“I wonder what he has in mind,” said Jack.
“I cannot guess,” replied his father. “Father,” said Ferdinand, “what is your opinion of Prince Huaca?”
Thus appealed to, Don Ernesto, who had kept silence, permitting Mr. Hampton to act as spokesman, smiled a little.
“He is a very wonderful man,” said he. “As my friend, Senor Hampton, says, he has accepted as true and natural whatever we have told him. Members of the Council were inclined to scout our words, to believe us liars. Their minds were not big enough to compass the wonders of which we spoke. But it is not so with Prince Huaca. There is a man of great native intelligence, one who with education would be a genius. He seems to me born to rule, a natural leader of man, with a dominant personality.”
To this estimate, Mr. Hampton gave emphatic assent.
“As he told you boys,” he added, “archaic Spanish is handed down in the Incarial families. The ten members of the Council speak and understand it in a measure. But none so well as he. He frequently acted as our interpreter. And not only does he know Spanish, but Latin, for the priests of de Arguello’s expedition were learned men and had with them some textbooks which, written on parchment, have been preserved. From these he has educated himself, and, though his pronunciation of Latin is not the best in the world, he has done surprisingly well. He showed us an ancient Latin dictionary, and a Caesar’s Gallic Wars.”
Bob groaned.
“And he has read ‘Caesar’?”
“Yes.”
“All I can say is he’s a better man than I am,” said Bob, who had entered Yale with a condition in Latin.