The Dragon Girl

There was a fisher of the southern sea named A-Chao, who plied his boat among the deep waters. In a storm he spied a woman floating upon a broken mast, her robes all red, a wound at her thigh, faint of breath. Chao pitied her, bore her to his boat, bound the wound with sea-grass, and fed her warm gruel. After three days the woman woke, and said her name was Long, youngest daughter of the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea, wounded by a mirage-spirit and cast adrift. Chao gave her plain food; each night she sang low by the window, clear and far-carrying, and Chao forgot his weariness to hear it. When a month had passed and her wound was healed, she took her leave. Chao clutched her sleeve and wept: "I am poor and have nothing to give, only I wish you safe." She smiled, and loosed a single pearl from her hair to him: "Keep this in memory." Then she pointed to the bottom of the boat: "There is something there; take it." Chao looked, and found a bushel of bright pearls, outshining star and moon, each worth a thousand gold. At the water's edge she bowed; the wind rose, the waves parted, and she became a white dragon and went into the sea. Chao prospered by it, and never wed; whenever the winds rose he faced the sea and bowed. The Chronicler of the Strange remarks: The dragon-girl's gift was heavy with pearls; the fisher's virtue, no more than warm gruel. He who gives forgets his gift, and she who is given forgets not—that is true generosity. They who reckon interest upon a cup of water should blush to hear this.