It was new life to Coyllur to welcome the flood of sunshine through the strange luxury of windows; or, seated in the pleasant balcony, to contemplate at her ease the never-ending marvels of the square below. There the stately church processions wound along with all their glittering show; there the Spanish soldiers mustered in shining armour; and, best of all, there rode the splendid, haughty Spanish cavaliers, managing their noble steeds with consummate ease and grace, not quite unconscious of the dark eyes that were watching them with interest. Moreover, Coyllur nũsta had a pretty sleeping-chamber in her aunt’s house, which boasted a window also. It was pleasant, in the delicious tropical nights, to lie waking on a couch draped with dainty stuffs from Spain, and to listen the while to sweet music—more scientific and harmonious than that of the ruder instruments of her native land—from the guitar attuned by a skilful hand to the melodies of Spain. Had such reached the ear of Viracocha, they would have moved him to indignant sorrow. Better far for both had he laid Sumac’s warning to heart and acted upon it; but sentiments of honour, which ruled his soul as absolutely as that of any “preux chevalier” of the Old World, utterly forbade his claiming the prize he longed for until he had won it by some deed of signal merit. Nor would Yupanqui, in all probability, much as he loved him, have allowed his suit if preferred too soon. While awaiting the opportunity for this, he bent all his energies to the task of making himself worthy of Coyllur. The grand-daughter of the great Huayna Capac stood very near that golden throne, which, though it existed in imagination only, was about the most real thing in earth or heaven to José Viracocha. He studied diligently, learning “the Humanities,” as taught in Europe, from a Dominican monk, and the more mysterious and difficult science of the Quipus from an aged Indian, who had been a Quipu-comayoc[43] in the days of the Incas. He procured one of the rare and costly maps of the period, which, full of blunders as it was, yet gave him a better idea of the world he lived in than he had before. Lastly, he became a more accomplished marksman with the Spaniards’ own formidable weapon than many of the Spaniards themselves, and learned to compete successfully with the best of them in fencing and cane-playing. All this time he had not forgotten Fray Fernando. Not a day passed in which the man who for more than seven years had been to him as a father was not present to his thoughts. Warm and grateful affection, not unmixed with reverential compassion for sorrows vaguely guessed, gathered around his image. Yet not the less did Viracocha belong to his own people and to Coyllur. His place and his work were with these, not with the Spaniards.