“Then I'll expand your imagination, Susannah,” said Dr. Ulswater. “Huayna Capac was the great Inca who died in 1527, the year Pizarro landed. Three of his sons contended for the throne, Huascar, Atahualpa and Manco, but how many other children he left is nowhere stated, to my knowledge. The marital system of the royal house, however, being such as it was, it is probable they were numerous. The mummies discovered some four years ago were five in number, each with a copper plate sewn to the cerements, and inscribed, ostensibly by one Padre Geronimo Valdez. Each of the inscriptions states that the enclosed person was a daughter of Huayna Capac, who had been baptised and buried by himself, Padre Geronimo. The date given on this plate is 1543. We have yonder then, in all probability, all that remains of a daughter of the Incas.”
“It isn't expanded at all,” said Susannah, meaning her imagination.
“What was her name?” asked Mrs. Ulswater.
“Curiously,” said Dr. Ulswater, “the inscription doesn't state.”
“Her name's Hannah Atkins,” said Sadler.
“Fiddlesticks!” said Mrs. Ulswater. “What happened next?”
Dr. Ulswater continued the narrative. “Mr. Jamison was a Scotch person, with dusty eyebrows and considerate eyes, his speech compact of caution and a burr. Sadler told him of our acquisition and inquired about the man Beteta.
“'Because,' I added, 'if the gentleman is no amateur of mummies, why should he have a mummy in his possession? And if he hadn't any,—if, in fact, he stole it from the Museum,—why should he risk so much for the no great sum the mummy is worth, in fact, for the yet smaller sum which he received? It seems more probable that in some way it must have been his.'
“'I hae doots of it,' said Jamison, drily.
“'Does he know anything of archaeology?'