1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

9
A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
princess – such a fortune,” and the old hand rubbed her hands and
chuckled to herself.
“I have others to whom to give my old boots,” Gul Begum said , “others
who work and who deserve them. You only roam through the country
telling lies, deceiving young girls. Get up! Bego ne.”
A scowl gathered on the old fortune-teller’s face; she bent her head
down till it rested on her knee, then looked up sidewa ys at the girl
towering above her. “What lies have I told?” she asked. “Did Sara’s
uncle lose his cattle? Did Neckbacht’s own father sell her into slaver y
for a gun? Did Nookra wed above her highest expectations? Did
Dilbhar become a disgrace to her tribe, and is she not now glad to hide
her face in a stranger’s house, a servant, a menial, where she would
formerly have been waited on as a guest? Answer me that.”
Gul Begum had turned a little white. What the old woman said was true
enough, and the girl, though cast in a different mould, was not
altogether above the superstitions of her race. Ignoring the first part of
the old woman’s speech, which was perhaps unanswerable, she caught
hold of the latter. “Dilbhar was a good girl till you put your curse on
her.” She said; “she never went astray till then, besides service is no
disgrace. It is better to be good and serve than to have so much time on
one’s hands that one’s thoughts stra y off to evil.”
“And what about your time?” the old hag asked, chuckling again.
“Where do your thoughts soar, my beaut y? To Bamian, perhaps, or to
some yet higher sphere maybe?”
A hot angry flush mounted to the young girl’s cheek. She stretched out
her hand menacingly. “Begone, old witch,” she said, “begone! Half the
misfortunes of the tribe come from your idle pratings. Begone, and
don’t dare show your face here again, for, if you do, I’ll set the dogs
on you.”
The old woman rose slowly, and with evident difficult y. She was stiff,
and her back was bent with age and the weights she had perhaps had to
carry in her youth. Suddenly she darted forward and seized Gul
Begum’s still outstretched arm, and casting her glance hurriedly at the
hand that had thus come within her reach, she examined it eagerly then
flung it from her with a mocking derisive laugh. “Begone, old witch,
begone!” she echoed, jeering. “Yes, I’ll begone. ‘Twill be, ‘Come, old
Miriam, come,’ some day. ‘Come and tell me of something to live for,
something of peace, and love, and rest, somewhere, anywhere.’ But
Miriam will not come. The Vizier’s daughter, the chiefs niece, has cast
old Miriam out; is it likely that she will care to visit the rejected – the
prisoner – the slave? Old Miriam has nothing good for you, fine,
handsome, haught y maid. Your pride must have a fall. You will have
dust to lick and tears to dry. Your day will soon be over and you will
come to envy old Miriam, who wanders free among the Hazara hills.”
Then picking up a bundle fastened in a red handkerchief, she planted