“The truth is, Son,” I myself heard him say to Kari, “that we men who seem to rule the world do not rule it at all, because always women rule us.  This they do through our passions which the gods planted in us for their own ends, also because they are more single in their minds.  The man thinks of many things, the woman only thinks of what she desires.  Therefore the man whom Nature already has bemused, only brings a little piece of his mind to fight against her whole mind, and so is conquered; he who was made for one thing only, to be the mate of the woman that she may mother more men in order to serve the wills of other women who yet seem to be those men’s slaves.”

“So I have learned, Father,” answered the grave Kari, “and for this reason having suffered in the past, I am determined to have as little to do with women as is possible for one in my place.  During my travels in other lands, as in this country, I have seen men great and noble brought to nothingness and ruin by their love for women; down into the dirt, indeed, when their hands were full of the world’s wealth and glory.  Moreover, I have noticed that they seldom learn wisdom, and that what they have done before, they are ready to do again, who believe anything that soft lips swear to them.  Yes, even that they are loved for themselves alone, as I own to my sorrow, once I did myself.  Urco could not have taken that fair wife of mine, Father, if she had not been willing to go when she saw that I had lost your favour and with it the hope of the Scarlet Fringe.”

Here Kari looked at me, of whom I knew he was thinking all this time, and seeing that I could overhear his talk, began to speak of something else.

On the appointed day there was a great gathering of the nobles of the land, especially of those of the Inca blood, and of all that were “earmen,” a class of the same rank as our peers in England, to hear the proclamation of Kari as the Inca’s heir.  It was made before this gorgeous company in the Great Temple of the Sun, which now I saw for the first time.

It was a huge and most wondrous place well named the “House of Gold.”  For here everything was gold.  On the western wall hung an image of the Sun twenty feet or more across, an enormous graven plate of gold set about with gems and having eyes and teeth of great emeralds.  The roof, too, and the walls were all panelled with gold, even the cornices and column heads were of solid gold.

Opening out of this temple also were others dedicated to the Moon and Stars, that of the Moon being clothed in silver, with her radiant face shaped in silver fixed to the western wall.  So it was with the temple of the Stars, of the Lightnings and of the Rainbow, which perhaps with its many colours that sprang from jewels, was the most dazzling of them all.

The sight of so much glory overwhelmed me, and it came into my mind that if only it were known of in Europe, men would die by the ten thousand on the chance that they might conquer this country and make its wealth theirs.  Yet here, save for these purposes of ornament and to be used as offerings to the gods and Incas, it was of no account at all.