1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

130
A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
her, and without speaking had sat down on a small thick rug in a corner
of the room, waiting till she should be noticed by the husband who was
so evidently also the master.
She would not have dreamt of interrupting him, but now he had opened
the conversatio n she did not seem over-pleased. “Yes, they say so,” she
replied, “and that the other, the flat-faced one, is her cousin, and
daughter of the chief.”
“Supposing we give her another trial, and send none of them away for a
week or ten days, or it might be wise to keep them for a month or six
weeks, till you see which of them is most inclined for work; there will
be plent y for them to do presently when you are laid up.”
His wife looked down; an Eastern woman is ver y modest in some ways,
though in others she is more outspoken than we are.
“I should not like any of those women near me,” she said.
“No, perhaps not, but if the y do all the housework, it will leave
Sardaro and all your usual attendants free to wait on you.”
“As you wish,” she said, resignedly.
“Nay, as you wish,” he said, “I care neither one wa y nor the other; I am
only thinking of your convenience.”
“We have the Mir Sahib to consider, “she still objected, “he has seen
this girl, and, I think, fancies her.”
“Good gracious! What taste,” the Chief Secretar y laughed. He
understood that his wife half disliked the girl, and did not want her,
but Eastern husbands are not accustomed to have their slightest wishes
thwarted; he had never opposed his wife in anything, but then it takes
two to make a controversy, and she had ever considered that his
slightest wish was law.
“I will settle with the Mir,” he said, “send him here to me or stay, it is
hot, you shall not have the trouble of drawing down your windows. I
will go and speak to him in the saracha” (the outside room, occupied
by the men), and he went out.
“Mir,” he said, laughing, as he entered the meagrely furnished
apartment where several men were sitting cross-legged on the floor
talking or writing, but evidently chiefly engaged in waiting, “my slave
girl, Gul Begum, objects to become your wife. I cannot force her, what
am I to do?”
“Objects?” said the Mir, “how can she object? She is a slave.”