So far as he could describe sky and clouds
and stars to them it seemed to them a hideous void, a terrible
blankness in the place of the smooth roof to things in which they
believed--it was an article of faith with them that the cavern roof
was exquisitely smooth to the touch. He saw that in some manner he
shocked them, and gave up that aspect of the matter altogether, and
tried to show them the practical value of sight. One morning he
saw Pedro in the path called Seventeen and coming towards the
central houses, but still too far off for hearing or scent, and he
told them as much. "In a little while," he prophesied, "Pedro will
be here." An old man remarked that Pedro had no business on path
Seventeen, and then, as if in confirmation, that individual as he
drew near turned and went transversely into path Ten, and so back
with nimble paces towards the outer wall. They mocked Nunez when
Pedro did not arrive, and afterwards, when he asked Pedro questions
to clear his character, Pedro denied and outfaced him, and was
afterwards hostile to him.
Then he induced them to let him go a long way up the sloping
meadows towards the wall with one complaisant individual, and to
him he promised to describe all that happened among the houses. He
noted certain goings and comings, but the things that really seemed
to signify to these people happened inside of or behind the
windowless houses--the only things they took note of to test him
by--and of those he could see or tell nothing; and it was after the
failure of this attempt, and the ridicule they could not repress,
that he resorted to force.
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