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190 A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR A light hurried footstep on the pavement by the porter’s lodge roused her. The sound came quickly in her direction, and she stood up prepared to receive her master. “Gul Begum, I am in danger,” he whispered the moment that he had entered the room. “The police have got hold of a paper that was given to me in the strictest confidence by the Ameer. A paper from – ah, well, never mind what is in it, but they declare it has been secreted from the British Agency by one of their spies, and that I must have sold it to the English – betrayed my master – turned traitor! But I have the paper here, the one he gave me. I saw it only yesterday, I am certain of it – I had it in m y hand.” The Chief Secretary was ashy pale, his hands trembled, and somehow he looked old, and positively as though he had shrunk – as though his clothes had been made for another and a stouter man. He went towards the curious, square, four-legged trunk – the yachdan in which his important papers were kept under lock and seal – and tried to open it, but somehow neither fastening seemed to obey his eager fingers. “Give me a knife,” he said, “that I may cut the string. Quick, girl, are you asleep? Cut the seal off, and help me to unfasten that box.” Gul Begum advanced, pale, but firm and quiet. She had fetched a second key from the shelf under the Koran, and without a word had turned it in the lock and raised the lid. “Give me the bundle on the top,” her master said excitedly, “yes, that one, the one in the red handkerchief.” The colour was coming back into his face a little. “Untie it,” he said, and then he smiled. Yes, there was the paper safe enough, just where he had left it the night before. But whence, then, came that other paper that he had seen in his master’s hand? There had been but one original letter, that sent by a Border Chief to the Ameer making certain proposals. Who had made that copy? It was a most skilful forger y, cleverly designed to overthrow him and to bring him to the gallows. His enemies were indeed active and had laid their plans well, but he had the original quite safely. He would go straight to the Ameer with it; he would scatter his enemies. His whole appearance changed, as surely only that of Easterns can do in so short of time. His carriage became erect again as usual, his colour returned, his ver y clothes sat differently on him. “Just give me a brush down,” he said to the girl who stood beside him, more composedly, she thought, than she had heard him speak for weeks. “Now we will see who is for the gallows. We shall see whether God protects His own servant who waits on Him continually, or whether these carrion crows, these pariahs, are to triumph over me and overthrow me. Hark! there is the Muezzin. It is prayer time, Gul Begum. Bring me some water and spread my prayer carpet. In God’s strength I shall overcome all my difficulties.”
191 A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR Something, perhaps the soothing effect of his prayers, perhaps faith in his master, in whose desire to be just he had absolute confidence, perhaps the possession of the paper he had been afraid must have been stolen from him, killed in him for a moment the melancholy and depression, the nervous irritabilit y that had so taken possession of him of late years, as to change his who le mien and bearing. He was a courtier again, a chief, a leader of men. CHAPTER XXXVI FACING HIS ACCUSERS
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