"Perhaps you would not believe it, either, were I to recount how, then, no one in all the land was hungry, and yet it is a fact, for the Kublai Khan gave of his great wealth to his people. Whenever the crops were injured, he demanded no taxes, and when rice was scarce, he sold it for one fourth the regular price out of his own storehouse. And if any families had no food to eat, he caused provision to be given them, and rice was not refused at court throughout the whole year to any that came to beg for it. Think of no one ever starving to death then! It was the strangest thing that ever men heard of. Not only did the Kublai Khan feed his subjects, but he had countless public looms that were running all the time, where garments were woven and given to the poor, so that none could say that they were hungry or cold."
"I would have liked to be alive then," Tuen said, wistfully, and in this they all agreed with her.
"There has never been such another ruler in any land," Szu told her. "The whole world has heard of him, and marvelled at his greatness and his goodness."
At this, Tuen sighed, for she had just been wishing that the august one to whom she went had been rich and kind like the Khan. But she did not think much about him, for no one could tell her anything, and so she could only wait.
CHAPTER XV.
One day when the sun was hot and she was tired, Tuen said to Szu impatiently:
"Don't you know anything except about the old kings and their wars?"
Now Szu, although he was old and blind and feeble, was well endowed with tact and quickness, and after revolving the question in his mind, he answered graciously: