“And I think I may say with reasonable certainty that, in order to cure him complete, all that we need to do is a simple and easy surgical operation—­namely, to remove these irritant bodies.”

“And then he will be sane?”

“Then he will be perfectly sane, and a quite admirable citizen.”

“Thank Heaven for science!” said old Yacob, and went forth at once to tell Nunez of his happy hopes.

But Nunez’s manner of receiving the good news struck him as being cold and disappointing.

“One might think,” he said, “from the tone you take that you did not care for my daughter.”

It was Medina-sarote who persuaded Nunez to face the blind surgeons.

“You do not want me,” he said, “to lose my gift of sight?”

She shook her head.

“My world is sight.”

Her head drooped lower.

“There are the beautiful things, the beautiful little things—­the flowers, the lichens amidst the rocks, the light and softness on a piece of fur, the far sky with its drifting dawn of clouds, the sunsets and the stars.  And there is you.  For you alone it is good to have sight, to see your sweet, serene face, your kindly lips, your dear, beautiful hands folded together. . . . .  It is these eyes of mine you won, these eyes that hold me to you, that these idiots seek.  Instead, I must touch you, hear you, and never see you again.  I must come under that roof of rock and stone and darkness, that horrible roof under which your imaginations stoop . . . No; you would not have me do that?”

A disagreeable doubt had arisen in him.  He stopped and left the thing a question.

“I wish,” she said, “sometimes—­” She paused.

“Yes?” he said, a little apprehensively.

“I wish sometimes—­you would not talk like that.”

“Like what?”

“I know it’s pretty—­it’s your imagination.  I love it, but now—­”

He felt cold. “Now?” he said, faintly.

She sat quite still.

“You mean—­you think—­I should be better, better perhaps—­”

He was realising things very swiftly.  He felt anger perhaps, anger at the dull course of fate, but also sympathy for her lack of understanding—­a sympathy near akin to pity.

“Dear,” he said, and he could see by her whiteness how tensely her spirit pressed against the things she could not say.  He put his arms about her, he kissed her ear, and they sat for a time in silence.

“If I were to consent to this?” he said at last, in a voice that was very gentle.

She flung her arms about him, weeping wildly.  “Oh, if you would,” she sobbed, “if only you would!”

For a week before the operation that was to raise him from his servitude and inferiority to the level of a blind citizen Nunez knew nothing of sleep, and all through the warm, sunlit hours, while the others slumbered happily, he sat brooding or wandered aimlessly, trying to bring his mind to bear on his dilemma.  He had given his answer, he had given his consent, and still he was not sure.  And at last work-time was over, the sun rose in splendour over the golden crests, and his last day of vision began for him.  He had a few minutes with Medina-sarote before she went apart to sleep.