n 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?"

CHAPTER XVI

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...

CHAPTER XVII

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 thin