and with his hempen _alpargatas_ he could do nothing. No one took the
least notice of his cries. Even the walls seemed echoless and dead, save
for the watching eyes, which, after the first day, followed him about
the room as he paced from end to end, restless as a wild creature newly
caged.

He saw them in his sleep. He dreamed of eyes. They chased him across
great smoking cities, over plains without mark or bound, save the brown
circle of the horizon, through the thick coverts of virgin forests. He
could not shut them out. He could not escape them. He covered his face
with his hand, and they looked in between his fingers, parting them that
they might look. He drew his cloak's hood about his brow, he heaped
coverings on his head. It was all in vain. He began to babble to the
walls, till he realised that these had ears as well as eyes. On the
fourth day he wept aloud. He had long refused to eat, though he drank
much. He began to go mad, and kept repeating the words to himself, "I am
going mad! I am going mad!"

On the fifth night he tried to dash his head against the wall. He
fainted, and lay a long time motionless on the cold floor, till
suddenly, becoming aware that there was a painted eye underneath he
sprang to his feet in that terrible place beset with eyes behind and
before.

There came to him a noise of unbarring doors, the yellow lamp-light went
out in niche after niche.

"Oh, the blessed dark!" cried the Abbe John, "they are going to leave me
in the dark. I shall escape from the eyes."

But no; his tormentors had other purposes with him. A yet greater noise
of rollers and the clang of iron machinery, and lo! on high the whole
roof of the Place of Eyes fell into two parts (like huge eyelids,
thought the Abbe John with a shudder). The sunshine flooded all the
upper part of his cell, midway down the walls. The sweet morning air of
Spain breathed about him. He felt a cool moisture on his lips, the scent
of early flowers. A bee blundered in, boomed round, and went out again
as he had come.

The Abbe John clutched his throat as if at the point of death. He
thought he saw a vision, and prayed for deliverance, but no more
eyes--for judgment, but no more eyes--for damnation even, but no more
eyes!

Then he turned about, and close by the great iron door a woman was
standing, the fairest he had ever seen--yes, fairer even than Claire
Agnew, as fair as they make the pictured angels above the church
altars--Valen