1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

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A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
and hacking me limb from limb. I know him, and he will do it. He
knows he cannot get at me except through you, and so he has swo rn to
compass your ruin first.”
The Chief Secretary said nothing, but gazed through the window into
space, reviewing matters in his own mind.
“Agha, what am I to do?” the girl went on after a pause. “Would it not
be better for me to leave you? Had you not better give me my freedom
and let me go? Or – pardon me if I offend you – will you not trust
yourself to me? You are out of favour with the Ameer you are not well
– you want to return to your father’s house, and yet you cannot get
leave. Why not escape, Agha? Why not fly the country now you are
free, and can easily do it. Why wait until it is too late – till the prison
walls with a guarding sentry block your exit? To-day you are free! God
only knows how long you will remain so. This is the country of deat h
and destruction, of intrigue and treachery, and secret assassination.
Why not fly?”
She had grown more and more eager, and before she uttered the last
few words hard risen and shut the window lest the almost inaudible
whisper, in which alone she had dared trust herself to speak, should be
carried b y the treacherous winds to the ear of the man of whom she
stood in so much dread.
“This is terrible news, indeed,” her master said at last. “The ver y fact
that I have kept your father’s visit here so secret, now it has come out
will tell against me. The real reason will never be believed. I shall be
accused of intriguing with the Hazaras, and any little contretemps that
has occurred will be attributed to me. I am indeed lost, and all through
you, black-faced one. I have had nothing but ill luck ever since you
came to me,” and the wretched man bowed his head upon his hand and
wept.
Cut to the quick, wondered and rose, it was now the girl’s turn to be
strong. “Agha, Agha,” she persisted, “you have still a chance. You
know the road in ever y direction for fift y miles round Kabul, and you
would pass respected ever ywhere at present. Escape to the frontier
while there is yet time. Thence I can take you to the Hazara country,
where I know ever y stone on the hillsides, and where my father and I
can hide you among the caves and boulders until we can escape from
there too, and make our way to India.”
The Chief Secretary looked up. “Give me my stick,” he said, “I must be
off on the track of these wolves. I will remember what you have said,
and will think of how best I can act, but I cannot take you with me. I
must go alone. The fact of my having a woman with me would betray
me at once.”