1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

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A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
wall, and, re-seated himself, commenced folding the paper in the usual
Persian way, a margin down each side, preparatory to writing.
The girl understood; he was going to make out an order or a pass or
something – the fatal paper that was to carry her thence to the unknown
but already hated husband. Again she flung herself at his feet.
“Agha (master), hear me once,” she pleaded softly. He paused. “Well,
what have you to say?”
“Just this,” she said, still kneeling before him, “Just this, Agha, that I
have indeed behaved badly, and have indeed deserved to be sent away.
I have made myself dirt y, and stupid, and awkward, but see how big I
am, how strong, how capable of work; and ask Shereen there, she is my
cousin, I am the cleverest girl in all the Hazara countr y; I can cook and
bake, and sew and wash, and do all the work that other women do, and
twice as well as they.”
“Then why have you been so idle and useless here?”
“Agha, I will tell you. I am dirty, and untid y, and slatternly now, as
you see me, I do not deny it, but, Agha Sahib, I am the daughter of the
Vizier, who is the brother of the chief of the Hazaras, and I was
considered the handsomest and smartest girl in all the land. That has,
no doubt, made me proud and made it very difficult for me to be a
slave; many men have chosen me before you came to the prison, Sahib,
but I made some excuse of another, just as I saw I could deceive them,
and one after another they all sent me back, some with a beating, some
without, I cared but little; what I most dreaded was that some one
would make me his slave wife, that is what has been my hourly terror.”
“I keep no slave wives,” the Chief Secretary interrupted shortly.
“No, Agha, I know you do not, and you take no notice of your slave
girls, and never even speak to them.” The girl hung her head. “And that
is why I don’t wish to leave you. Oh, Agha, do not send me away, give
me one more trial, one little trial more,” and again prostrating herself
till her forehead touched the ground, “one week, one day,” she
petitioned.
The Chief Secretary put the paper down, he seemed half amused, half
touched. “Send your mistress here,” he said, “and if she consents to try
you, I have no objection to her doing so, but you her slave, not mine,
your remaining rests wholly on her good-will and favour. You have
done nothing so far to ingratiate yourself with her, but I will speak for
you to her. Go.”
“She’s a curious girl, that Gul Begum, and she says she is well-born,”
the Chief Secretary said, looking up from the paper he was writing. His
wife had entered the room timidly some minutes before he addressed