f a soft, white, woolly mass, such as one sees in the sky on an
April day; but as he came nearer he found the cloud was as hard as a
rock, and covered with a kind of dry, white grass.

When he got there, he sat down on a tuft of grass near the cave, and
considered what he should do next.

The first thing was, of course, to bring the dragon out, and the next
to make him breathe water instead of fire.

"I have it!" cried Wang Chih at last; and he nodded his head so many
times that the white crane expected to see it fall off.

He struck a light, and set the grass on fire, and it was so dry that
the flames spread all around the entrance to the cave, and made such a
smoke and crackling that the sky-dragon put his head out to see what
was the matter.

"Ho! ho!" cried the dragon, when he saw what Wang Chih had done, "I
can soon put this to rights." And he breathed once, and the water came
out his nose and mouth in three streams.

But this was not enough to put the fire out. Then he breathed twice,
and the water came out in three mighty rivers, and Wang Chih, who had
taken care to fill his bottle when the first stream began to flow,
sailed away on the white crane's back as fast as he could, to escape
being drowned.

The rivers poured over the cloud rock, until there was not a spark
left alight, and rushed down through the sky into the sea below.

Fortunately, the sea lay right underneath the dragon's cave, or he
would have done some nice mischief. As it was, the people on the
coast looked out across the water toward Japan, and saw three
inky-black clouds stretching from the sky into the sea.

"My word! There is a fine rain-storm out at sea!" they said to each
other.

But, of course, it was nothing of the kind; it was only the sky-dragon
putting out the fire Wang Chih had kindled.

Meanwhile, Wang Chih was on his way to the moon, and when he got there
he went straight to the hut where the Hare of the Moon lived, and
knocked at the door.

The Hare was busy pounding the drugs which make up the elixir of life;
but he left his work, and opened the door, and invited Wang Chih to
come in.

He was not ugly, like the dragon; his fur was quite white and soft and
glossy, and he had lovely, gentle brown eyes.

The Hare of the Moon lives a thousand years, as you know, and when he
is five hundred years old he changes his colour, from brown to white,
and becomes, if possible, better tempered and nicer than he was
before.