1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

94
A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
Early next morning she was awakened by a soldier calling outside her
tent. “Gul Begum, Gul Begum,” he said, “you are wanted.”
The girl was on her feet in a moment. “What is it?” she asked.
“Get up and make yourself ready to start at once. I have orders to take
you to Colonel Ferad Shah’s garden house, it is not ver y far from here,
but the Commedan has ordered a pony for you to ride, and he is
sending two other girls with you.
Who would you like to take? You may choose any that you may prefer
from among those that are left.”
Gul Begum smiled. “This is what it is to be the chosen of Colonel
Ferad Shah,” she said to herself, and in spite of all her many troubles
and anxieties as to her future, a certain glow of satisfaction passed
over her. After all, this was but how she ought to be treated; was she
not Ghulam Hossain’s daughter?
Shereen and her mother, besides Halima and several other women,
occupied the same tent. “Take me,” her cousin pleaded, “don’t leave
me behind, Gul Begum.”
“And me,” entreated Halima. “You would not leave me here all alone,
or I shall indeed be forsaken. M y baby is dead, and Marwari” -the
wretched woman commenced weeping- “Fatma has been torn from me,
and now you are going to forsake me too. Oh, wretched creature that I
am, would that I too had died.”
“Hush, mother, hush,” the girl said smoothly. “If I may, of course I
will take you.”
“And me too?” asked Shereen’s mother. “Don’t let me be parted from
you all.”
“I wish I could,” Gul Begum said anxiously. “I will ask the soldier,”
and she stepped outside.
“Look here,” she said, “I am poor to-day and a prisoner, but I am not
born poor, and I shall not always be a prisoner. I am going to the house
of a rich man, where I know I shall soon have a good position, and in
the days of my prosperity I will remember you if you will help me now
in the time of my trouble.” Afghan promises that all meant ver y little,
because no one knows what his or her future is to be, for Afghanistan
is the country above all others where the unexpected always happens.
But the soldier, like the rest of his countrymen, lived in hopes. A better
day might come, that was all he had to look forward to, though, after
the manner peculiar to his race, he took not the faintest means to
secure those better days.