Uraschima Taro fondly assured her that nothing in the world should keep him from her, and bade her farewell. Mounting the turtle's back, he soon left the palace far below. For three days and three nights they swam, and then the turtle left him on the familiar sands near his old home.
He eagerly ran to the village and looked about for some of his comrades. All of the faces were strange, and even the houses seemed different. The children, playing in the street where he had lived, he had never seen before. Stopping in front of his own house, he regarded it with a sinking heart. There was the sound of music from a window above, and a strange woman opened the door to him. She could tell him nothing of his parents, and had never heard their names. Every one whom he questioned looked at him curiously. At last he wandered from the village and came to the burying ground. Searching about among the graves, he soon found himself beside a stone bearing the dear names he sought. The date showed him that his father and mother had died soon after he left them; and then he discovered that he had been away from his home three hundred years. Bowed with sorrow, he went back to the city. At each step he hoped to wake and find it all a dream, but the people and streets were real.
He thought of the Princess, and remembered the gold box she had given to him. It might be that he was under some cruel enchantment, and that this box contained the charm to break the spell. He eagerly raised the cover, and a purple vapor escaped and left the box empty. To his alarm, he noticed that the hand that held it had shriveled and grown suddenly old. Trembling with horror, he ran to a stream of water which ran down from the mountain, and saw reflected in its waters the face of a mummy.
He crawled fearfully back to the village, and no one recognized him as the strong youth who had entered it a few hours before. Nearly exhausted; he finally reached the shore, where he sat wearily on a rock and cried to the turtle. But he called to it in vain; the turtle never came, and soon his quavering voice was hushed in death.
Before he died, the people of the village gathered about him and listened to his strange story. Long afterward they told their children of the young man who, for the love of his parents, left a marvelous palace in the sea, and a Princess more beautiful than the day.
