1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

193
A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
The Ameer’s eye never moved. It was fixed on the man before him. The
room had gradually filled with courtiers and servants of all ranks.
Except in the immediate vicinit y of the Ameer’s couch, there was
hardly standing room, and not one man in all that crowd would have
changed places with the official who stood facing his judge, his back
turned to his accusers.
With something like a laugh, or rather, perhaps, one might say a shout
of derision, the Chief Secretar y turned and faced them all, then turned
again and addressed his master.
“My accusers?” he said scornfully. “Are these pariahs my accusers? If
so, I refuse to answer them or to speak to such dogs at all. The y know I
am an alien, they know I have private sorrows and troubles, and the y
know I have the pay of your Majest y’s Chief Secretar y. That is all they
know. They know nothing of loyalt y, nothing of duty, nothing of
patriotism, they want but one thing – my pay. Your Majest y does not
for one moment believe they could, even if they would, do my work.
But because the y want m y pay, my house, my position, the y make plots
and deep-laid plans to overthrow me. They intrigue, they forge, they
perjure themselves, all that the y ma y obtain so paltry a sum that I am
half ashamed to call it m y salar y, and your Majest y asks me to answer
them; but I dare to stand before you, one man, an alien, and refuse to
speak to them at all. I am sick of my life, I do not wish to live, I would
rather die. I have spent my health and strength in your Majest y’s
service, I have worked for you and your cause day and night, and I
believe in you and love you still, because I can see how impossible it is
for you among these rogues and false witnesses to judge me fairly. I
fear either gallows nor gun – nay, rather, I seek them, and am ready to
face them; but before I do so, and in presence of this vast flight of
carrion crows all watching for my poor corpse, I hand you your letter,
the letter you placed in my hands, and which has never left my
possession since. I have other confidential papers of your Majest y’s,
some of them papers I have had for years. The y are in my house, the y
are all ready. Any one of these vultures can go and fetch them for me.”
The Ameer held the paper in his hand. He was looking it carefully over
and examining it.
“This is the original,” he said, in his low impressive tones. “Some one
has made a cop y. My God! what villains I have got for subjects. The y
will try to prove to me soon that I m yself am traitor. Ah, you hungr y
hawks, you are on the sharp look-out for prey, but take care you do not
strike too soon. It is better for such as you to wait until the querry is
quite dead. Though sick and sad, he has claws that can scratch and jaws
that can bite, and he may strike you so that you never rise again. Two
minutes ago this room was full to overflowing, now where have these
accusers gone? M y son, I forgive your vehemence, which was hardly
becoming in the presence of your sovereign. There are times when the