ts had thickly sprouted. He heard the children shouting and calling,
and from a window that he passed came the twang of the koto, and
everything seemed to cry a welcome for his return. Yet suddenly he
felt a pang at his heart as he wandered down the street. After all,
everything was changed. Neither men nor houses were those he once knew.
Quickly he saw his old home; yes, it was still there, but it had a
strange look. Anxiously he knocked at the door, and asked the woman who
opened it after his parents. But she did not know their names, and could
give him no news of them.

Still more disturbed, he rushed to the burying ground, the only place
that could tell him what he wished to know. Here at any rate he would
find out what it all meant. And he was right. In a moment he stood
before the grave of his parents, and the date written on the stone
was almost exactly the date when they had lost their son, and he had
forsaken them for the Daughter of the Sea. And so he found that since he
had deft his home, three hundred years had passed by.

Shuddering with horror at his discovery he turned back into the village
street, hoping to meet some one who could tell him of the days of old.
But when the man spoke, he knew he was not dreaming, though he felt as
if he had lost his senses.

In despair he bethought him of the box which was the gift of the
princess. Perhaps after all this dreadful thing was not true. He
might be the victim of some enchanter's spell, and in his hand lay the
counter-charm. Almost unconsciously he opened it, and a purple vapour
came pouring out. He held the empty box in his hand, and as he looked he
saw that the fresh hand of youth had grown suddenly shrivelled, like the
hand of an old, old man. He ran to the brook, which flowed in a clear
stream down from the mountain. and saw himself reflected as in a mirror.
It was the face of a mummy which looked back at him. Wounded to death,
he crept back through the village, and no man knew the old, old man to
be the strong handsome youth who had run down the street an hour before.
So he toiled wearily back, till he reached the shore, and here he sat
sadly on a rock, and called loudly on the turtle. But she never came
back any more, but instead, death came soon, and set him free. But
before that happened, the people who saw him sitting lonely on the shore
had heard his story, and when their children were restless they used to
tell them of the good son who from love