Elated with his success, he gave himself such airs that his English masters reproved him; and he left them in displeasure, vowing never to serve a Feringhee again.

However, being in the pay of a Mahratta chief, he was sent in company with a Mahometan envoy who had undertaken to murder a rival of his master, and having lulled his victim into security by an oath on the Koran that no treachery was intended, decoyed him into his tent, and there stabbed him.
Sheik Salah was a deeply conscientious man, and not only did he leave the Mahratta service, lest some such horrible act should be required of him, but he conceived a certain distrust of his own faith, which, though it condemns such deeds, had not hindered them.

While in search of employment, he came to Cawnpore, and there, one fine evening, he sat with some other young Mussulmans, in a summer-house on the garden wall that bounded Mr.Martyn's garden, enjoying their hookahs and sherbet, and amusing themselves with what they called the "foolishness" of the Feringhee Padre, who was discoursing to the throng of hateful looking beggars below.

By and by, anxious to hear more, they came down, entered the garden, and stood in a row before the front of the bungalow; their arms folded, their turbans placed jauntily on one side, and their countenances expressive of the utmost contempt.
But the words that Sheik Salah caught were sinking deep.

They were of the intense purity and holiness of God and of His laws, and of the need of His power to attain to the keeping of them, as well as of His Sacrifice to atone for man's sinfulness.