The guide smiled.
"No, excellency," he said, "the Castle of Okna lies many miles from here. You must speak to our master of that. That is his step, excellency!"
They listened and heard the tapping of a stick upon a stone pavement. It approached them laboriously; and after that which seemed an interminable interval, an old white-haired man appeared at one of the doors of the quadrangle and raising his voice bade them welcome. The voice was the one they recognized as that of the wood; but the face of the speaker sent a shudder through Gavin's veins which left him unashamed.
"Blind," he muttered, amazed—"the man is blind."
CHAPTER XXVI
THROUGH A WOMAN'S HEART
The blind man felt his way down a short flight of stairs, and, standing before the prisoners, he said in a voice indescribably harsh and grating:
"Gentlemen, welcome to Setchevo," and so he told them the name of the place to which their journey had carried them.
A man of middle stature, slightly bent, his face pitted and scarred revoltingly, his fine white hair combed down with scrupulous vanity upon his shoulders, the eyes, nevertheless, remained supreme in their power to repel and to dominate. Sightless, they seemed to search the very heart of him who braved them. Look where they might, the Englishmen's gaze came back at last to those unforgettable eyes. The horror of them was indescribable.