1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

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136 A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR little higher and say to herself: “Her husband calls himself Sirdar, but it is my house that supplies his wife with fine clothes,” and she would feel elated and quite gratified. The Chief Secretary liked to keep his one wife all to himself; he did not much wish to attend the Durbar, or entertainme nts in the Ro yal Harem Serai, and she was not allowed to visit anywhere; what did she want with silk brocades? She was more comfortable in cotton, she would have said, and, thank God, she had plent y of that, and plent y of slaves to embroider it too. What more could she wish for? But the Hakim was a sore subject, he came so often and took so much, he, a mere nobody who could do no credit to her husband’s lordly gifts, and so she resented his coming and his cunning, sneaky ways. But just inasmuch as she disliked him for his graspingness, so much did he dislike the Mir for his, for in the summer, when the Mir visited Kabul, he, the Hakim, he a rival, and a powerful one too, for the Mir, by his very profession of sacred personage, was also a licensed beggar. He lived chiefly on what he received, not in open charit y, but b y interceding with the Almight y for things temporal, and by reading dreams, and interpreting visions, he was thus a dangerous hanger -on. In the summer when he came up to Kabul, the Hakim’s gifts decreased in number and in value to the advantage of the Mir, and the Hakim resented this, and looked upon the Mir as an interloper, almost as a thief. The Chief Secretary was by no means blind to all this, he clearly saw the little game that went on continually around him, and gathered such amusement as he could from the little by-play. As a rule he was on the Mir Sahib’s side. A six months’ sycophant palls less than does an allthe- year-round one for one thing, and, besides, the Chief Secretar y was without doubt a little superstitious – a believer in dreams and visions, and in times of trouble the Mir was a great comfort to him. But to-day the tables were reversed. The sun was shining brightly on the courtier, he was in high favour, and quite independent of his spiritual assistant, and, moreover, the Mir had been rather forward, rather pertinacious. He had spoken in a most authoritative, almost insolent manner, and the official felt that he had gone rather far. So when he observed the little twinkle in the old herbalist’s eye, he said nothing, but waited the development of events. The Hakim took only one cup of tea that da y, usually he took two with sugar and one without (the latter to clean the mouth, as they say in Kabul), but to-day he had another game in view. If any one had questioned him he would have said that he had his patron’s bidding to do, and could take his tea at any time, but any one who had followed him down the stairs to the old doorkeeper’s tiny abode, would have known that he was anxious to gain time, and they would have understood why he had so silently left his companions in the earlier part of the afternoon.

137 A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR “Ask in the harem serai if that girl has obe yed my orders,” he said to the old man, and, presently a short flat-faced girl, easily recognisable as Shereen, stood before him. “She is obeying your orders, Hakim Sahib,” Shereen said softly. “she will be here directly, but you have not given her much time, it is but a few minutes since you returned to the saracha, and she has much to d o to get ready.” “Go then and help her, we must not let the Mir know that I have advised her, otherwise our little plan will all be spoilt, and she will have to go to Logman.” CHAPTER XXV WOO’D, NOT WON A FEW minutes later and the y entered the saracha together. What a reformation was here! No dirty, untidy slattern stood before the tribunal – for such Gul Begum felt it to be – but a tidy, handsome, tall, well-built girl of seventeen, with plenty of dignit y in her carriage, and more self-possession than o ne would have expected in a despised Hazara, a prisoner, a slave. The Chief Secretar y as host, as present possessor, as official of the Ameer’s court, prepared himself to address

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