Old Yacob had a tenderness for his last little daughter, and was grieved to have her weep upon his shoulder.

“You see, my dear, he’s an idiot.  He has delusions; he can’t do anything right.”

“I know,” wept Medina-sarote.  “But he’s better than he was.  He’s getting better.  And he’s strong, dear father, and kind—­stronger and kinder than any I other man in the world.  And he loves me—­and, father, I love him.”

Old Yacob was greatly distressed to find her inconsolable, and, besides—­ what made it more distressing—­he liked Nunez for many things.  So he went and sat in the windowless council-chamber with the other elders and watched the trend of the talk, and said, at the proper time, “He’s better than he was.  Very likely, some day, we shall find him as sane as ourselves.”

Then afterwards one of the elders, who thought deeply, had an idea.  He was the great doctor among these people, their medicine-man, and he had a very philosophical and inventive mind, and the idea of curing Nunez of his peculiarities appealed to him.  One day when Yacob was present he returned to the topic of Nunez.

“I have examined Bogota,” he said, “and the case is clearer to me.  I think very probably he might be cured.”

“That is what I have always hoped,” said old Yacob.

“His brain is affected,” said the blind doctor.

The elders murmured assent.

“Now, what affects it?”

“Ah!” said old Yacob.

“This,” said the doctor, answering his own question.  “Those queer things that are called the eyes, and which exist to make an agreeable soft depression in the face, are diseased, in the case of Bogota, in such a way as to affect his brain.  They are greatly distended, he has eyelashes, and his eyelids move, and consequently his brain is in a state of constant irritation and distraction.”

“Yes?” said old Yacob.  “Yes?”

“And I think I may say with reasonable certainty that, in order to cure him completely, all that we need 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.