1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

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A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
the old woman was quite carried away, and promised to speak to their
master when he came in. besides, after all, Agha had called her a fool
many a time. It would not hurt her much for him to do so again, and
that peran was worth having. Gul Begum had been working at it for the
last six months. She (Sardaro) was of the royal tribe, and ought to have
good things – they became her and her position, but her master was
very forgetfu l, and, as long as the y were clean, seldom troubled
himself as to the clothes his servants wore.
“I shall go and get read y so that I can start at once, if I get
permission,” the girl went on eagerly. “Will you give me m y bokra*
out of your store cupboard, Sardaro?”
The old woman rose and unfastened the door. Gul Begum got up from
her seat by the window; took it, and gave a sigh of relief when she got
back to the little anteroom, where she usually sat when she had nothing
special to do. She had got that much – her bokra – without exciting
suspicion, had gained one point. Now she must find an old suit of her
master’s clothes frown among those laid aside to give away, and s he
must let them out somehow, so as to make them fit herself.
It took her some time and entailed some curious looking patches, but
that mattered little in a place like Kabul. Moreover, a long loose coat
caught in round the waist by the usual Kabuli belt was more easily
found, and hid many defects. The slave girl laughed to herself as she
surve yed herself in her master’s little mirror, dressed in his clothes,
and looking well in them. “I would have made a fine man,” she
thought; but fear of discover y made her hasten to complete her toilet,
and cover the man’s suit with the bokra she had obtained from Sardaro.
Some cold meat and some bread had been rolled up into a bundle, and
the few jewels she possessed were inside the breast of the coat. “Agha
must provide the mone y, and must give me one of his caps to wind a
turban round, and a pistol. Now I am ready. We must fly to-night
across this great plain, and then over into the Hazara hills, and there I
will hide him. He will need me there. He will not be able to do without
me at last,” and as these thoughts came to her, her eyes glowed and her
cheek flushed with rapturous joy at the prospect; then she sat down
again and waited, thinking and planning still. She knew her master
well, and that unless something most unusual had happened be would
come home full of despair, incapable of thinking out anything; he who
could influence and command thousands – could organise a state –
could do nothing for himself.
She had not long to wait. But the footstep, when it fell upon her ear,
was not hurried, almost tottering, as it had been last time he had
entered the serai. It was the old stride and swing – Gul Begum
recognised it without raising her e yes, and wondered! She had not
believed it possible. Things had prospered with him at the Court, then.
He would believe again as he had so often believed before, that his old
luck was returning, and that all would yet be well. He would put off