chief officers of
the sultan's court, he delivered his message.

He gave an account in his speech of the recent victories which his
sovereign, Genghis Khan, had won, and of the great extension which his
empire had in consequence attained. He was now become master, he said,
of all the countries of Central Asia, from the eastern extremity of
the continent up to the frontiers of the sultan's dominions, and
having thus become the sultan's neighbor, he was desirous of entering
into a treaty of amity and alliance with him, which would be obviously
for the mutual interest of both. He had accordingly been sent an
embassador to the sultan's court to propose such an alliance. In
offering it, the emperor, he said, was actuated by a feeling of the
sincerest good-will. He wished the sultan to consider him as a father,
and he would look upon the sultan as a son.

According to the patriarchal ideas of government which prevailed in
those days, the relation of father to son involved not merely the idea
of a tie of affection connecting an older with a younger person, but
it implied something of pre-eminence and authority on the one part,
and dependence and subjection on the other. Perhaps Genghis Khan did
not mean his proposition to be understood in this sense, but made it
solely in reference to the disparity between his own and the sultan's
years, for he was himself now becoming considerably advanced in life.
However this may be, the sultan was at first not at all pleased with
the proposition in the form in which the embassador made it.

He, however, listened quietly to Makinut's words, and said nothing
until the public audience was ended. He then took Makinut alone into
another apartment in order to have some quiet conversation with him.
He first asked him to tell him the exact state of the case in respect
to all the pretended victories which Genghis Khan had gained, and, in
order to propitiate him and induce him to reveal the honest truth, he
made him a present of a rich scarf, splendidly adorned with jewels.

"How is it?" said he; "has the emperor really made all those
conquests, and is his empire as extensive and powerful as he pretends?
Tell me the honest truth about it."

"What I have told your majesty is the honest truth about it," replied
Makinut. "My master the emperor is as powerful as I have represented
him, and this your majesty will soon find out in case you come to
have any difficulty with him."

This bold and defia