1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

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A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
The girl’s face fell. “Agha, would you leave me to the torn in pieces by
Mohamed Jan? m y wretched bod y thrown to the dogs and jackals to be
their food? Oh, Agha, I had not thought –“
“Ah, you make my safet y the excuse because you want to fly yourself,”
he said, cruelly wounding the woman who would have given her life for
him in his bitterness and disappointment. “I might have known as
much. Here, give me my stick.”
“Agha, I am not afraid, only fly and leave me to my fate. The good God
above can protect me if He will. He has protected me theretofore; but
make the arrangements to -day, Agha. Who will you find for a guide?
Who can you trust?” Ah! there she had touched the real question at
stake, who could he trust? He turned and looked at her.
“In man’s clothes no one could tell I was a woman I am taller than
most Hazara men; I am as tall as you, Agha. I can load and fire a rifle
as well as any,” and she shivered. “If I were put to it, I could use a
knife. I know nothing of fear. I dread only two things on earth – your
disgrace, and my capture by Mohamed Jan; but I swear that I would
face the latter if I were but sure that you were far out of reach of your
enemies, in a country where there is justice and right, instead of
intrigues, false witnesses, and bribes.” She shivered again. “Ah, surely
God has put His curse on this country for ever and ever. You may
strive for it as you will, but it can never be great again. It must fall
among the nations of the world, because it reeks with wrongs and
cruelties, and the blood of those who have been murdered must cry
aloud for vengeance.”
“Hush, girl,” her master said, “think what you will be silent and seem
gay. Don’t let your face look sad, or your e yes tear-stained before your
companions. God knows what spies there may be in m y own household.
Sardaro is of the royal tribe, though of a poor and lowly branch, and I
have thought I have caught Gulsum trying to listen at the doors at
times. Hark! What is that?”
“It is but the cat lapping up the milk that I upset when I brought in
your tea this morning,” the girl said, smiling and without the slightest
contempt for the man who offered her no assistance in her trouble,
while showing such evident concern about himself. But she did not
despise him whatever others might have done. She thought of him only
as he had been years ago, before all these troubles had come o n him;
when he had been full of thought and care for others as well as for
himself. What could she see in him that was not as it should have been?
She loved him, she knew that now, her eyes had been opened within the
last few da ys, these days of anxiet y and distress, during which she had
had those constant visits from her mother, visits which had brought her
nothing but ill tidings, and which da y b y day had plunged her deeper
and deeper into such an abyss of despair that at length her lips had
become unlocked, and she had been forced to appeal to her master.