Chapter XIV
’Alam Gul’s Choice (continued)
The cricket captain—A conscientious schoolboy—The Scripture lesson—First awakenings—The Mullah’s wrath—The crisis—Standing fire—Schoolboy justice—“Blessed are ye when men shall persecute you for My Name’s sake”—Escape from poisoning—Escape from home—Baptism—Disinherited—New friends.
About this time three circumstances occurred which brought about a change in ’Alam Gul’s ideas.
The first happened in this way. The captain of the cricket eleven chanced to be a Christian boy, and as two or three of the members of the cricket eleven had left, he was in need of some fresh talent to fill their places; so a match had been arranged with a number of the boys of the school who were aspirants to places in the coveted eleven.
’Alam Gul by this time had developed into a very steady player, who could be relied upon to keep his wicket up at times when his side was going to pieces; and on this particular occasion he was one of those selected for trial, and it so happened that he made one of the best scores of the match. This was the commencement of the friendship with the cricket captain, which went a long way to mould his ideas. Hitherto he had rather fought shy of making friends with the Christian boys, for fear anything should be said repellent to his religious ideas; but as his friendship with the cricket captain increased, they had many a chat—not only on cricket and school matters, but on deeper things that concerned the faith in their hearts.
The second circumstance arose in this wise: On the occasion of a paper-chase the track had led through an orchard, and some of the boys were not proof against the temptation of helping themselves to the fruit, and the next day the owner of the garden came in high dudgeon to the Principal of the school to complain that some of the fruit had been stolen.
“You call yourself a mission school, and here are your boys coming into my orchard and taking my fruit!”
The next day the Principal had a roll-call of the school, and made a short speech to them, saying that he much regretted that some of the boys had brought a bad name on the school by stealing plums. He then ordered that the boys who had taken any should fall out and stand in a row in front. After much exchange of glances and hesitation, twenty or so of the boys fell out. These were ranged up in line, facing the rest of the school, while the Principal told them that he intended to make an example of them as a warning to others not to sully the fair name of the school.