A question rose to my lips and burst from them; it was: 

“Tell me, O Quilla, are you wife or maid?”

“Maid am I,” she answered, “yet one who is promised as a wife,” and she sighed, then went on quickly as though this matter were something of which she did not wish to talk, “And tell me, O Wanderer, are you god or man?”

Now I grew cunning and answered,

“I am a Son of the Sea as you are a Daughter of the Moon.”

She turned her head and glanced at the radiance which lay upon the face of the deep, then said as though to herself: 

“The moon shines upon the sea and the sea mirrors back the moon, yet they are far apart and never may draw near.”

“Not so, O Quilla.  Out of the sea does the moon rise and, her course run, into the sea’s white arms she sinks to sleep at last.”

Again the red blood ran to her brow and her great eyes fell, those eyes of which never before had I seen the like.

“It seems that they speak our tongue in the sea, and prettily,” she murmured, adding, “But is it not from and into Heaven that the Moon rises and departs?”

At that moment to my grief our talk came to an end, for out of the hut crept Kari.  He rose to his feet and stood there as ever calm and dignified, looking first at Quilla and then at me.

“What did I tell you, Master?” he said in English.  “Did I not say that prayers such as yours are answered?  Lo! here is that Child of the Moon for whom you sought, clothed in beauty and bringing her gifts of love and woe.”

“Yes,” I exclaimed, “and I am glad that she is here.  For the rest, were she but mine, I think I should not grudge her price whate’er it be.”

Quilla looked at Kari frowning over the spear that when he appeared she had lifted, as though to defend herself, which in my case she had not thought needful.

“So the sea breeds men of my own race also,” she said, addressing him.  “Tell me, O Stranger, how did you and yonder white god come to this isle?”

“Riding on the ocean billows, riding for thousands of leagues,” he answered.  “And you, O Lady, how did you come to this isle?”

“Riding on the moonbeams,” she replied, smiling, “I, the daughter of the Moon, who am named Moon and wear her symbol on my brow.”

“Did I not tell you so?” exclaimed Kari to me with a gloomy air.

Then Quilla went on: 

“Strangers, I was out fishing with two of my maidens and we had drifted far from land.  As the sun sank I caught sight of the smoke of your fire, and having been told that this isle was desert, my heart drew me to discover who had lit it.  So, though my maidens were afraid, hither I sailed and paddled, and the rest you know.  Hearken!  I will declare myself.  I am the only child of Huaracha, King of the People of the Chancas, born of his wife, a princess of the Inca blood who now has been gathered to her Father, the Sun.  I am here