no such word as _see_," said the blind man,
after a pause. "Cease this folly and follow the sound of my feet."

Nunez followed, a little annoyed.

"My time will come," he said.

"You'll learn," the blind man answered. "There is much to
learn in the world."

"Has no one told you, 'In the Country of the Blind the
One-Eyed Man is King?'"

"What is blind?" asked the blind man, carelessly, over his
shoulder.

Four days passed and the fifth found the King of the Blind
still incognito, as a clumsy and useless stranger among his
subjects.

It was, he found, much more difficult to proclaim himself than
he had supposed, and in the meantime, while he meditated his
_coup d'etat_, he did what he was told and learnt the manners
and customs of the Country of the Blind. He found working and
going about at night a particularly irksome thing, and he decided
that that should be the first thing he would change.

They led a simple, laborious life, these people, with all the
elements of virtue and happiness as these things can be understood
by men. They toiled, but not oppressively; they had food and
clothing sufficient for their needs; they had days and seasons of
rest; they made much of music and singing, and there was love among
them and little children. It was marvellous with what confidence
and precision they went about their ordered world. Everything, you
see, had been made to fit their needs; each of the radiating paths
of the valley area had a constant angle to the others, and was
distinguished by a special notch upon its kerbing; all obstacles
and irregularities of path or meadow had long since been cleared
away; all their methods and procedure arose naturally from their
special needs. Their senses had become marvellously acute; they
could hear and judge the slightest gesture of a man a dozen paces
away--could hear the very beating of his heart. Intonation had
long replaced expression with them, and touches gesture, and their
work with hoe and spade and fork was as free and confident as
garden work can be. Their sense of smell was extraordinarily fine;
they could distinguish individual differences as readily as a dog
can, and they went about the tending of llamas, who lived among
the rocks above and came to the wall for food and shelter, with
ease and confidence. It was only when at last Nunez sought to
assert himself that he found how easy and confident their movements
could be.

He rebelled only after he