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141<br />
A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR<br />
“My God,” she cried with one bitter cry. Then throwing herself at her<br />
master’s feet, “Master, is that so?” she pleaded.<br />
Her whole attitude, her wild despair, would have moved a stone, but<br />
the Chief Secretary, though touched, could feel the Mir’s eye upon<br />
him, seeking the smallest sign of withdrawal from his promise, so he<br />
merely answered quietly, “What the Mir Sahib says is quite true.”<br />
Then she turned in her despair towards the Hakim. The Mir was<br />
looking out of the window triumphant, and did not catch the slight,<br />
almost imperceptible clenching of the little man’s fist as he nodded<br />
encouragingly in the direction of the old man. But it was enough for<br />
Gul Begum. It just gave her back the courage that was flagging, and<br />
recalled to her mind what the Hakim had gone down to tell her. “Only<br />
be firm. Don’t touch him till he offers to touch you, but when he does,<br />
fight with all your might. Scream, strike, scratch, and struggle. If you<br />
do that, your Agha will not allow you to be carried away b y force, he<br />
will either return you to the prison or will keep you himself.”<br />
Again she drew herself up, this time for a last effort, “Alas, what my<br />
master says must be true,” she said, with a sigh. “I have no choice left<br />
between death and you, but I prefer death, and I will die fighting to the<br />
last. The moment either you or one of your men attempt to come near<br />
me I will brain you with this cudgel, your own, which you made strong<br />
and straight to support your tottering footsteps. You take me from this<br />
house, and before you have turned the first corner of the street I will<br />
have you pounded into such a mush as your wizen flesh will never<br />
recover from! Your skin is old and shrunken now, when I have finished<br />
with it, it will not be so. When I have done with you, your flesh will<br />
not be dried up on your bones. You will be fat and young, you think,<br />
perhaps?” She laughed again wildly, almost terribly, the fury and<br />
undying hate of her race showing in every word and gesture. “Nay, you<br />
will be a jellied mass, a many-coloured swollen corpse, without the<br />
smallest semblance of manhood left.”<br />
He moved as if to speak, and pointed at the stick which she still held,<br />
and periodically flourished aloft defiantly.<br />
“Ah, you think that with the help of your men-servants, and maybe<br />
with that of your own miserable old friends, you will wrest this weapon<br />
from me and thus leave me defenceless. That does not frighten me at<br />
all.<br />
I fear you not a bit, nor them. You try to clasp me once in your<br />
horrible embrace and you will see what I will do with them. I will<br />
pluck out every hair from that deceitful, dyed, old beard of yours. Yes,<br />
by handfuls, and you may beat and punch, but I will not let you go.<br />
You shall know something of m y embraces too. You shall know what it<br />
is to mate with a wild cat, what it is to expose your frail, dying old
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