and peacocks? Dust and ashes, dust and ashes! And Scheherazade was
but a strange, sad sound. Beauty increased and waned like the moon.
A little shadow around the eyes, a little crinkle in the neck, the
backs of the hands stiffening like parchment. Dust and ashes, dust
and ashes!

But the little blue shadow would glow like an Easter morning.

Or it would be a poor, lonely, unlit shadow in the cold gloom of the
clanging worlds.

Poor Golden Bells! Poor little weeping Golden Bells! If he could
only tell her about the Bitter Tree!

And then what happens but his uncle Matthew claps him on the back,

"How would you like to go to China, Marco Markeen," says he, "and
preach religion to the benighted people!"

"How did you know, Uncle Matthew?"

"How did I know what?"

"That I wanted to go to China and preach religion to the -- the people!"

"Well, if that doesn't beat Banagher," says Matthew Polo, "and
Banagher beats the devil! Tell me, did you ever hear an old tune
called 'Bundle and Go!'?"

And so the three of them leave upon their journey, but at Layas,