1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

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A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
distance behind her la y the fertile plain, along which she had ridden –
a plain now lit with sunshine, though it had been dark enough as she
had ridden along it. Then, beyond that, rose the hills that now divided
her from Kabul – from the past on which she was alread y beginning to
look so tenderly. About midway between her and them, there were
some specks distinctly visible upon the plain; they might have been
anything, camels or ponies grazing, perhaps, but were far too distant to
make out. She had not noticed them as she had passed along, she hard ly
noticed them now; she was thinking of something else, of the great
blank that was coming upon her, of the great trouble she had brought
upon herself – for she knew him well – without her her master would
not have moved a step, he would have been in Kabul still, and there
would have been no talk of separation.
She half wished she could recall what she had done. Those had been
happ y days – why had she herself, with her own hands, cut the cords
that bound her to them? The sun was getting hot, she felt thirsty.
“Agha, let us stop and rest at the first stream,” she said. “We are still
three miles from the next village, let us rest for half an hour.”
“Tired?” he asked. “Why, we have gone no distance yet.”
“No, Agha, no distance; but now that the great effort is over, and we
are safe, I feel I would like to rest only a minute, and bathe my head
and feet. I am not accustomed to these boots, so they seem heavy.”
He looked at her, she was certainly paler than she had been in the early
morning, before the sun had risen so high.
“Yes, why not?” he said, “we’ll look out for the first spring.”
And when the y found one she was like a child in her delight, and sat on
the bank dangling her feet in the clear mountain stream.
“Gul Begum,” the official said, suddenly, catching hold of her arm,
“look, what is that upon the plain? Surely not cattle?”
The girl sprang to her feet in an instant. “To horses, Agha, to horses!
they are horsemen – they are Swars. We are followed, we must get to
the hills, to the caves – we must fly for our lives.”
In three minutes the y were in their saddles, and in full flight.
“I wonder if they have seen us? If not we have nothing to fear. When
we get to that corner there, pointing to a turn in the valle y up which
they were riding, we will double like a hare when it is chased; that will
put them off the scent. None but a Hazara would think of that dodge,
because none else would know that down there to the right lies one of
those caves villages I told you of. An Afghan could only suppose we
would fly straight on to India.”