It was our second day out from Hirado, home to the one English trading post in Japan -- whose days, if the rumors were true, were numbered. I was swabbing the deck, half-listening as Captain Shakespeare and John Winter speculated on how long it would be before our Dutch rivals would have to close up shop and head home as well, when Oyuki suddenly pointed off our port side and cried with excitement: "Look!"
       We followed her point just in time to see, at the mouth of a cove that sheltered a little fishing village, a dolphin as it leapt into the air, impossibly high, then dived down again in a graceful arc. As soon as it struck the surface, a second one leapt up, even higher, and turned a somersault before splashing down on its back. Then the first one jumped again, higher still, and performed both a somersault and a half-turn before diving again. It was almost as if they sensed they had an appreciative audience, and were competing to outdo each other in feats of gymnastics.
       As we watched in admiration, a small fishing boat disrupted our view. There were four men aboard: two rowing, one holding one end of a long net anchored to the land, and one carrying two metal rods. This last one, as the boat described an arc around the mouth of the cove, began to beat one rod against the other, creating a cacophonous noise that jarred our eardrums, even across the distance that separated their boat from the Hereford.
       The boat continued to head for the far shore, dragging the net behind it to corral the dolphins into the cove. Oyuki turned to us, the delight in her face suddenly changed to apprehension. "What are they doing?" she asked anxiously, although her tone of voice made it clear that she had already guessed the answer.
       "They're hunters," John Winter replied indifferently.
       Oyuki gasped in horror. "They're going to kill those magnificent creatures?"
       "Where you see magnificent creatures," her father said, "they see their daily food."
       Oyuki looked from her father to Captain Shakespeare with a pleading expression. "And we're just going to sail on by and do nothing?"
       Her father shrugged and spread his hands. "What would you have us do? If we tried to tell them to stop hunting dolphins, they would pay us no more mind than we would if they came to England and told us to stop eating beef or mutton."
       "Your father's right, my dear," said Captain Shakespeare. "This is their land. What right have we to tell them what to do? What fish or beasts they may or may not eat?"
       Oyuki made no reply, but flounced off and leaned against the wall of the captain's cabin, her hands behind her back and a sullen pout on her face. I hesitated a moment, then went over to her, although I had a hard time thinking of anything to say that might give her any consolation.
       But I had no chance to say anything. Oyuki's feigned sulk lasted only as long as it took for her to untie her sash. Then, in one moment, she slipped off her outer kimono and leapt up onto the rail. And before anyone could stop her, she made a graceful swan dive into the sea.
       "Man overboard!" shouted the lookout. "I mean, girl overboard! I mean..."
       "Argh! Plague upon that girl and her hot head!" Captain Shakespeare exclaimed, then turned apologetically to her father. "Begging your pardon, Master Winter, sir."
       "No need to apologize," John Winter muttered, his baleful eyes following Oyuki as she swam toward the fishermen's boats. "I know my daughter."
       Captain Shakespeare turned towards the forecastle. "Gunner! Port cannon! Powder, but no shot."
       The gunner hastened to carry out his order. He placed a packet of powder and a cloth wad into the muzzle of the cannon, seized the rammer, and used it to shove them down the barrel. But instead of putting in a cannonball after them, he gestured to his mates to heave the tackles and run the gun out to its port. "Ready, sir!"
       "Prepare to fire upon my order. Fire!"
       The gunner struck a match, fitted it into a long linstock, and held it to the touch hole. Everyone on deck covered their ears as the cannon fired, straining against the breech rope and delivering a noise like a thunderclap, a flash of fire, and a cloud of smoke. We knew it was unloaded, but the hunters didn't, and if all went well, the flash and bang would serve to scare them away.
       The hunters stopped and looked up in alarm, and for a moment, it looked as though the cannon had done its job. But a moment later, their attention was back on the dolphins and Oyuki.
       "Another volley, lads," Captain Shakespeare commanded. "Make ready! Fire!"
       We covered our ears again as another shot from the cannon shook the boards. I looked toward the hunters, hoping the second shot would help them get the message. But they seemed to be wise to our strategy, and after one glance in our direction, they continued on their course.
       Oyuki, by this time, was almost at their boat. One of them saw her coming, and raised his harpoon as though threatening to spear her with it.
       Without pausing to ask leave from John Winter or Captain Shakespeare, or even really to think, I vaulted up onto the rail and plunged into the water.
       When I came back up to the surface, I could hear the captain's distant voice shouting from the deck: "Simon! Belay! What are you doing? Blast you!" But I was already on my way out to where Oyuki was preparing to confront the hunters.
       As I approached the boat, another shot thundered from the Hereford's cannon. This time, a white fountain burst forth from the sea near the boat, as a ball struck the water just off its bow. I prayed fervently that the gunner knew what he was doing. It was very hard, I knew, to fire cannons at sea with any degree of accuracy, and if he miscalculated, he could easily hit the hunters, me, or worst of all, Oyuki.
       But this shot finally seemed to get the message across. With baleful glares in our direction, the hunters turned their boat around and rowed back to shore.
       The dolphins swam over to us, circling around us, nuzzling us playfully with their long noses. They chattered...and to my great surprise, I found that I could understand them.
       Oyuki and I both perceive the world in a slightly different way from most people. We can see, hear, and otherwise sense the spirit world. When I first arrived in Japan, I made the acquaintance of the supernatural beings known collectively as yokai, and discovered that, even though I hadn't yet learned a word of Japanese, I could communicate with them in a way that transcended language. I had, however, never been able to understand animals before. But now, the dolphins were trying to communicate with us, and I could understand them too.
       Thank you, they said. Thank you both.
       "Not at all," Oyuki said. She had heard them as clearly as I had. "I couldn't bear to see them hurt you."
       Come with us, they said.
       Oyuki and I looked at each other.
       Come with us, the dolphins repeated. We want to show you something special. Something humans almost never see.
       We hesitated. "Where are you going to take us?" I asked. "We can't breathe underwater."
       With us, you can.
       Oyuki cast an anxious glance back toward the Hereford. "They're waiting for us."
       It won't take long.
       "We should at least tell the captain," I said.
       Of course.
       The dolphins turned around, offering us their backs. After another moment's hesitation, Oyuki and I sat astride them, locking our fingers around their back fins for lack of any other place to hold on. With a speed that nearly made us lose our grip, they took off across the water towards the Hereford, and once they were alongside, took a flying leap that brought them nearly level with the deck. We barely had time to shout, "Wait just a minute!" to the astonished John Winter and Captain Shakespeare, before the dolphins fell back down to the sea.
       I took a quick breath, just before my dolphin went under and swam at a speed that would do credit to the swiftest of ships. The rush through the water was so exhilarating that I forgot about holding my breath. By the time I noticed, I realized that I had been breathing as naturally as if I were a fish or amphibian, just as the dolphins had promised.
       The dolphins swam deeper, weaving among mounds of deep-green coral. It was like traveling through a valley that wound its labyrinthine way through steep, forested mountains, except for the rainbow-colored fish that constantly flitted across our path. Then, as we rounded a bend, we suddenly saw that the dolphins had not been exaggerating: they had led us to an amazing sight that surely no human being had ever seen before.
       It was an undersea palace. It was bigger than the Shogun's castle in Edo, which was the largest castle I had ever seen on land. The walls were made of coral in a myriad of vibrant colors, the towers topped with minarets that looked like giant cone shells. The palace grounds consisted of dozens of interconnected buildings, including one that I took to be a temple, judging from the solemn procession of monkfish. The courtyard was a meticulously manicured garden of kelp, with fountains that sent streams of bubbles up through the water. The entire complex was lit up, as at a festival, by long strings of lanternfish.
       We approached a gate that looked like a giant scallop shell, which swung down to let us through. The dolphins took us through a long, arched tunnel of coral, where swordfish stood guard like sentries, saluting as we passed.
       After a while, the dolphins turned sharply upward, toward a hole in the roof of the tunnel, and we broke through the surface into a space full of the air we were used to breathing. After a moment's hesitation, we dismounted from the dolphins, climbed out of the pool, and examined our surroundings.
       We were at one end of a long, elliptical gallery. The floor on which we stood seemed to be made of solid sand, studded with shells of every shape and color, and the walls, which came together to form a vault like a cathedral's in place of a ceiling, were as transparent as glass, giving us a spectacular view over the rooftops of the palace.
       At the far end of the gallery was another pool like the one we had just come out of. As soon as we noticed it, we heard a low, mysterious sound that I guessed was the blowing of conch shell horns. The water in the far pool churned, and up from the depths rose a coral throne whose back, like the palace gate, was a giant scallop shell. And on this throne sat the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
       Like the Lady of the Lake from the legend of King Arthur, she somehow managed to look perfectly elegant and composed even after she had just emerged from the water. Her clothes were iridescent, constantly changing color like the sea itself. Under a gossamer garment, white but shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow, she wore a kimono of some unearthly material that sparkled with shifting shades of blue. Looking at it was like watching the sunbeams dancing on a tropical sea. A loop of the translucent white material behind her head looked like a halo or aureole, as you might see in an icon of a saint.
       She stood up and spread her arms wide. "Welcome to Ryugujo, the Palace of the Dragon God," she said. "My name is Otohime."
       Unsure of how to address her, Oyuki and I made somewhat awkward bows and introduced ourselves.
       "My messengers inform me," Otohime said, stepping down from her throne, "that you saved their lives."
       I glanced at Oyuki, who looked down with a slight blush. "I couldn't have done otherwise."
       Otohime beamed. "It gladdens my heart to meet someone who still remembers that any living thing on land, in the air, or in the sea, can be one of the Eight Million Gods. If you honor them, they will honor you."
       "They've certainly done that," I said, with an admiring look around. "This is a pleasure I don't imagine many...surface-dwellers ever have."
       "The pleasure is mine," Otohime replied. "As you say, I don't get many visitors from up above. Although we did have one just a week or two ago, a delightful lad by the name of Urashima Taro. I don't suppose you know him?"
       "Urashima Taro?" Oyuki echoed, with a distant look as though trying to remember where she had heard the name before. "It sounds familiar, but I can't say I've ever met him."
       "Oh, well," Otohime said, with a note of disappointment in her voice. "I just wondered how he was doing. But anyway, you must allow me to offer you some refreshments."
       She clapped her hands, and immediately a low table appeared out of nowhere, spread with a greater variety of seafood than I had ever known existed. There were three cushions side by side on the floor next to it. Otohime knelt on the middle one, and gestured to us to be seated on either side of her. Oyuki, who had grown up in Japan, slid gracefully to her knees just as Otohime had. I, who was still getting used to the Japanese manner, sat cross-legged.
       As we served ourselves, we saw through the transparent dome that an underwater pageant was beginning outside. To the accompaniment of guitarfish, drumfish, and sea bass, a troupe of mermaids and tritons performed spectacular dances and feats of acrobatics (or aquabatics), spinning and turning somersaults in perfect time to the music.
       "Synchronized swimming," I marveled. "Do you suppose we humans could ever do that?"
       Oyuki shook her head. "Not in a hundred years."
       After the dances came a circus performance, with sea lion tamers followed by a school of clownfish that had us doubled over with laughter. Next, Otohime tried to coax a recitation out of a Shy Hamlet, but that reminded me that Captain Shakespeare and the Hereford were waiting for us. The dolphins had promised that it wouldn't take long, but it already felt as though we had been in this magical undersea kingdom for hours. I could imagine John Winter going mad with worry for his daughter, and Captain Shakespeare -- in eloquent blank verse, of course -- cursing at the delay.
       "Otohime-sama," I said, giving her the honorific used for royalty and nobility, "thank you very, very much for your hospitality. This has truly been an experience we'll never forget. But our captain, and Oyuki's father, are waiting for us. We've been under water a long time, and they're probably afraid we've drowned."
       "Of course," Otohime said, sounding sad but still gracious. "My messengers will carry you back up to the surface. Where would you like them to take you?"
       "To our ship. The same place they found us."
       "As you wish. And before you go, I'd like to give you a little present."
       From the folds of her kimono, she took out a small bag on a cord, woven from the same iridescent, gossamer material as the ring of cloth behind her head. Inside was a box, tied with a red cord, and made of some mysterious substance. Its surface constantly shimmered as though reflecting the sunlight dancing on the surface of the sea.
       "This is a tamatebako," she said. "Keep it always with you. It will be a talisman to protect you. But promise me one thing: Never, upon any account, are you to open it."
       Oyuki and I exchanged a glance. What kind of present was it, I had to wonder, if it could never be opened? From the puzzled look on Oyuki's face, she was thinking the same thing.
       "What's in it?" I asked.
       "Promise me," Otohime repeated more insistently. "You will never open it, for any reason on earth."
       "All right," I said. "I promise."
       Her face relaxed back into her usual gracious smile. She looked toward the pool at the end of the hall, where we had first arrived. When next she opened her mouth, the sound that came out sounded more like dolphin chatter than human speech, but as with the dolphins, I could understand her meaning: We're ready.
       A moment later, the two dolphins who had brought us swam up to the surface of the pool. We lowered ourselves into the water, sat astride them, and grasped their dorsal fins.
       "Thank you, Otohime!" we said together.
       "Thank you for coming," she replied. "It was a delight to meet you. And if, by any chance, you should happen to see Urashima Taro, give him greetings from Otohime, and tell him she misses him and thinks of him often."
       We waved one last farewell as the dolphins dived. They swam back through the corridors of Ryugujo and the valleys between coral mountains, before taking us back up to the surface, letting us off, and immediately diving back down into the depths.
       As soon as we were back in the open air, the first thing I noticed was how cold it was. The weather had been pleasant when we left, sunny and still warm even though it was the end of September. Now, the sky was grey, and a chill wind swept across the water, blowing an icy spray into our faces.
       The second was that the Hereford was nowhere in sight.