1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

157
A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
him an account of the various virtues, accomplishments, charms and
possessions of their various female relatives – sisters, daughters,
cousins, and the more the list of the names of the applicants for his
favours swelled in numbers, the higher grew the dowries that were
offered; but the Chief Secretary would have no ne of them.
His friends began to tell him of the dangers to which he was exposing
himself by his want of compliance with the Ameer’s wishes. The worry
upset his health and distracted his attention from his work. His
correspondence – everything – got into arrears, and finding himself
quite unable to cope with the accumulation, he engaged a Mirza
(clerk), whom he swore over the secrec y on the Koran, to help him.
Therein la y the great mistake. Things were made easier for the moment
to become more complicated later on. Certain state secrets eked out,
formed a topic of gossip and wonder in the town, and in the course of
time came round to the Ameer. No suspicion rested on the Chief
Secretar y at first. He had proved himself too trustworthy for that, and
was, moreover, too constant and too evidently honest in his endeavours
to find out whence the reports proceeded. He felt that he had an enem y
and a very active one, who was constantly endeavouring to get him into
trouble. He became more nervous and irritable than ever. He could no
longer look ahead and clear his path as he had hitherto been able to do.
He saw only the present accumulated arrears of work that he was for
ever fruitless striving to cope with, and he felt that his enemies were
gaining ground – he could not quite see where or how.
He no longer felt the same confidence in himself, and to a great extent
he lost his power of amusing and attracting his master. He became
more often the butt for a joke or the subject of some biting sarcasm
than he had ever been, and the ready answer for which he had been so
noted and so feared was now seldom forthcoming.
“That man has never recovered from his wife’s death; he is still pining
to go home,” the Ameer said one day, when, beaten in an argument, he
Chief Secretar y had left the room crestfallen and not in the best of
tempers.
“If he only wants to go home for a visit, why won’t he marr y an
Afghan wife, and leave her here to take care of the children till his
return?” su ggested an old vulture, who had been dismissed from office
some time before, and was sadly in want of the salar y of which he had
been deprived.
“If he once gets away from here, he has no intention of returning. I can
tell you,” whispered another, quite loud enough for the Ameer to hear.
“His brother is in the emplo y of the English. Doubtless, when he was
up here, he offered him bribes and a good appointment among those
Kafirs, to induce him to reveal state secrets to them when he gets down
there.”