“Who is this that carries the emblems of the Holy Blood and is clothed like a Prince of the Sun?” asked Upanqui, affecting ignorance and unconcern, though I saw the colour mount to his cheeks and the sceptre shake in his withered hand.

“One who is indeed of the holy Inca blood; one sprung from the purest lineage of the Sun,” answered the stately Kari in his quiet voice.

“How then is he named?” asked the Inca again.

“He is named Kari, first-born son of Upanqui, O Inca.”

“Such a son I had once, but he is long dead, or so they told me,” said Upanqui in a trembling voice.

“He is not dead, O Inca.  He lives and he kneels before you.  Urco poisoned him, but the Sun his Father recovered him, and the Spirit that is above all gods supported him.  The sea bore him to a far land, where he found a white god who befriended and cared for him,” here he turned his head towards me.  “With this god he returned to his own country and here he kneels before you, O Inca.”

“It cannot be,” said the Inca.  “What sign do you bring who name yourself Kari?  Show me the image of the Spirit above the gods that from his childhood for generations has been hung about the neck of the Inca’s eldest son, born from the Queen.”

Kari opened his robe and drew out that golden effigy of Pachacamac which he always wore.

Upanqui examined it, holding it close to his rheumy eyes.

“It seems to be the same,” he said, “as I should know upon whose breast it lay until my first son was born.  And yet who can be sure since such things may be copied?”

Then he handed back the image to Kari and after reflecting awhile, said: 

“Bring hither the Mother of the Royal Nurses.”

Apparently this lady was in waiting, for in a minute she appeared before the throne, an old and withered woman with beady eyes.

“Mother,” said the Inca, “you were with the Coya (that is the Queen) who has been gathered to the Sun, when her boy was born, and afterwards nursed him for years.  If you saw it, would you know his body again after he has come to middle age?”

“Aye, O Inca.”

“How, Mother?”

“By three moles, O Inca, which we women used to call Yuti, Quilla, and Chasca” (that is, the Sun, the Moon, and the planet Venus), “which were the marks of good fortune stamped by the gods upon the Prince’s back between the shoulders, set one above the other.”

“Man who call yourself Kari, are you willing that this old crone should see your flesh?” asked Upanqui.

By way of answer Kari with a little smile stripped himself of his broidered tunic and other garments and stood before us naked to the middle.  Then he turned his back to the Mother of the Nurses.  She hobbled up and searched it with her bright eyes.

“Many scars,” she muttered, “scars in front and scars behind.  This warrior has known battles and blows.  But what have we here?  Look, O Inca, Yuti, Quilla, and Chasca, set one above the other, though Chasca is almost hidden by a hurt.  Oh! my fosterling, O my Prince whom I nursed at these withered breasts, are you come back from the dead to take your own again?  O Kari of the Holy Blood; Kari the lost who is Kari the found!”