1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

64
A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
soon little Marwari, delighted to see her favourite sister, rushed up to
her – and when she had had a good meal of bread and curd, she fell
asleep with her head in her little sister’s lap.
On waking, the news that greeted her on all sides was no more
cheering. Ever ywhere, so it seemed to her, was death, devastation,
defeat, and slavery, and no news of her father.
“Give me a change of clothes, mother,” the girl said later in the day. “I
feel I need one badly. I forgot all about such things in my anxiet y last
night.”
“A change of clothes?” Halima exclaimed, “a change of clothes? Where
am I to get clothes from, for you? What did I tell you when you went
awa y, taking the great bundle with you? I said, ‘Leave some at home,’
but ‘No,’ said your father, ‘let her take then all. My daughter must not
go among these people as a beggar,’ and now, what is the consequence?
That here you are home again with nothing to put on your back.”
The girl hung her head. “You did say so, mother, but who was to know
what was in store for us? Who was to tell that the war would be carried
on to this extent, and that we should be left in such a plight?”
“Well, another time it will teach you, and, perhaps, your father too,
that though I may be of very little account in any one’s eyes, that I
sometimes know better than the wisest of you . What do you say,
mother?”
Thus addressed, the old lady shook her head despondingly. “I say, of
course, that as the head of this house, now Ghulam Hossain is no
longer here, that your word should, of course, be respected, but no one
could have foretold the miseries of this war. I alwa ys thought our army
would ever ywhere prove victorious. That’s what the Mullah said.”
“That’s not what my father said,” Gul Begum said sadly. “I remember
his words so well. I can hear him sa y them even now: ‘We shall not be
victorious.’”
“Then it’s your father that has brought this ill-luck on us,” Halima
exclaimed angrily. “What on earth did he mean by prophesying
misfortune to his own nation? I call such speeches as that but little
better than treason.”
Gul Begum smiled. It was no good arguing with her mother, there
never was any reason in her tirades.
“I may see what there is in the store, and get something to make m yself
a new dress of, may I not, mother?” the girl asked.
“Oh yes, go to the cupboard and take out whatever there is and use it
for any purpose you like,” her mother replied testily. “When it’s all