“But Ahmed was not the stuff to make poets of. He was cowed and humbled in his father’s presence--overpowered by a force which he could not understand, and though he grew up a gentle lad--weak folk learn wiles, you know--there was the national policy, the tendency to intrigue and deceit; the defective sense of truth and honour constantly displaying themselves. I could not hedge my Affghan boy about with the higher principles, so much more noble and pure than the natural instincts which yet suit our humanity so well--and I could not give him the savage virtues of his father; but I only clung to him the more, because he perplexed and grieved me.” “A difficult matter,” said Mossgray, “and how about religion, Hew?” “Ahmed is not brave,” was the answer. “He is a Mussulman still; the intellectual conviction is not strong enough, ever, I fancy, to break the old hereditary chains of the creed in which we are born. But Ahmed is like multitudes of those quick Indian youths in the great cities of our Eastern empire. He knows it all; the wonderful histories of the old time with their grand types and emblems, and the wonderful fulfilment they had. Did any one ever open that little volume, think you, Adam, and rise from it without a secret conviction that this was true? not my boy--not my Ahmed. The enchantment of the human life in which its Divinity is clothed charmed the mind of my pupil; for when one knows how men describe God, it quickens one’s apprehension of the wonderful difference when God reveals himself. “And my boy knows it all, Adam, yet in outward form is an unbeliever still; and other youths by the hundred in Bombay, and Madras, and Calcutta, as they tell me, are like him: knowing the extraordinary intellectual truth, and ready, if but the divine spark came, to burst the green withes that hold them, and worship the Saviour of the Gospel under His own free heaven. May it come soon! they are prepared for it, these lads--may the divine impulse come soon! I would fain know that my work has prospered, though I never see Ahmed more.” There was another interval of silence. The subject impressed them both; but Mossgray had not seen the singular state of society of which his friend spoke, and did not know how those young, quick, intelligent spirits, like the old sacrifices on the altars of the patriarchs, were unconsciously waiting for the fire from heaven, ready to be offered to the Lord. In a short time Hew resumed: “This imprisonment and work of mine continued all the father’s lifetime. I did what I could to drill his soldiers, and I communicated the Fendie accent to his son; but my captivity was not lightened--and so we went on until that fatal affray which made Ahmed chief of the tribe. The lad liked me, I told you; he felt too, in the consciousness of his new power, the advantage of securing an alliance with those powerful English whom his father hated; and so, in compassion, he brought his wounded captives back to me.