They stood close together like men a little
afraid, and he could see their eyelids closed and sunken, as though
the very balls beneath had shrunk away. There was an expression
near awe on their faces.
"A man," one said, in hardly recognisable Spanish. "A man it
is--a man or a spirit--coming down from the rocks."
But Nunez advanced with the confident steps of a youth who
enters upon life. All the old stories of the lost valley and the
Country of the Blind had come back to his mind, and through his
thoughts ran this old proverb, as if it were a refrain:--
"In the Country of the Blind the One-Eyed Man is King."
"In the Country of the Blind the One-Eyed Man is King."
And very civilly he gave them greeting. He talked to them and
used his eyes.
"Where does he come from, brother Pedro?" asked one.
"Down out of the rocks."
"Over the mountains I come," said Nunez, "out of the country
beyond there--where men can see. From near Bogota--where there are
a hundred thousands of people, and where the city passes out of
sight."
"Sight?" muttered Pedro. "Sight?"
"He comes," said the second blind man, "out of the rocks."
The cloth of their coats, Nunez saw was curious fashioned,
each with a different sort of stitching.
They startled him by a simultaneous movement towards him, each
with a hand outstretched.
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