1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

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A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
“Remain in peace,” she said, “and do not misunderstand any change in
my manner towards you. I shall have to dissemble, and so will you.”
While she was still speaking the slave girl entered. “Take this woman
from out of my sight!” she exclaimed excitedly, “take her awa y,” she
almost yelled, and rising from the floor, where she had been sitting,
she endeavoured to thrust both her and the attendant outside the door.
Gul Begum gazed at her in absolute wonder, so rapid had been the
transformation. Again she saw before her the woman who had kicked
and lashed the slave girl for what had been a mere accident, and the
who le of the former horror and terror at finding herself in such
surroundings returned. She rose hurriedly to her feet.
“You hear what I sa y,” her mistress yelled, still addressing her
attendant. “Put them outside the garden gate, these labourers who come
to us disguised as princesses as tell us they are Chiefs’ and Viziers’
daughters. Send them to their proper sphere, and put them to the work
for which they were born, and send me the Derwan here.”
The slave girl advanced towards her mistress. “Sahib,” she whispered
in her ear, “consider well, Ferad Shah returns to-day. You know him.
He will see this woman, you cannot prevent him unless, perhaps, for a
day or two at most, and when he has seen her, who knows what her
position ma y be? If you maltreat her now she may have a chance of
causing you to remember it later. Be advised. She has looks.”
“Look, has she?” roared the mistress. “Cursed be the father of her
looks. Do as I tell you, take her away from me. How dare you leave her
here when I have ordered you to remove her, and send me the Derwan
here. I have a good deal to say to him. It is possible he too may have
been deceived, but I will undeceive him.”
* Henna is the herb with which almost all sects of Eastern women dye their
hands, and especially their nails, a sort of terra -cotta colour. The leaves
are ground into a powder, and by the addition of water, a sort of thick paste
is made. In this the fingers are closely encased. The hand is then closed, and
a second coating is placed all over the fist. The hands are kept doubled up
like this all night, and next morning they are dyed a deep terra -cotta, the
creases in the palm of the hand showing up white where the dye has not
reached. This is considered a beauty, and is, moreover, thought to soften the
skin.