So the three (for Marco’s son accompanied them) struck out into the hinterland alone, and for three long years they journeyed on ceaselessly, now in peace, now fighting, now fed, now half starved, until at last they came to the rising ground, from whose sandy height they had looked their last on the city of Kublai Khan eight years before. With the descent of the farther slope, they vanished from the world, as completely as though they had been swallowed up in a “dust-devil,” and a quarter of a century passed before they reappeared, by which time every memory of them had grown dim in Venice. It was, as I have said, only after twenty-five years that they managed to make their way across Asia, slowly and, it must be supposed, anxiously, for they carried with them a burden of wealth, the like of which had never before been heard of in prosaic Europe. As they had vanished in the twilight, so they returned in the dusk, three figures, crouching in the long boat, looking about them at the dim bulk of house, church, and palace with eager eyes, and whispering to each other, as old, long-forgotten landmarks rose up from the water to greet them. They must have chuckled to themselves, too, at the thought of the amazement of their relations at the joke which they were going to play upon them presently. For a sorry appearance they must have presented, yet beneath the rough Tartar clothing was hidden that which would have bought a street of those shadowy buildings that loomed up on either side of them. The Casa Polo happened that night to be full of their relations, brought together for a “festa” of some sort, and when they arrived in the courtyard the sounds and the lights must have warmed the travellers’ hearts. Nothing could have been more to their taste, or at least to that of Marco, who was decidedly fond of the “lime-light,” than the prospect of being thus precipitated into a crowd of strange relations. That the present owners might not be enthusiastic about giving up the “Casa” to its rightful owners does not seem to have occurred to them, for they advanced boldly and knocked, announcing themselves loudly when the windows filled with heads, and the gate—which may be seen to this day in the Corte della Sabbinera—with bodies, and the air with voices, demanding to know who these evil-looking strangers were and by what right they came thundering at the doors of a noble House.