"There is no need of a dragon on the island," said her father. "The fisher boys who pray to her for good fortune make faithful guardians of her temple."
"Is it to help the fisher boys on sea, as well as unworthy little girls on land, that she has so many arms?" asked Umé.
But her father was leading the way along the rough street of the beautiful island, and did not answer.
Enoshima seems to be the home of all the shells in Japan. They lie heaped in all the houses and shops; shells as white and lustrous as moonlight, as rosy as dawn, as delicate as a baby's fingers. There are thousands and thousands of them piled together like the fallen petals of the pink cherry blossoms.
The street is lined on each side with tea-houses and little shops, and in every one may be seen miracles of shell-work. There are strings of mother-of-pearl fishes, of mother-of-pearl birds, tiny kittens, and foxes and dogs. There are mother-of-pearl storks and beetles and butterflies, crabs and lobsters, and bees made of shell poised on the daintiest of shell flowers, and there are necklaces, pins and hairpins in a hundred shapes.
Baby Yuki went about with her head bent to one side, holding her ear to the mouth of the largest shells, wherever she could find them. Deep in their pink chambers she could hear the sound of the sea, and the dull roar pleased her. After listening to each one she would look up into her mother's face with a happy smile.
Their father bought ornaments for the children, a necklace of wee, shimmering, mother-of-pearl fishes for the baby, a tortoise of pearl-shell for which Tara begged, and a spray of shell flowers for Umé.
For Tara he bought also a glass cup blown double, with a tiny shell in the liquid between the glass. Of course it was soon broken and, after they had climbed the steep steps to the temples and prayed to Benten Sama in her own island home, they went back to the shops and bought another.
Afterwards they sat upon the rocks and watched the tide flow in from the sea. Over the water skimmed the white sails of returning boats; the dragon's light, which we call phosphorescence, played at the edge of the waves, and there was no sound save that of the evening bells.
The twilight fell, making a gray sky in which rode a silver crescent.