ying, "There is water! Water! God
lives! God lives!" But there was only sand. And now it would be a
green vision, and they would cry: "We have come to the edge of the
desert. After the long night, dawn. God lives! God lives!" But there
would be only sand, sand. And now it would be a city of shining domes
in the distance. And they would nudge one another and croak, "There
are men there, brother, secure streets, and merchants in their booths;
people to talk with, and water for our poor throats." But there would
be only sand, sand, sand... And they would cry like children. "God is
dead! Haven't you heard? Don't you know? God is dead in His heaven,
and the warlocks are loosed on the land!"

And on the last day of the moon they were all but in sight of the
desert's edge, though they didn't know. And the goblins and the
warlocks took counsel, for they were now afraid Marco and his few
people would escape. They gathered together and they read the runes of
the Flowing Sand.

And suddenly the camels rushed screaming into the desert with sudden
panic, and a burning wind came, and the sands rose, and the desert
heeled like a ship, and the day became night.

And young Marco Polo could stand no more. That was the end, the end of
him, the end of the world, the end of everything. There was red
darkness every where, and he could see nobody. "O my Lord Jesus!" he
cried. "O little Golden Bells!" The wind boomed like an organ. The
sand screamed. "O my Lord Jesus! O little Golden Bells!" And the
voices of his father and uncle were like the tweeting birds. "Where's
the lad, Matthew? Where's our lad?" "Mark, Mark, where have you got
to? Lad of our heart, where are you?" But they couldn't find each
other. The sand buffeted them like shuttlecocks. "Boy Mark!" The sand
snarled like a dog; the wind hammered like drums. "Oh, Golden Bells!
O, little Golden Bells! O, my Lord Jesus, must it end here?"

And the fight went out of him, and a big sob broke in him, and he lay
down to die...

CHAPTER XI

I shall now tell you of Golden Bells, and her in the Chinese Garden.

CHAPTER XII

I would have you now see her as I see her, standing before Li Po, the
great poet, in her green costume. And Li Po, big, fat, with sad eyes
and a twisted mouth, uncomfortable as be damned. The sun shone in the
garden, the butterflies, the red and black and golden butterflies,
flitted from blossom to blossom. And the bees dr