1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

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A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
“Why, cursed be your fathers, that is one of the houses we told you to -
make ready for us. What do you mean by turning them into one of the
houses we have selected?”
“They must have shelter somewhere,” the Mir replied passively.
“I see no necessit y for any such thing,” the other answered, and as he
spoke he struck his host on the head a nd then kicked him. “Put your
Hazaras where you like, that’s nothing to us, but clear out the houses
we have pointed out every one of them, and be sharp about it too.”
The Hazara seemed in no wise to resent the abuse he had received,
great man in his own village though he was, the fact being that he was
biding his time. He was waiting the arrival of his neighbours.
“Where are all your men?” one of the soldiers said, noticing the
scarcit y in the streets; “where are they all gone to?”
“They are on the hills tending their flocks at this time. I might send
some of the boys to fetch them, then they could help to clear those
houses for you.” There was a sense of triumph in his heart. Yes, he
would send the boys to hurry up the men, the men who were to help
him to expel these unwelcome guests. Little did the Afghan soldiers
know what he was thinking. In the meantime he ordered another and
then another house to be cleared, and seemed himself most active in
ordering the people out.
Not active enough, however, for the Afghan soldiers, who kept pouring
volleys of abuse on him, his immediate relatio ns, and his ancestors,
extending those same attentions also to the relatives and ancestors of
his wife and others. Still the Mir kept silent, till at last, exasperated by
his coolness and deliberation, one of the soldiers struck him in the
open street and knocked him over. This was more than his woman, at
any rate, could stand, and one of them, from a window overlooking the
street, threw out a hatchet. The blow was well-aimed, the instrument
heavy. It cleft the wretched Afghan through the shoulders close to the
neck. This was the signal for a general onslaught, which ended in the
wounding of both the remaining soldiers, but more than one Hazara lay
on the ground never to rise again. A few of the men from the other
villages arrived.
Sore pressed, the two remaining Afghan soldiers made for the open,
and as soon as they had found their horses, mounted and were off at
full gallop in the direction from which they had come. Their companion
remained where he had fallen, his life blood pouring from him.
“What brought you here?” a Hazara woman asked.
“The orders of my colonel,” the wounded man replied. “For the love of
God and our Prophet give me some water.”