But, as the night is darkest immediately before the dawn, so, just as things looked blackest, there came a change for the better. It chanced that certain patients suffering from injuries to the limbs found their eyesight much affected by the illness, and were rashly credited with imposture. The injuries were declared to be wholly imaginary, and the usual moral discipline was resorted to in order to cure the patients of their delusion. Consequently, some of them were hopelessly crippled, while others, who ultimately recovered the use of their limbs, were blind for the rest of their days. And now there was a panic in that hitherto contented community. Fears were entertained that real disease (eye-weakness was not yet regarded as actual illness) should frequently be overlooked in the midst of the general craze for extirpating imposture. The continued increase in the number of mysterious invalids occasioned anxious questioning on all sides. The crippled patients seized the opportunity to complain loudly of the usage they had received. Notwithstanding the remonstrances of the more fortunate, they insisted on repeating, to all who would hear them, the whole category of their woes. They never tired of declaring that they had been cruelly and unjustly crippled, and that the eye-weakness with which they had been temporarily afflicted was a terrible and unmistakable malady, more painful even than injuries to the limbs, and more urgently needing rational treatment. So overwhelming was this evidence, so vehement were the witnesses, that public attention was perforce called to their grievances. Further investigations were made; further inquiries were diligently prosecuted; and a fourth meeting was convened. That meeting is still going on. Day after day the discussions are resumed; day after day final judgment is deferred. The causes, nature, and cure of the alarmingly prevalent eye-disease are all earnestly debated. The ultimate decision of the court cannot be doubted. Sooner or later it will be recognised that the great epidemic is a disease like any other, to be treated with kindly consideration--to be cured, to be prevented. Learned investigators, while admitting that their examinations can discover no trace of disease in the eyes of the sufferers, admit likewise that their failure is no argument whatever against its existence. Pending the final judgment of the court, all former cruel enactments have been repealed, and over the door of the council-chamber have been inscribed these words, “Ignorance is the curse of God. Knowledge is the wing on which we fly to heaven.” CHAPTER II. _A THIEF IN THE NIGHT._