CHAPTER XV.
When Kubla Khan dismissed the assembly, and he took Marco Polo into a sitting-room, and Golden Bells came with them.
"And what did you think, sir, of what I said?
And can you not see, sir, the truth that's in me ?" "Well, now, laddie," said the great Khan, "when we come to examine this sermon you quoted to us, what is there in it but the rule of the righteous man?
We've had a great thinker and pious man of our own, Confucius.

I'm not a reading man," says he, "but I've got an idea," says he, "that there isn't a thing you said but is embraced in the Analects.

And if it isn't it'll be in the teachings of the Lord Buddha." "Ah, but, sir," Marco Polo said, "You'll have to admit that He of Whom I speak was the true God made man." "Now, laddie, remember I'm an old man, set in my head and my ways, and I've been used to one belief so long it would be hard changing.

So don't press me now; don't press me, I ask you." "Ah, sir," pleaded Marco Polo, "it's terrible to think of, as great a prince as you to be in the black spaces outside of heaven because you wouldn't accept the truth." "Well, maybe they won't be so hard on one, my dear lad.

When my time comes and I rap on the gate of your heaven, maybe they'll say: 'It's only old Kubla, the soldier, is in it.