1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

196
A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
THE Chief Secretary had heard enough. His danger was quite clear. He
saw the whole trial, as it would be, just though it had been.
Even man and boy about the Court thronging to hear the evidence
against him. Each interested in the highest degree not in his, the Chief
Secretar y’s, downfall particu larly; no, they were not vicious, but
interested to hear how would extricate himself, or whether he could
extricate himself at all – interested in the game of skill where one man
alone, the ablest and most craft y in the country, would plead his cause
and fight for his life alone against a dozen, perhaps fift y accusers, each
of whom would feel that to fail in his evidence would mean danger to
himself – perhaps death.
How they would push for the best places – quietly, of course, that the
Ameer might not notice – but none the less forcibly. How they would
think out each point, suggest further possibilities or impossib ilities,
every now and then bringing forward some new and deep-laid scheme,
undreamt of by him, the accused – schemes that could only occur to an
Afghan; schemes he might not be able to find an answer for on the spur
of the moment, but which, nevertheless, might appeal to the Ameer as
reasonable, such as the one the page-boy had suggested but a few
moments before in his own hearing.
Hi might escape once, or even twice, as he had done to-day, but the net
was surely cast, he was bound to get caught in its meshes. Besides, it
was strange about that second paper. Ransack his brains as he would he
could not account for it, or suggest any means by which it could have
been made before the original had been placed in his care by the
Ameer.
The case, when it had first been put before him, had seemed an urgent
one. The messenger had brought it to the official’s house sealed, and
had requested a personal interview with the Ameer. He had even kept
the man as his own guest, fearing he might talk too much, until the
appointed hour had come. the packet had then been delivered, still
sealed, into the Ameer’s own hands. That was all quite clear in his
mind as though it had happened but yesterday. Who, then, had made the
copy? and how had the forger got hold of the original?
Only one man, besides himself had ever had access to his yachdan – his
Mirza (writer, secretar y). He had trusted that man implicitly – had
looked upon him as a creature wholly his own b y right, for he had
saved his life. It was an old story now, but the man still constantly
referred to it, and reminded the master, to whose interests he professed
to be devoted, of the day when he, like so many others, had been
hounded b y his enemies, and almost brought to earth there in that very
room where his master had that day stood before his accusers. And that
master had saved him, hail shown the Ameer clearly and convincingly
why the accusations were being brought against the poor trembling
wretch – had pointed out the man who was really at the bottom of the