Urco’s neck was broken.  Urco quivered and was dead!

I lay by his side, panting.  A voice came from the white heap upon the ground by whom and for whom this dreadful combat had been fought, the voice of Quilla.

“One died, but who lives?” asked the voice.

I could not answer because I had no breath.  All my strength was gone.  Still I sat up, supporting myself with my hand and hoping that it would come back.  Quilla turned her face towards me, or rather towards the sound that I had made in moving, and I thought to myself how sad it was that she should be blind.  Presently she spoke again and now her voice quavered: 

“I see who it is that lives,” she said.  “Something has broken in my eyes and, Lord and Love, I see that it is you who live.  You, you, and oh! you bleed.”

Then the Chancas came bounding down the gorge and found us.

They looked at the dead giant and saw how he had died, killed by strength, not by the sword; they looked and bent the knee and praised me, saying that I was indeed a god, since no man could have done this deed, killing the huge Urco with his naked hands.  Then they placed Quilla back in her litter and six of them bore her down that black gorge.  The two who remained, for in that fight none of them had been hurt, supported me till my strength came back, for the cut in the face that I had received from Urco’s dagger was but slight.  We reached the mouth of the gorge and took counsel.

To return to Cuzco after what I had done, would be to seek death.  So we bore away to the right and, making a round, came about ten o’clock of the morning unmolested by any, to that ridge on which I had stood at the beginning of the battle of the Field of Blood.  There I found the Chancas encamped, some three thousand of them, as I had commanded.  When they saw me, living and but little hurt, they shouted for joy, and when they learned who was in that litter they went well-nigh mad.

Then the eight warriors with me told them all the tale of the saving of Quilla and the death of the giant Urco at my hands, whereon their captains came and kissed my feet, saying that I was in truth a god, though heretofore some of them had held me to be but a man.

“God or man,” I answered, “I must rest.  Let the women tend to lady Quilla, and give me food and drink, after which I will sleep.  At sunset we march home to Huaracha, your king and mine, to give him back his daughter.  Till then there is naught to fear, since Kari has no troops at hand with which to attack us.  Still, set outposts.”

So I ate and drank, but little of the former and much of the latter, I fear, and after that I slept as soundly as one who is dead, for I was outworn.

When the sun was within an hour of setting, captains awakened me and said that an embassy from Cuzco, ten men only, waited outside our lines, seeking speech with me.  So I rose, and my face and wound having been dressed, caused water to be poured over my body, and was rubbed with oil; after which, clothed in the robes of a Chanca noble, but wearing no armour, I went out with nine Chanca captains to receive the embassy on the plain at the foot of the hill, at that very spot where first I had fought with Urco.