“While life lasts he will sit in the gloom of Palin-mâ-Talin!” murmured the man.
“What meanest thou?” I cried.
“I mean, that the noonday sun cannot chase the shadows from his eyes.”
“He is blind?”
“Ay, little master, blind!” was the guide’s reply, “and yet save this blind hermit, there lives no human creature who can lead thee safely through the Great Gloomy Forest!”
“Have done with thy jesting!” I cried.
“Nay, little master!” was the man’s answer. “I speak in all truth and reverence, for Benè-agâ is a holy man, and in him dwells such a radiant spirit, that his path is illumined and his footsteps are sure when other men would walk to their destruction!”
“O, lead me to him!” I exclaimed with ill-concealed joy. “A thousand pieces of gold are thine, if the blind hermit consents to be my guide.”
“A thousand pieces of gold!” repeated the guide with a gleam in his dark eyes. “Ah, little baron, no one can earn that princely reward, excepting thee thyself! Who am I, poor, miserable, ignorant slave that I am, that I should attempt to move this saintly and learned man in thy behalf? He would heed the cry of one of his dogs far more quickly than he would my chatter!”
“Is he so unlike his kind,” I asked, as we rode slowly along, “as not to love gold?”