1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

75
A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
deadly foe, a far more relentless enemy. Father, father,” she murmured,
but only the voice of the wind replied, the wind that was blowing from
off the mountains of her beloved home, and which, lifting her hair, the
hair she had not even finished braiding, fanned her aching temples and
her burning, throbbing head.
The sun set and the moon rose. Such a beautiful, bright, Eastern moon.
She could hear the regular Hazara giggle going downstairs, and ever y
sound tortured her. She remembered old Miriam’s words, “Rejected – a
prisoner – a slave.”
Ah, here was the fulfilment of that dire prophesy alread y. Was ever
prisoner so bound? Was ever slave so punished?
A weird shadow passed slowly between her and the moon. It was a
great dun-coloured owl, she knew by the peculiar swishing of its
wings, and she knew, too, that according to the superstitions of her
face, such a visitor boded no good, and oh, how cold she was getting.
Her limbs were quite numb. The very blood in her veins seemed to be
stopped b y the encircling cord. Her head grew dizz y, and then
Providence was kind to her at last, for she lost consciousness, and all
her tortures, both mental and physical, were for the moment as though
they were not.
They next thing she was conscious of was something licking her, now
her hands, and now her neck, and then her face. She started, there was
something so uncanny in the sensation. It was broad daylight, and a
great sheep-dog that she had often petted and fed had come to show its
sympathy with her in her trouble. A dog is ever ywhere considered by
Mohamedans an unclean beast, and deservedly so, for in the East he is
one of the most common and at the same time of the most useful of the
many scavengers, in providing which Nature has been so bountiful.
For a moment, only a moment, the girl was filled with disgust and
horror. Then a new feeling, born of her loneliness and misery, came to
her, and she bent towards this humble friend, an outcast like herself,
rubbing her head on its shaggy, dusty brown coat, because she could
not undo a hand wherewith to stroke it.
The sun rose higher and higher, but still no sound came from below.
The house seemed to be deserted. A kind of terror seized her and shook
her from head to foot. Had the y all gone awa y and left her, bound and
helpless, to starve? The outer door must evidently have been left wide
open, or the dog could never have got in. fearful as she was of the
consequences of what would seem to Mohamed Jan to savour of
submission, her terror at being forsaken was too great to admit of any
other feeling. She must call – and call she did, but how husky her
voice! It seemed to have no strength, to have lost all its carrying
power. She called and called again, but still no one replied. Only the
dog snuffed round about her and then la y down, placing its head
affectionately on her breast. Again, she called, but still no reply came.