1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

74
A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
come to such a pass as that, m y God! You will make your entreaties in
vain. Do you see this rope?” he went on, flourishing a piece he held in
his hand. “Rope is a useful article. It can bind, and it can lash, and it
has other uses,” and as he spoke he brought it down with a sharp flick
across the girl’s shoulders and arms, making her jump, and causing the
tears to start in her eyes against her will. Still she said nothing.
“Now listen to me,” he went on. “You elected to stay in this room when
I called to you to come down to me. It is well. You shall remain here. I
should be sorry not to oblige you, but lest you should feel inclined to
leave it, you shall be bound hand and foot to prevent your doing so that
you may have the full benefit of your own choice. When you have come
to your senses, and are willing to submit, you can call for me if you
like, and if I am in the house and unoccupied, I will, perhaps, come
and see what you want,” and as he spoke he knelt on her, and tried to
force the rope round her. But Gul Begum was strong, and lithe, and
active, and in spite of the smarting pain across her shoulders, she
struggled and resisted to the uttermost.
“Here, you women,” Mohamed Jan called out. “Ho there! Come
upstairs and help me with this vixen,” and they came, glad to see the
girl, whose airs of superiorit y had so often galled them, in such sore
straits and trouble.
And so, among them, the y bound her, and bound her tight too, then left
her almost fainting with pain, fatigue, and humiliation. Left her
without a scrap of food or a drop of water, nor could she have partaken
of either if she had had them, so tightly were her arms bound down to
her sides, and the hours dragged on slowly, slowly.
By the evening it seemed to the poor suffering girl that she must have
lain there a whole year. Ever y event of her life passed before her as in
a pageant, and she wondered why God had placed so heavy a curse on
her; wondered if it was indeed just punishment for her pride – a pride
of which she had so often been accused, but of which, truth to tell, she
felt so ver y little. “Why do they call me proud?” she asked herself.
“How do I show myself to be so much more vain than other women?
Who works harder than I when I am at home? Who is more submissive
to her parents?” and then the tears trickled down her cheeks and feel
one b y one on the mud floor on which she was lying. She had been
obedient even when obedience had brought her to this, the deepest of
degradation.
“Ah, father,” she sobbed, “I knew how it would be. I knew, I knew; I
saw it coming last year when I ran away, and though you love me, yes,
I know you do, you would not listen to me. Your thought I did not
know, but I knew, alas! too well. Father, father, where are you now?
Far, far away from here, protecting your countr y from its enemies, your
poor country which nothing can save, while your wretched, suffering
child, your own flesh and blood, lies here encompassed by a far more