As he spoke they got out of the tunnel; Golfin drawing a deep breath of relief, like a man who has cast off a burthen, exclaimed as he looked up at the heavens:
"Thank God that I see you once more stars of the firmament. Never have you seemed to me more beautiful than at this moment."
"As I was going along," said the blind boy, holding out his hand which held a stone, "I picked up this piece of crystal—now do you mean to say that these crystals, which to my touch are so sharply cut, so smooth and so neatly packed side by side, are not a very beautiful thing? They seem so to me at any rate." And as he spoke he broke off some of the crystals.
"My dear fellow," said the doctor with great feeling and compassion, "it is sad indeed that you should not be able to know that this stone is hardly worth looking at, while over our heads there hang the myriads of marvellous lamps that sparkle in the heavens." The boy threw back his head and said in a voice of deep regret:
"Is it true that you are there, you little stars?"
"God is infinitely great and merciful," said Golfin, laying his hand on his young companion's shoulder. "Who knows—who can say—much stranger things have happened—are happening every day." As he spoke, he looked close into his face, trying to see the lad's eyes by the dim light; fixed and sightless, he turned them in the direction in which he heard the speaker's voice.
"There is no hope," Golfin muttered.
They had come out on an open space. The moon, rising higher and higher, illuminated undulating meadows and high slopes, which looked like the ramparts of some immense fortification.—To the left, on a level plateau, the doctor saw a group of white houses crowning the slope.
"There, to the left," said the boy, "is my home—up at the top. Do you know that those three houses are what remain of the village of Aldeacorba de Suso. All the rest has been pulled down at different times in order to dig mines; all the soil underneath is iron ore, and our fore-fathers lived over millions of wealth without knowing it."
He was still speaking when a girl came running to meet them, a tiny scrap of a child, swift of foot and slightly built.