back to your home, the sea, at once. Do not let yourself be caught
again, for there might be no one to save you next time!"

All the time that the kind fisherman was speaking he was walking
quickly to the shore and out upon the rocks; then putting the
tortoise into the water he watched the animal disappear, and turned
homewards himself, for he was tired and the sun had set.

The next morning Urashima went out as usual in his boat. The weather
was fine and the sea and sky were both blue and soft in the tender
haze of the summer morning. Urashima got into his boat and dreamily
pushed out to sea, throwing his line as he did so. He soon passed
the other fishing boats and left them behind him till they were lost
to sight in the distance, and his boat drifted further and further
out upon the blue waters. Somehow, he knew not why, he felt
unusually happy that morning; and he could not help wishing that,
like the tortoise he set free the day before, he had thousands of
years to live instead of his own short span of human life.

He was suddenly startled from his reverie by hearing his own name
called:

"Urashima, Urashima!"

Clear as a bell and soft as the summer wind the name floated over
the sea.

He stood up and looked in every direction, thinking that one of the
other boats had overtaken him, but gaze as he might over the wide
expanse of water, near or far there was no sign of a boat, so the