FullReads

The tortoise promised with its eyes. So wistful and grateful were they, that Urashima felt he could never forget them.

By this time he was down on the seashore, and there he placed the tortoise in the sea and watched it swim away. Then he went home feeling very happy about the whole thing.

Morning was breaking when Urashima pushed off his boat for his day’s fishing. The sea was calm, and the air was full of the soft, sweet warmth of summer. Soon he was out skimming over the blue depths, and when the tide began to ebb, he drifted far beyond the other fishermen’s boats, until his own was lost to their sight.

It was such a lovely morning when the sun rose and slanted across the waters, that, when he thought of the short span of human life, he wished that he had thousands of years to live, like the tortoise he had rescued from the boys the day before.

As he was dreaming these thoughts, he was suddenly startled by a sweet voice calling his name. It fell on his ears like the note of a silver bell dropping from the skies. Again it came, nearer than before:

‘Urashima! Urashima!’

He looked all around on the surface of the sea, thinking that some one had hailed him from a boat, but there was no one there, as far as the eye could reach.

And now he heard the voice again close at hand, and, looking over the side of the boat, he saw a tortoise looking up at him, and he knew by its eyes that it was the same tortoise he had restored to the sea the previous day.

‘So we meet again,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Fancy you finding me in the middle of the ocean! What is it, you funny little tortoise? Do you want to be caught again, eh?’

‘I have looked for you,’ replied the tortoise, ‘ever since dawn, and when I saw you in the boat I swam after you to thank you for saving my life.’

‘Well, that’s very nice of you to say that. I haven’t much to offer you, but if you would like to come up into the boat and dry your back in the sun we can have a chat.’

The tortoise was pleased to accept the invitation, and Urashima helped it up over the side. Then, after talking of many things, the tortoise remarked, ‘I suppose you have never seen Rin Gin, the Dragon Sea-King’s palace, have you?’

Urashima shook his head.

‘No,’ he replied. ‘They tell me it is a beautiful sight, but in all the years that I have spent upon the sea I have never been invited to the Dragon King’s palace. It’s some distance from here, isn’t it?’

‘I do not think you believe there is such a place,’ replied the tortoise, who had seen a twinkle in Urashima’s eye. ‘Yet I assure you it exists, but a long way off–right down at the bottom of the sea. If you would really like to see Rin Gin, I will take you there.’

‘That is very kind of you,’ said Urashima with a polite bow, which pleased the tortoise greatly; ‘but I am only a man, you know, and cannot swim a long way under the sea like a tortoise.’

But the little creature hastened to reassure him.

‘That’s not at all necessary,’ it said. ‘I’ll do the swimming and you can ride on my back.’

Urashima laughed. The idea of his riding on the back of a tortoise that he could hold in his hand was funny, and he said so.

‘Never mind how funny it is,’ said the tortoise; ‘just get on and see.’ And then, as Urashima looked at it, the tortoise grew and grew and grew until its back was big enough for two men to ride upon.

‘What an extraordinary thing!’ exclaimed Urashima. ‘Right you are, friend tortoise, I’ll come with you.’ And with that he jumped on.