never had words written or spoken stirred his heart as it had been stirred by this book. It must be of Allah and yet in all he had read he had found no mention of the Prophet. Since Elid's warning Ahmed seemed to feel that perhaps in reading this book and thinking these thoughts he was betraying the Faith, and yet, if all this he had been reading were true, it was better than the Faith and he could no longer believe as he had before.
Could he in any way get to that "Mission Press" in Bangalore? Ahmed had never been but a few miles from Hyderabad; indeed, that was one reason why he had wanted to go to the university at Aligarh and another reason was that in the last few months he had begun to be dissatisfied with the Faith and thought that there they could certainly explain all to him. But now he preferred to go to Bangalore. It seemed as if he must go there: but instinctively he felt that he must conceal his reason for wishing to go. And so with his mind confused by these thoughts and the new ideas which the new book had brought him, ideas utterly foreign to all he had known before, he fell into a restless sleep.
It seemed to Ahmed as if some unseen force were ordering events when early on the next day he was called to his father's presence to find him unexpectedly ill and so ill that it would be impossible for him to leave the city and go to Bangalore on a very important matter of business. Ben Emeal could trust the business to no assistant and yet it had to be attended to on the next day. The only person whom he could trust was his son and that son until then had been not only ignorant of all business matters but also of travel, having never made a journey alone on a railway train. But when Ben Emeal saw that there was no other way to save to his name several thousands of rupees, he decided to give his son a rather hurried and, indeed, trying initiation into commercial life. The old Arab's warning against the infidel had not been forgotten, but the father did not think the risk too great to send his son away alone for the first time, as he thought the novelty of the journey and of assisting in business affairs for the first time would keep Ahmed's mind from dangerous thoughts, and besides,—it was a matter of much money.
So Ahmed had been summoned to his father's presence and instructed in all the matters needful to the transaction of the business. When Ben Emeal saw the delight and eagerness with which the boy undertook the journey and the task given him he did not consider it necessary even to warn him against the possible meeting with the infidel in Bangalore.
So Ahmed had started for the very place of all others that he wanted to visit, sent by his father—such a strange answer to the longings of the night before that he was filled with a feeling of awe. So impressed with the religious importance of this journey and with a divine ordering of it was he that he scarcely appreciated its novelty. Because of his ignorance of travel, his father had directed him to go first class; therefore, he had the compartment to himself for the whole journey and, since this was so, instead of gazing from the window and enjoying the new sights as he would have done a few days before, now he pulled out the new book and read the whole journey through.
Although Ahmed had but one desire when he reached Bangalore, that of finding the "Mission Press," he went first, as he knew was right, and transacted the business entrusted to him. When that was over, then he began his search for the people who were responsible for "The Book." No longer did that title in Ahmed's mind belong to the Koran and for some reason or other he did not seek these people to be told that what The Book said was true; for he seemed to know himself that it was true, but he sought them for more knowledge and for an explanation of many things that he could not understand, and especially to find out the relation of the Prophet to it all, as Mohammed was not mentioned in The Book.