<P> Nuñez is assigned to work for a villager named Yacob . He becomes attracted to Yacob's youngest daughter, Medina - Saroté . Nuñez and Medina - Saroté soon fall in love with one another, and having won her confidence, Nuñez slowly starts trying to explain sight to her . Medina - Saroté, however, simply dismisses it as his imagination . When Nuñez asks for her hand in marriage, he is turned down by the village elders on account of his "unstable" obsession with "sight". The village doctor suggests that Nuñez's eyes be removed, claiming that they are diseased and are affecting his brain . Nuñez reluctantly consents to the operation because of his love for Medina - Saroté . However, at sunrise on the day of the operation, while all the villagers are asleep, Nuñez, the failed King of the Blind, sets off for the mountains (without provisions or equipment), hoping to find a passage to the outside world, and escape the valley . </P> <P> In the original story, Nuñez climbs high into the surrounding mountains until night falls, and he rests, weak with cuts and bruises, but happy that he has escaped the valley . His fate is not revealed . In the revised and expanded 1939 version of the story, Nuñez sees from a distance that there is about to be a rock slide . He attempts to warn the villagers, but again they scoff at his "imagined" sight . He flees the valley during the slide, taking Medina - Saroté with him . </P> <Ul> <Li> Nuñez--a mountaineer from Bogotá, Colombia </Li> <Li> Yacob--Nuñez's master </Li> <Li> Medina - Saroté--the youngest daughter of Yacob </Li> </Ul> <Li> Nuñez--a mountaineer from Bogotá, Colombia </Li>

In the valley of the blind the one-eyed man is king