Page:Frank Owen - Rare Earth, 1931.djvu/46

 If only he could pierce those curtains of blackness. There had been an instance when for one brief moment as he walked across the fields with Hung Long Tom he had beheld the sky. But it was a fleeting interlude. Then once more he was blind. It was in this little moment of happiness that he and Hung Long Tom had put such great store. But Steinlin had not given the incident much consideration. He was a cold, unsentimental, methodical man of science, so absorbed with the material facts of the war he had scant time for the spiritual. Still he was a world-famous eyesurgeon. One could not totally disregard his opinions.

Had it not been for gentle old Hung Long Tom it would have been impossible for Scobee to face the thought of living. But Hung Long Tom with his softly-modulated voice seemed to take the harsher edge off everything. He had led Scobee around as a baby, watched over him, guided his footsteps. And now once more he was repeating the same tasks.