1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

20
A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
“Discipline? What of that? Were our fore-fathers drilled ? And as to
mone y – when men fight for their countr y and their religion, the y want
no pay.”
“Ah! There we are back again. No, our fore-fathers were not drilled ,
but we have to look to the sort of men we are going to pit ourselves
against. The new Ameer is not like the former rulers of Kabul, who met
our flint-lock gu ns with flint-lock guns, our hill-knives with hillknives,
our home-made swords with home-made swords. Those days are
all changed. Do you know what a Henri-Martini rifle is?”
“Ah, those are the guns; good guns indeed, and good enough soldiers,
those Goras (the name given to British infantr y soldiers), on a plain,
but no good for our crags. I have seen them – can’t keep their heads
under cover for a minute, and then are surprised when they get potted
off.”
“But what’s the good of talking of them; we’re not go ing to fight with
them.” The shorter of the three men remarked .
“Perhaps not, but the men we are going to fight are Helas, not Goras,
not the sort that cannot keep their heads under cover, and are not used
to crags. The y are mountaineers like ourselves, and the y have Henri-
Martini rifles. Do you think the Ameer of Kabul has been idle these
last ten years? He had made friends with the Feringhees, in Hindustan
and they have given him mone y, guns, and men. When I was in Kabul,
there were no less than seventeen of these Kafirs at work there, and
they have made a village, no, a town, I tell you, where ever y kind of
gun and implement of war is made. A trained Kafir for every
department, and a Royal Sirdar over all – I have seen it, so I know.”
“You have seen it with your own eyes, or is this mere hearsa y?”
questioned the other speaker.
“I have seen it,” the Vizier said emphatically; and he walked away
slowly with his head bent down.
“Is Ghulam Hossain turning traitor?” the other asked of the third
member of the little group, whom we should recognise as the chief –
Shereen’s father.
“He is not a traitor, but he is full of forebodings; he believes that the
days of the independence of the Hazaras are counted . What do you
say?”
“I? – I say that our men have more determination in the gristle of their
ears than the Afghans have in their whole body. I say, let the Afghans
attack our natural forts that the God of our Prophet has given us, let
them try their Henri-Martinis on our mountains. What of guns?
Feringhee-made guns, forsooth! When we have God’s own everlasting
mountains at our back! Guns, indeed !” and the old man laughed. “I
have a better weapon than guns to wield – you remember that I told