1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

32
A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
A few children ran past at intervals, and innumerable ill-conditioned
dogs. Once a woman’s hand holding a vessel which was promptly
emptied into the street below, appeared over the wall almost opposite
to where he stood. His eyes followed the direction of the fluid as it fell
from the bowl. A pool of blood which had not been there before had
been formed on the ground.
A shiver ran down the Hazara’s back as he stood in that strange cit y of
which such strange tales were told, and contemplated that pool. He was
not a really superstitious man, though he came of superstitious stock,
and there was nothing mysterious to him in what had occurred . Some
animal, a sheep, or a goat, had been killed to supply the household with
food, and this was its blood, which had to be got rid of somehow, and
the road was handy; there was nothing unusual in that.
Two dogs that had been strolling about in search of some such luxury
as this met and snarled at each other across their loathsome meal, till a
third and much larger one espied the dainty, and sent the two first
comers flying.
A man in the ordinary flowing raiment of a respectable Kabuli
tradesman or servant next appeared upon the scene. Under ordinar y
circumstances he would have attracted no attention even from a
stranger, but when he came close to the place where Ghulam Hossain
stood, he stooped and lifted a piece of dry mud which he flu ng at the
hungry dog, and though there was no one else in sight or apparently
within ear shot, he whispered as he did so, “Go along this street to the
left, till you come in a straight line, and I will meet you.” Then he
passed on, pausing again some little way up the street, to fling another
piece of mud at the dog, but taking care at the same time to use this
opportunity for looking back and noticing if his directions had been
obeyed b y the man whom he had addressed.
Ghu lam Hossain had recognised him. He was the servant to whom the
man who had whispered to him at the gate of the palace had given his
papers when he came out from Durbar early in the afternoon; and
wondering wherein lay the necessit y of so much secrecy and myster y,
he proceeded to act one the instructions he had received . He had not
gone ver y far after passing the baker’s shop, when the same man
caught him up and whispered again as he passed, “Follow me.” Soon
afterwards the guide stopped suddenly beside an arch, where he
addressed a few words to some soldiers who were lounging about in
various attitudes, then went through it and along a narrow lane, from
the houses on either side of which wooden gutters kept pouring filth at
intervals into the thoroughfare below. Once or twice Ghulam Hossain
had suddenly to bend forward, or jump to the other side of the lane to
avoid its falling on his head.
They soon stopped again, this time beside a huge roughly carved door,
which they entered. The y had come to their journey’s end.