"See? There's the lid, right up against it," he said, thumping the tub with his fist. "Feel that wood! Isn't it a beauty?"
She looked into the tub and agreed that it was getting harder and harder to find real quality in tubs. "Too bad there's that large hole in it," she said.
"Hole?" said Goro. "Hole? A hole in one of my tubs? Impossible ... where's that hole!"
He put his hands on the edge to raise himself and peered over.
"There. Bottom right," she said. "Can't you see it?"
"Oh, the bottom ..." said Goro, leaning further over the edge. "It's too dark to—"
She seized Goro's trousers in a firm grip and heaved.
"—see," he finished, at the bottom of the tub. He was still wondering how he had gotten down there when the lid came down, bang, and it grew very dark. He felt the tub sail up, come to rest on something and begin to move forward with an up and down rocking movement.
It did not take Goro long, in his bucket-shaped night, to realize that the yamam'ba, having no further reason to pretend a feminine weakness she probably despised anyway, had placed the tub on her head and was on her way home. To the mountain.
"Excuse me," he called out. "Where are we going?"