And how would Venice, the place of his birth, reveal herself to Marco, now he had seen so many wonders and glories in distant lands? We may imagine the sun to have been setting as the travellers turned into the Lido port, dropping a globe of molten fire vast and mysterious through the haze, while the last dim rays gleamed golden on the windows of the Riva degli Schiavoni. Venice lay among her waters, blue and glittering, interspersed with jewelled marsh. The last gulls of those that so gallantly had dipped and sailed all day upon the water were flying home, their breasts and wings radiant in the level sunlight round the home-coming ship. Many citizens of Venice must have been at the Lido port, thronging to meet the merchant vessels, to greet their friends or to have news of them from others. But none came to meet these three travellers; alone they embarked in a gondola bearing their cargo with them. Venice had clothed herself in all her beauty to give them welcome. Which of Cublay’s glories could rival this splendour of the lagoon with its countless treasures of light? The marsh lay in unequal patches, each outlined with a luminous silver rim--a magic carpet of dusky olive, threaded with strands of radiant azure and sprinkled with ruby and amethyst. As their gondola moved slowly down towards the city, the boats of the night fishers passed with the silence of shadows between them and the glow. And when here and there a fisher alighted on the marsh or moved across it like a spirit stepping on the waters, he must have seemed to Marco the very memory and renewal of those strange Eastern stories of which his mind was full. So, under the mystic glow of the desert, he had seen figures of the caravan rise and move against the tinted haze of the oasis. Onwards glided the boat towards the Basin of San Marco--westward the luminous wonder of lagoon and marsh, and a cold, clear intensity of stirring water to the east. And as they drew nearer and ever nearer, our travellers’ hearts beat high with the wonders of the city of their birth. The stars were piercing the night sky in countless numbers: the yellow lights of the city quivered along the Riva: the masts of the fishing-fleet swung clear against the pale western glow in the waterway of the Giudecca: the flowing tide wound silver coils about the black shadows of their hulls. Past the Dogana, keystone of Venice to the Eastern traveller, their little boat moved down the quiet waters of the Grand Canal, deep into the heart of that great shadowy city, apparent Queen over all the glories of the Cities of the East. Chapter Six VENICE OF CRUSADE AND PILGRIMAGE