1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

62
A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
crusts in silence, but with a deep resolve growing up in her heart. She
would escape, and that soon.
Next day when she smelt the fresh cooked food being brought in from
the kitchen, she went downstairs, and was surprised to find how weak
she felt after her two day’s starvation. She took her customary place.
“That’s no longer the place for you,” Mohamed Jan’s mother said. “We
do not give people the place of ho nour who cannot afford to pay us
even for what the y eat. There is the place for you ,” pointing to the
extreme end of the dirt y cloth that was laid upon the floor.
So Gul Begum sat down with a sigh, and waited till some food shou ld
be passed to her and to the women who sat by her, and who were
practically servants in the house. She, however, said nothing, and
minded it less than she would have expected . She had made up her
mind. She was going home – to danger perhaps, but at any rate not to
insults; and with this idea in her mind she ate well when her turn came,
the others giggling and staring at her as she did so.
That night, when all was still, she made her way safely down the stairs,
and by dawn was nearing her beloved home. She could stand no more
of the insults and maltreatment to which she had lately fallen a victim .
She grew weary with her long march through the dead of night after all
she had go ne through, but the knowledge that she was nearing home
sustained her, and her heart beat fast at the thought of meeting her
beloved father, and throwing herself in her arms, and telling him all
her woes, but as she got within sight of the village, she became
conscious of some change – some want of life about the place which
she could not have defined.
“Are the men indeed so late in beginning their day’s work?” she said to
herself. “I am glad to have found them out. It must be looked to. It is
time the farmers were seeing to their crops. How strangely late
ever ything seems.”
Arrived at her home, the girl half fell, half threw herself into her
mother’s arms as she opened the door to admit her, almost knocking
down poor Halima, who was unused to such demonstrations, and
therefore unprepared for them.
“Good gracious, girl,” the elder woman said anxiously, and with the
old peevish whine her daughter knew so well, “what is the matter now?
What further ill news do you bring us, that you come upon us in this
way?”
“Further ill news, mother?” the girl replied breathlessly. “What ill
news is there? I have heard nothing of any of you for months.”
“Not heard of the war? Not heard of devastating land ? Not heard of the
prisoners that have been taken, nor of the slaves that have bee made?