He was still thinking when the sun set.

Nunez had an eye for all beautiful things, and it seemed to him that the glow upon the snowfields and glaciers that rose about the valley on every side was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.  His eyes went from that inaccessible glory to the village and irrigated fields, fast sinking into the twilight, and suddenly a wave of emotion took him, and he thanked God from the bottom of his heart that the power of sight had been given him.

He heard a voice calling to him from out of the village.  “Ya ho there, Bogota!  Come hither!”

At that he stood up smiling.  He would show these people once and for all what sight would do for a man.  They would seek him, but not find him.

“You move not, Bogota,” said the voice.

He laughed noiselessly, and made two stealthy steps aside from the path.

“Trample not on the grass, Bogota; that is not allowed.”

Nunez had scarcely heard the sound he made himself.  He stopped amazed.

The owner of the voice came running up the piebald path towards him.

He stepped back into the pathway.  “Here I am,” he said.

“Why did you not come when I called you?” said the blind man.  “Must you be led like a child?  Cannot you hear the path as you walk?”

Nunez laughed.  “I can see it,” he said.

“There is 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.