The Great Khan finally decided to send these two intelligent strangers
back to their own land on a mission from himself to the Pope, asking for
a hundred men of learning to be sent to teach and preach to his Tartars,
and for some holy oil from the lamp which burned over Christ's sepulchre
in Jerusalem. He provided them with a golden tablet of honour, which
acted as a passport and secured that they should be entertained and
their journey facilitated from city to city in all his dominions, and so
they set forth once more upon their homeward journey, But they were
delayed by the dangers and difficulties of travel, 'the extreme cold,
the snow, the ice, and the flooding of the rivers', and it was three
years before they at last reached Acre in the April of 1269, and finding
that the Pope had died the year before, and that no election had yet
been made, so that they could not immediately accomplish their mission,
they decided to visit their home again, and so went back to Venice.
There Nicolo found that his wife, who had been with child at his
departure, was dead, leaving behind her a son Marco, our young
haunter of quays.

[Illustration: IV. MADAME EGLENTYNE AT HOME]

This was the marvellous tale which the same Marco drank in from the lips
of his new-found father and uncle. But more marvels were to come. For
two years the Venetians remained at home, awaiting the election of a
Pope in order to deliver the Great Khan's letters; but no election was
made, and at last, fearing that Kublai might suspect them of playing him
false, they decided to return to the East, and this time they took with
them Marco, now a well-grown lad of sixteen or seventeen years with a
bright eye that looked everywhere and took in everything, observant and
sober beyond his age. But when they got as far as Ayas on the Gulf of