and there was yet another thorn in the peoples happiness : the handful of blind men still alive who , after being reviled and killed , were now treated as actual prophets and holy men ( for , after all , it was they who had brought the stone of salvation ) were dying ; the same light that had taken their sight and replaced it with an obscure wisdom , had drained the life out of them , and though on that fateful day they had all been men in their prime , not two years later they seemed ancient , withered , toothless and bald , frail shadows that dwindled fast .