three-bladed sword, an Indian brocade, and a book 'written by the hand
of the aforesaid Marco,' called _De locis mirabilibus Tartarorum_.[31]

The rest of Marco Polo's life is quickly told. The legend goes that all
the youth of Venice used to resort to the Ca' Polo in order to hear his
stories, for not even among the foreign sailors on the quays, where once
the boy Marco had wandered and asked about the Tartars, were stories the
like of his to be heard. And because he was always talking of the
greatness of Kublai Khan's dominions, the millions of revenue, the
millions of junks, the millions of riders, the millions of towns and
cities, they gave him a nickname and jestingly called him Marco
_Milione_, or _Il Milione_, which is, being interpreted, 'Million
Marco'; and the name even crept into the public documents of the
Republic, while the courtyard of his house became known as the _Corte
Milione_. To return from legend to history, the ancient rivalry between
Venice and Genoa had been growing during Marco Polo's absence, nor had
Venice always prevailed. Often as her galleys sailed,

dipping deep
For Famagusta and the hidden sun
That rings black Cyprus with a lake of fire, ...
Questing brown slaves or Syrian oranges,
The pirate Genoese
Hell raked them till they rolled
Blood, water, fruit, and corpses up the hold.

At last in 1298, three years after Marco's return, a Genoese fleet under
Lamba Doria sailed for the Adriatic, to bate the pride of Venice in her
own sea. The Venetians fitted out a great fleet to meet it, and Marco
Polo, the handy man who knew so much about navigation, albeit more