1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

38
A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
did the fall of snow, and less than the strength of the spring or autumn
gales.
Nor were the y half so important, or of such general interest even to the
persons most nearly concerned. Children born in the year of unusually
heavy snows or some specially devastating gale bore a date, the others
had none except as they might be younger or older than the dated
children, and that was indefinite enough. If so unusual an inquiry was
made as to the age of any individual that answer could be arrived at
after a good many arithmetical calcu lations, “Well, he was born a year
or two before the great storm.”
“And when was the great storm?” would be the most natural rejoinder.
“The great storm? That was six winters before it snowed blood.”
“Good gracious, when was that?”
“That was the winter before the Ameer Sahib came from Russia.”
So there you had your date as nearly as you were likely to get one, and
it was seldom you got as near as that. But this is digression.
Two men in all the country round felt that to these unchanged scenes a
change was coming. Both knew that war was imminent. The one was
full of hope, he felt the change was to be for the better, more power,
more riches, and consequently greater luxury; the other foresaw
nothing but disaster, defeat, and ruin; the one busied himself in every
township for miles around, and where he could not find time to go
himself, there he sent emissaries stirring up the people, filling them
with more religious zeal than any casual observer would have believed
those wiry little creatures capable of; exciting their bitterest hatred
against the man who had declared himself their lawful ruler, and who,
moreover, belonged to a different section of the Mohamedan religio n.
The other sat in his house and brooded. He, at least, seemed to have
changed alread y, changed from being even tempered, full of anecdote
and gaiety, fond of sport and all exercise, to a man morose, silent,
preoccupied, who seldom left his home.
“What are you doing here, blocking up the place when I am busy?” his
wife said to him one morning.
“What am I doing here?” he had replied angrily; “that’s a strange
question to ask a man in his own house.”
“Father, I wish you would do something for me,” Gul Begum said,
coming to the rescue, as she now seemed so often obliged to do.
“What! Do you want to get rid of me too?” he said sadly.