And Marco Polo was brought into the presence. And among all assembled there you could hear a pin drop.
At the north end of the great hall sat the Khan himself, and Marco Polo nearly dropped with surprise; for where he expected a great, magnificent figure of a man, with majesty shining from his eyes, he saw only a pleasant, bearded man, not quarter so well dressed as the meanest servant on the room, and a fine, welcoming smile in his face. His throne was elevated so that his feet were on the level of the heads of the kinsmen of the Blood Royal beneath him, and they in silk and ermine and fine brocades and jewels. And beneath these were the barons and dukes and knights. And beneath these were the captains of the fighting men, three thousand and three. And beneath these were the musicians and the sorcerers. And behind Kubla Khan, very big, very erect, stood his three great servants, the Keeper of the Hunting Leopards, the Keeper of the Speaking Drums, and the Keeper of the Khan's Swords.
And beside Kubla Khan, on a little throne, sat Golden Bells... And it was the sight of her more than the sight of the great assembly that dumbed the words in his mouth. And Kubla was smiling at him, and she was smiling, too.
And Kubla saw there was something wrong with him, that there was embarrassment on him and he rose from his: throne.
"There is welcome for you here, Marco Polo, and no enmity. There is interest, in and eagerness for your message. There is none here will criticize you or make it hard for you. Let there be no shame on you in speaking before so many people. Say what you have to say as if there were nobody here, if that will help you, barring myself and the little daughter beside me..."
"O Emperor," the words came back to Marco Polo, "and ye, great princes, dukes, and marquises, counts, knights, and burgesses, and people of all degrees who desire the light of the world, grace be to you and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ!
"The message I have to give you, I shall give in the words of Him, Whose perfect message it is:
"'Beati pauperes spiritu,—Blessed are the poor in spirit.
"'Quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum,—for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
"'Beati mites,—Blessed are the meek...'"
And Marco Polo went on and quoted for them the words that were spoken on the Mount in Galilee. And they listened to him with great civility and attention. And little Golden Bells leaned forward, with her chin on her hands, and Kubla leaned back in his throne, with his eyes half closed.
"'But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil, but whoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.'" And at this the great Khan looked up puzzled, and a movement went through the fighting men in the hall. But wee Golden Bells never budged a minute, and Marco Polo went on:
"'Et factum est; cum consummasset Jesus verba haec,—And it came to pass when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine.'
"I shall now tell you of the life and death of the Lord Jesus..."
He told them of the birth in Bethlehem, and of the teaching on the hills, and the poets nodded their heads; and he told them of the cleansing of the lepers and of the casting out of devils and the raising of Lazarus from the dead, and the magicians wondered; and he told them of the betrayal by Judas with a kiss, and the captains-at-arms shuffled in their seats; and he told them of the scourging, and of the crowning with thorns, and the great Khan snicked his dagger in and out of the sheath. And a mist of tears came into the eyes of Golden Bells.
And he told them of the crucifixion between two thieves, and a great oath ripped from the beard of Kubla Khan, and the silver tears ran from the eyes of Golden Bells.
"'And on the third day He arose from the dead...'"
And a great shout came from the throat of Kubla Khan, and he stood up.
"He arose from among the dead men, I'll warrant; He showed himself to the Roman Pilate in all His power and majesty—"
"No," said Marco Palo.
"Then He showed himself to the thousands who had seen him die upon the gallows tree!"
"No," said Marco Polo.
"Who saw Him, then?"
"His twelve Apostles and they in a little room!"
And Kubla Khan sat down suddenly and said no more. There was a moment's murmur of wonder among the assembly, and then silence. And Marco's heart fell. And he was aware of two things, of the great politeness of the Chinese people and of Golden Bell's pitying eyes...
When Kubla Khan dismissed the assembly, and he took Marco Polo into a sitting-room, and Golden Bells came with them.
"And what did you think, sir, of what I said? And can you not see, sir, the truth that's in me?"
"Well, now, laddie," said the great Khan, "when we come to examine this sermon you quoted to us, what is there in it but the rule of the righteous man? We've had a great thinker and pious man of our own, Confucius. I'm not a reading man," says he, "but I've got an idea," says he, "that there isn't a thing you said but is embraced in the Analects. And if it isn't it'll be in the teachings of the Lord Buddha."
"Ah, but, sir," Marco Polo said, "You'll have to admit that He of Whom I speak was the true God made man."
"Now, laddie, remember I'm an old man, set in my head and my ways, and I've been used to one belief so long it would be hard changing. So don't press me now; don't press me, I ask you."
"Ah, sir," pleaded Marco Polo, "it's terrible to think of, as great a prince as you to be in the black spaces outside of heaven because you wouldn't accept the truth."
"Well, maybe they won't be so hard on one, my dear lad. When my time comes and I rap on the gate of your heaven, maybe they'll say: 'It's only old Kubla, the soldier, is in it. He knows devil and all about religion, but his fights were fair fights, and he never hit a man when he was down. He had a soft heart for wee children and he was easy on horses. Sure, what's the difference? Let him in!' And if they say no, I'll tuck the old nicked claymore under my arm, and be off to where the other old fighters are."
"I see, sir, that there was little success to my message."
"I wouldn't say that," said Kubla Khan. "Wait a little until you perform miracles before the people to prove your truth. You'll know better then."
"Ah, sir," said Marco Polo, "I can perform no miracles. 'Tis only a saint can perform miracles, and I couldn't lace a saint's shoes. I have no miracles."
"Oh, well, now, my dear boy," said Kubla Khan, "I hate to tell you, but there's no use going further. Sure you'd be up against the sorcerers of the world. They'd ask you for a sign, and you'd have no sign, and they'd have signs in abundance. I wouldn't think of letting you go against them. Fair play's a jewel, and you wouldn't have a chance. There's the Red Pope from Tibet and there's the Black Magician from Korea and a hundred minor ones, and the Warlock of the North, from the Islands of Ice, who governs the hail and the snow. Child, I wouldn't let you get into the same ring with them. They'd ruin you."
"But, sir, wasn't it a great miracle of the Lord's, my rescue in the Gobi Desert?"
"A miracle of the Lord's! A miracle of Golden Bells here. It was her magician saw you, and she had the message put on the drums, and the desert patrols went to seek you. It was herself here, wee Golden Bells." And Golden Bells' mouth gave a smile of shame that his thought should be broken in his mind.
"A long way I'm after coming," said Marco Polo, "and when I set out my heart was high."
"Now, don't be taking it too hard," says the khan, kindly. "Sure, there's a power of good you can be doing here. Maybe you can do something with Li Po," says he. "I'd like fine for you to try. The man is worrying the life out of me with his drinking. I never know when he goes out whether he'll come back all right or feet foremost on a door. For he's got the bitter tongue when the drink's in him, and China could ill afford to lose him. And there are some of my captains, and the tune they're always piping is 'War! War! War! And let's show up this Alexander who said he conquered the world.' And I'm past the age when you make war for devilment. So let you be helping me out with them, Marco Polo."
But Marco Polo knew this was only meant in kindness, and his heart was broken.
"Ah, wee lady,"—he turned to Golden Bells,—"wee lady, wee lady, why didn't you let me die in the desert? Why didn't I die?"
"And why should you die, Marco Polo?" Her low, sweet voice rang in the heart of him. "Didn't you come here to give your message? And to make converts? And didn't I hear your message? And am n't I your convert, Marco Polo?"
And now the place of Li Po was usurped, and gone Sanang with his magic glass, and in the jasmine garden by the Lake of Cranes Marco Polo sat and instructed Golden Bells...
And he told of the flight into Egypt when savage Herod reigned, and of the Jewish maid and her child sleeping beneath the shadow of the great Sphinx, while the shades of the old Afric gods looked on in reverence, Amenalk and Thoth and the moon-horned Io, Isis, and Osiris. And the painted kings knelt in their pyramids, and out of the sluggish Nile came the strange aquatic population, the torpid crocodiles and monstrous water lizards, and the great hippopotami lumbered to bow before the little Lord of all things...
And he told her how Satan had tempted Him on the lonely, black craigs...
"But you are not listening, little Golden Bells—"
"Indeed I am listening, Marco Polo. Yes, indeed I am. I love to hear your voice, Marco Polo. You are so earnest, Marco Polo; there is such a light in your eyes. Listen, Marco Polo, Li Po once wrote a poem, 'White Gleam the Gulls,' and it is the poem by which he is best known, and every time I hear it there is an echo in my heart. But, Marco Polo, I never listened to Li Po's song so eagerly as I am listening to your voice."
"But you are not taking it in, little Golden Bells."
"It is very hard to take in, Marco Polo. It happened so long ago. It is hard to think of a tragedy in a strange country, and we in this garden on the second moon of spring. And it was so very long ago. Do you hear the bees, Marco Polo—the bees among the almond-blossoms? And see the blue heron by the lotus flowers? And do you see the little tortoise, Marco Polo, and he sunning himself on a leaf? If I throw a pebble, Marco Polo, he will dive, and he is such a clumsy diver, Marco Polo!"
"But you must listen, Golden Bells, and believe me."
"I do believe, Marco Polo; I honestly do. Don't you know I believe you? Anything you say, Marco Polo, I believe. You wouldn't be coming all the way over the world to be telling me a lie. Of course I believe."
"And doesn't it make you happy, Golden Bells?"
"Once I was unhappy, Marco Polo. I used sit here, and on my lute I used play the 'Song of the Willow Branches,' which is the saddest song in the world. Under the moon I used be lonely, and the droning of the bees meant nothing to me, and now it is a sweet brave song. I cannot play 'Willow Branches' any more, so alien is sadness to me. And the moon smiles. I am very happy, Marco Polo."
"It is the True Religion, little Golden Bells, that makes you happy."
"Is it, Marco Polo? Is it? It must be, I suppose. I don't know what it is, but I am very happy."
And he told her of Paul, who had seen a vision and gone preaching through, the world, who was persecuted, who was shipwrecked, who was bitten by a viper, and who survived everything that he might preach the Lord Jesus. He was a fierce, ragged man with burning eyes... And he told her of Paul's instructions to women...
"You do not look at me when you speak, Marco Polo. Only your voice comes to me, not your eyes. Is it because of Paul?"
And Marco Polo felt great trouble on him, because he could not explain. But Golden Bells went on:
"There is little in your faith about women, Marco Polo. Is it a faith only for men, then? Is it against women? Must the young men not look at the young women?"
"No, Golden Bells; the young men must not look too much on the young women."
"But that is very foolish, Marco Polo. Is it wrong to see the beauty of the almond blossoms, wrong to taste the scented wind? Is it wrong to watch the kingfisher seeking his nest? Is it wrong to watch the moon, the stars? All these are very beautiful, Marco Polo, so beautiful as to make me cry. Is it wrong to watch them?"
"It is not wrong, Golden Bells. The glory of God is in the beauty of his handicraft."
"Li Po is old and wise and a great poet, Marco Polo, and Li Po says there is beauty in a running horse and beauty in a running stream; but there is no beauty like the beauty of a young woman, and she letting down her hair. God made the beauty of women, too, Marco Polo, as well as the beauty of the stars. Won't you please explain to me, Marco Polo? Why should Li Po say one thing and Saint Paul another?"
"But Golden Bells, Saint Paul is inspired of God."
"But Li Po is inspired of God, too, Marco Polo. You mustn't be thinking little of Li Po. He is fat and old and drunken, but when he sings, Marco Polo, it is the song of the wandering stars. But why must not the young men look at the young women, Marco Polo? Why must they not look with their eyes?"
"It will be hard for me to tell you, Golden Bells—"
"Look at me now, Marco Polo. Lift up your eyes and look into my eyes. Is there evil in me, Marco Polo, that your eyes should avoid me as the fox avoids the dog? Or maybe I am not beautiful. Maybe they told me wrong because I was a king's daughter, and they would not have me think little of myself. Maybe I am not beautiful, Marco Polo, maybe I hurt your eyes—"
"Ah, Golden Bells, the little horned moon is not more beautiful."
"Then why must not the young men look at the young women, Marco Polo? You are here to instruct me. Won't you tell me why?"
"Maybe—maybe—maybe it is for fear of sin, Golden Bells."
"Sin? Sin! Why should there be sin? I know sin, Marco Polo. They have warned me against it since I crept upon the floor. There are two sins. There is meanness, Marco Polo, and there is cruelty; and those are the only sins. I know your heart, Marco Polo; there is no meanness there. You would not have come here were you mean. The mean do not travel afar for other people. And cruelty! Surely you would not be cruel to me, Marco Polo. You would not be cruel to anybody, dear Marco Polo. You would not be cruel to me?"
"Cruel to you, little Golden Bells! How could I be cruel to you?"
"But the sin, Marco Polo?"
"I don't know, Golden Bells. I don't know."
And one dusk the moon rose over the Chinese garden, and Marco Polo finished telling her of what John saw on Patmos and he an old man...
"'Veni, Domine Jesu.
"'Gratia Domini nostri Jesu Christi cum omnibus vobis. Amen!'"
"It is very difficult, Marco Polo. I don't quite understand."
"I don't quite understand myself, Golden Bells. But that is all I can tell you. But you will understand more," he said. "My mission is finished now, and I will go back. I will stop at the court of Prester John, and he will send a bishop surely or some great cardinal to baptize you and to teach you the rest."
"You will go back?" A great pain stabbed her. "I never thought, some how, of you as going back."
"I have come on a mission, Golden Bells, and I must go back."
"There is a woman, maybe, in Venice—" And she turned her head away from him and from the moon.
"I would not have you thinking that, Golden Bells. There is none in Venice has duty from me. And if the queen of the world were there, and she pledged me, I could never look at her, and I after knowing you, Golden Bells!"
"Is it money, Marco Polo?" she whispered in the dusk. "It is maybe your uncle and your father are pressing you to return. Let you not worry then, for my father the great Khan will settle with them, too. There is not a horse in all Tartary that your uncle cannot have, nor a woman, either. And your father can have all the jewels of the treasury, and all the swords, too, even the sword with which my father conquered China. My father will give him that if I ask. Only let you not be leaving this moonlit garden."
"Dear Golden Bells, it isn't that; but I came here for converts—"
"Oh, Marco Polo, listen! There is a folk at Kai-fung-fu, and they are an evil folk and a cowardly folk, and my father abhors them. I shall ask my father to send captains of war and fighting men to convert them to your faith, Marco Polo, or lop off their heads. And we can send a few hundreds to the Pope at Rome, and he will never know how they were converted, and he will be satisfied. Only let you not be going away from me in my moonlit garden. You will only be turning to trade, Marco Polo, and marrying a woman. Let you stay here in the moonlit garden!"
"Ah, little Golden Bells, there is no place in the world like your moonlit garden. There is no place I'd be liefer than in the moonlit garden. But little Golden Bells, I set out in life to preach the Lord Jesus crucified. It was for that I came China."
"Let you not be fooling yourself, young Marco Polo. Let you not always be ascribing to God the things that are mine. You did not come to preach to China, you came to see me, and your mind stirred up with the story the sea-captain told, of me playing 'Willow Branches' at the Lake of Cranes. O Marco Polo, before you came there were the moon and the sun and the stars, and I was lonely. O Marco Polo," she cried, "you wouldn't go, you couldn't go! What would you be doing in cold Venice, far from the warm moonlit garden."
"Sure, I'll be lonely, too, little Golden Bells, a white monk in a monastery, praying for you."
"But I don't want to be prayed for, Marco Polo." She stamped her foot. "I want to be loved. And there you have it out of me, and a great shame to you that you made me say it, me that was desired of many, and would have no man until you came. And surely it is the harsh God you have made out of The Kindly Person you spoke of. And 'tis not He would have my heart broken, and you turning yourself into a crabbed monk. And how do you know your preaching will convert any? 'Tis few you converted here. Ah, I'm sorry, dear Marco Polo; I shouldn't have said it, but there is despair on me, and I afraid of losing you."
"'Tis true, though. I have nothing, nobody to show."
"You have me. Am n't I converted? Am n't I a Christian? Marco Polo, let me tell you something. I said to my father I wanted to marry you, and I asked him if he would give you a province to govern, and he said, 'Sure and welcome.' And I asked him for Yangchan, the pleasantest city in all China. And he said, 'Sure and welcome, Golden Bells.' And I told him we would be married, and go there and govern his people kindly. And you wouldn't shame me before my own father, and all the people of China. You couldn't do that, Marco Polo. Marco Polo,"—she came toward him, her eye shining,—"let you stay!"
"Christ protect me! Christ guide me! Christ before me!"
"Marco Polo!"
"Christ behind me!"
"The moon, Marco Polo, and me, Golden Bells, and the nightingale in the apple-tree!"
"Christ on my right hand! Christ my left! Christ below me!"
Her arms were around his neck, cheek came close to his.
"Marco Polo! Marco Polo!"
"Christ above me!"
"My Marco Polo!"
"O, God! Golden Bells!"
And he put his arms around her, and his cheek to hers, and all the battle and the disappointment and the fear and the strangeness went out of him. And down by the lake the wee frogs chirruped, and in the apple-tree the nightingale never ceased from singing. And they stayed there shoulder to shoulder and cheek to cheek. And the moon rose higher. And it seemed only a moment they were there, until they heard the voice of Li Po in the garden.
"Are you there, Golden Bells? Are you there at all, at all? For two hours I've been hunting and couldn't get sight or sign of you. I have the new song, Golden Bells. For a long time I was dumb, but a little while ago the power came to me, and I have the new song, Golden Bells, the marrying song..."
"Thus far," said Malachi of the Long Glen, "the story of Marco Polo."
"That is a warm story, Malachi of the Glen, a warm and colored story, and great life to it, and Golden Bells is as alive to me as herself there by the fire, and I can see Marco Polo as plain as I can see my cousin Randall, and he playing with dogs..."
"If they weren't real and live and warm, what would a story be, Brian Oge, but a jumble of dead words? A house with nobody in it, the poorest thing in the world."
"But Marco Polo came back to Venice, Malachi, and fought in the sea-wars."
"There's more to tell, Brian Oge. But sometimes I wonder shouldn't the best part of the story be kept to yourself. The people aren't as wise as they used to be, brown lad. The end of a story now is a bit of kissing and courting and the kettle boiling to be making tea.
"But the older ones were wiser, Brian Donn. They knew that the rhythm of life is long and swinging, and that time doesn't stop short as a clock. Sure, what is a kiss from the finest of women but a pleasant thing, like a long putt sunk, or the first salmon of the year caught like a trout, or the ball through the goal before the whistle blows? And there's many a well-filled belly over a hungry soul.
"But a story is how destiny is interwoven, the fine and gallant and the tragic points of life. And you mustn't look at them with the eyes of the body, but you must feel with the antennae of your being. Now, if you were to look at the Lord Jesus with physical eyes, what would it be but a kindly, crazy man and He coming to a hard and bitter end? Look at it simply, and what was the story of Troy but a dirty row over a woman?
"But often times the stories with endings that grocer's daughters do not be liking are the stories that are worth while. And the worth while stories do be lasting. Never clip a story half-ways because Widow Robinson doesn't like to have her mind disturbed, and she warming her breadth at the fire. The Widow Robinson may have a white coin to buy a book with, and think you're the grand author entirely and you pleasing her. But Lord God, who gave you the stories, know you for a louse.
"I call to your mind the stories of great English writer—the plays of the Prince of Denmark, and the poor blind king on the cliff, and the Scottish chieftain and his terrible wife. The Widow Robinson will not like those stories, and she will be keeping her white coin... But those stories will endure forever...
"I will now tell you of Marco Polo, and him leaving China..."
You must see him now as he was seventeen years after he had come to China, and fourteen years after his wife, little Golden Bells, had died, a lean figure of a man, with his hair streaked with gray, a lean, hard face on him and savage eyes, and all the body of him steel and whale-bone from riding on the great Khan's business, and riding fast and furious, so that he might sleep and forget; but forgetting never came to him... You might think he was a harsh man from his face and eyes, but he was the straight man in administering justice, and he had the soft heart for the poor—the heart of Golden Bells. He was easily moved to anger, but the fine Chinese people never minded him, knowing he was a suffering man. Though never a word of Golden Bells came from his mouth, barring maybe that line of Dante's, the saddest line in the world, and that he used to repeat to himself and no one there:
..."'la bella personaChe mi fu tolta...che mi fu tolta'; who wastaken from me; Taken! Taken from me!"
And oftentimes a look would come over his face as if he were listening for a voice to speak—listening, listening, and then a wee harsh laugh would come from him, very heartbreaking to hear, and whatever was in his hand, papers or a riding-whip, he would pitch down and walk away...
He had just come in from the borders of the Arctic lands, from giving the khan's orders to the squat, hairy tribes who live by the icy shores, and had come to the garden by the Lake of Cranes, the garden where the Golden Bells of singing and laughter were dumb this armful of years, and he was alone, and the listening look was on his face, when there came Kubla and Li Po and the old magician...
Now Kubla was very old, so old he could hardly walk, and very frail, and Li Po was very old, too, and gray in the face, and sadder in the eyes than ever, and the magician's white beard had grown to his knees, but there was no more humor in his eyes... And Marco Polo helped the old khan to sit down.
"Oh, sir, why did you come to me? Sure I was going to you the moment I had changed my riding-clothes... Sir, you should have stayed in your bed..."
"There was something on my mind, Marco, and the old do be thinking long to get things off their mind."
"What can I do sir?"
"Marco, my child, you mustn't take what I say amiss. But I want you to be going back, to be going back to Venice."
"Sir, what have I done to dissatisfy you? In all my embassies have I been weak to the strong or bullying toward the weak? Does an oppressed man complain of injustice, does a merchant complain of being cheated, or a woman say she was wronged?"
"Now, Marco of my heart, didn't I say not to be taking it amiss? Is there any one closer to me nor you, or is it likely I'd be listening to stories brought against you? It's just this. I'm an old and tired man, Marco Beag, and in a week or a moon at most I'm due to die, so the Sanang tells me. Don't be sorry, son. Be glad for me. Life has been a wee bit too long.
"And now, son dear, I want to tell you. You've been closer to me than my own sons, and you've been the dear lad. And there's not one man in all China can say you did a harsh or an unjust thing; but, my dear son, 'tis just the way of people; there's a power of hard feeling against you in this land, you being a stranger and having stood so high.
"So when I'm dead, dear son, there's many would do you an injury, and treat you badly; aye, in our family itself, though they smile on you now. Let you be going now, Marco. I'll miss you to close my eyes for me, but my heart will be lighter. It will so. I couldn't sleep easy, and you ill treated in this land of mine. You ask him, too, Li Po."
"Ah, sir," Marco laughed,—"and, Li Po, what is ill treatment to me? Sorrow's my blood brother. What I've suffered! Do you think I could suffer more?"
"I know, Marco, I know."
"Don't you think I suffer now, sir? Fourteen years she's dead now, the wee one who lay by my side in sleep. And never a word and never a sign. In the house where we were married I can see the pool and the willows and the hibiscus, but there is never a token of her," he broke out. "The leaves of trees cover the pavilion, the hair of the musicians is silver, and dust is on the blue and white tiles. And she never comes to comfort pie. I can't sleep with waiting. The stars never seem to wane, and the hoar frost comes on the grass, and I'm always waiting. Christ! Why should I go back? I've forgotten Venice. I've even forgotten my God for her!"
"Sanang," says Kubla Khan to the magician, "couldn't you do something for this poor lad?"
It was now dusk in the garden by the Lake of Cranes...
"I don't need any damned wizard to bring my wife to me," raged Marco Polo. "If she were to come, she would come, and I in the dark of the moon and the moorfowl calling. She would have come because my heart needed her." And he raged through the dusk by the Lake of Cranes...
"Now, Marco, dear lad, don't be flying off again, but remember that there is science needed to all things. And think, too, that maybe she was not permitted. The older we get, the more we understand the destiny that rules all things, with now a nudge, with now a leading finger, with now a terrible blow over the heart, and what we think at twenty-five was a trifling accident, at seventy-five we know to have been the enormous gesture of God. We are not asked when we like to be born, Marco, nor is it up to us when to die.
"And again, Marco, consider. If she were to have come to you in the dark of the moon-time, in the strange mystic hours when you can hear eternity tick like a clock, your eyes would have been not on this world, but the next. Your look would have been vacant that's now keen to discover injustice. Your body would have been flabby that's now whalebone and steel. And there would have been no memory of you in China, that's now like sweet honey in the mouth.
"Would a wee dead spirit be proud of a man, Marco, and he just crying, crying, crying, and letting the days go by while even the brown bee works, and even the grass grows that cattle may fatten and men eat? She might be sorry, but would there be pride on her? Even a dead woman wants a strong man.
"Now, I'm not saying that the silent dead should not have a voice in our affairs when we need them. But they have wisdom, else what is the use of having died? And if the Sanang can bring her, she'll come now and join with us in asking you, now being the time she's needed.
"Child, be guided by us three ancient men. I have lived long and have knowledge of the world. Li Po has lived long and has knowledge of the heart. The Sanang has lived long, and knows the secrets of the dead. If to our three voices, who love you, there is added a sign from Golden Bells, will you leave China?"
"If there is a sign from her I'll leave China," said Marco Polo.
And it was dusk in the Garden by the Lake of Cranes.
The Sanang came over to Marco Polo.
"Give me the black tress that's over your heart."
And Marco Polo undid his coat and his undercoat and his fine sark and took out the perfumed hair, and gave it to the Sanang.
"Let you sing a little song, Li Po," the magician said, "the way she'll be hearing and come. I have part of her here, and let you put in the garden the atmosphere she loved." And Li Po took his lute and plucked gently at the strings.
"The swish of your silken skirt is discontinued,"
he sang,
"And the grass grows through the broken hearth stone,And your room that was so warm and swept is cold and mouldy.But he, the beloved of your heart, clings on,A fallen leaf in the chink of a door,In the chink of a closed door!"
And it was dusk in the garden, and the voice of Li Po broke, and his lute stilled, and the old Emperor breathed his aged gentle breathing, and the Sanang said his secret terrible formulae, and Marco Polo was tense as a hunting dog.
And suddenly at the end of the garden, in the perfumed Asian dusk, there was a beam like moonlight, and into the soft ray of it trod little Golden Bells, with her wee warm face, and her wee warm hands, and her hair dark as a cloud, and her eyes pleading, pleading...
"Go now, Marco Polo, please go!" Her lips made the words, but no sound came to him.
"Oh, Golden Bells, Golden Bells!" he rushed forward, but the moonlight of no moon faded, and there was nothing, and he dropped on his knees sobbing in the dusk by the Lake of Cranes...
And after a while he got up from his knees and set his teeth on his sobbing and threw his head back and squared his shoulders and notched his belt and faced the three ancient men.
"Well," he said, "that's that."
He went over and knelt and kissed the Khan's hand.
"You'll be seeing her soon, sir, you'll be telling her... everything..."
"Yes, son, I'll tell her."
Then he patted the Sanang on the shoulder, and "Thanks!" said he, simply, and he took Li Po's hand in both his, and they looked at each other for a moment and no words came to either.
"Well," he says at length, "I'll be hitting the road then. I'll not say good-by to any of you. I'll be seeing you all pretty soon again. There's a war on between Venice and the Genoese, and where that's hottest you'll find me, and the quicker my end, the better I'll be pleased. But it would be like my luck," he said bitterly, "not to be killed, but to be taken prisoner and to end my life in some lousy jail. Oh, well, we'll hope for the best." He laughed. "So—so long!"
And the four of them looked at one another, trying to smile, and great grief on them.
"China will miss you, my son," said old Kubla.
"It's nothing to how I'll be missing China," said Marco Polo. "Venice! It's only a sound to me. I'll be an exile in the city of my birth. But what's the use of complaining? If it's go, it's go. But it'll be funny," said he. "My body will be there, but my heart and mind will be in China. There'll be a gray eye always turning to China, and it will never see China... Queer!... All the voices and all the instruments in Saint Mark's, and in my ears the little drums of China... All the sunlight will be glinting on the Grand Canal, but the little rain of China—the little rain of China will be falling in my heart...
"Ah, well, if it's go, it's go. I'd better be hitting the road. So... I'll say good-by for the present...and...
"Oh, my God Almighty!..."