“You’re joking, right?” says the tortoise. “There aren’t any clouds in the ocean.”
“What is it, then? It looks like a splash of India ink. Just dirt or something?”
“You’re really showing your ignorance, you know that? It’s a school of sea bream.”
“Really? It looks so small from here. How many would you say there are? Two or three hundred, maybe?”
The tortoise laughs derisively. “Are you serious?”
“More, then? What, two or three thousand?”
“Get a grip on yourself, man. There are a good five or six million fish in that school.”
“Five or six million? Are you joking?”
“I am, yes,” the tortoise says, and grins. “It’s not a school of sea bream. It’s a sea fire. Awful lot of smoke, though. To make that much smoke, they must be burning an area about twenty times the size of Japan.”
“Please. Fire can’t burn underwater.”
“Think before you speak, young master. Water contains oxygen, doesn’t it? Where there’s oxygen, there’s no reason you can’t have fire.”
“Nonsense. I’m not going to fall for such half-witted sophistry. All jokes aside—what in the world is it? That little smudge up there. Is it a school of fish after all? It certainly isn’t fire.”
“I’m telling you, it’s a fire. Haven’t you ever wondered why the sea never overflows, in spite of the fact that all the rivers in the world empty into it constantly, day and night? If you look at it from the sea’s point of view, it’s quite a dilemma. It’s not easy to manage all that surplus water rushing
in. That’s why we have to start these fires, to dispose of the water we don’t need. Just look at it burn!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Why isn’t the smoke spreading, then? What is it really? It hasn’t moved at all since I’ve been watching, so it’s not likely to be a school of fish either. Stop your teasing and tell me what it is. Please?”
“All right, all right. It’s the shadow of the moon.”
“You’re pulling my leg again.”
“No, seriously. Nothing on land casts a shadow down here, but all the heavenly bodies do, as they pass overhead. Not just the moon, but the stars and planets and everything. Down in the Dragon Palace we even have a calendar that’s made by tracing those shadows. We use it to determine the seasons. That moon’s a little past full, so today must be, what, the thirteenth?”
The tortoise is speaking in a sincere tone of voice, and Urashima is inclined to believe him this time, but it all still seems a bit fishy somehow. He is, however, more than willing to suspend his disbelief that the one smudge on this vast pale green expanse could be the moon’s shadow, if the alternative is a monstrous school of fish or, worse, smoke from a fire. For a man of cultivated tastes the moonshadow interpretation holds a good deal of charm, and he briefly entertains a certain melancholy nostalgia.
But now it begins to grow dark, and suddenly, along with an almost deafening roar, comes a rush of gale-force wind that nearly topples him from his seat.
“Better close your eyes again,” the tortoise says in a no-nonsense tone. “We’ve just reached the entrance to the Dragon Palace. Deep-sea divers have come down this far, but they generally assume they’ve reached the very bottom and head back up. In fact, you’re the first human being that’s ever passed through here. Probably the last too.”
It seems to Urashima as if the tortoise has rolled over. It’s a most peculiar sensation, as though his ride has done a half-somersault and is now upside-down and swimming upward. He clings tightly to the shell, although he doesn’t seem to be in any danger of falling off.
“You can open your eyes now.”
When he does so, the sensation of being upside-down vanishes. He is sitting atop the tortoise as he has been all along, and they’re still diving.
A dim light, as of dawn, suffuses the atmosphere around them, and Urashima can make out the vague outline of an immense row of white peaks. It appears to be a mountain range of some sort, but the peaks are so symmetrical that except for their enormous size they might be artificial structures.
“Those are mountains, right?”
“Right.”
“The mountains of the Dragon Palace.” Urashima’s voice is hoarse with excitement.
“Right.” The tortoise continues diving.
“They’re pure white. Covered with snow, are they?”