on of her held together, it was there that I should
find it. The water deepens, as I have said, with great rapidity, and
even close alongside the rocks several fathoms may be found. As I walked
upon the edge I could see far and wide over the sandy bottom of the bay;
the sun shone clear and green and steady in the deeps; the bay seemed
rather like a great transparent crystal, as one sees them in a
lapidary's shop; there was naught to show that it was water but an
internal trembling, a hovering within of sun-glints and netted shadows,
and now and then a faint lap and a dying bubble round the edge. The
shadows of the rocks lay out for some distance at their feet, so that my
own shadow, moving, pausing, and stooping on the top of that, reached
sometimes half across the bay. It was above all in this belt of shadows
that I hunted for the _Espirito Santo_; since it was there the undertow
ran strongest, whether in or out. Cool as the whole water seemed this
broiling day, it looked, in that part, yet cooler, and had a mysterious
invitation for the eyes. Peer as I pleased, however, I could see nothing
but a few fishes or a bush of sea-tangle, and here and there a lump of
rock that had fallen from above and now lay separate on the sandy floor.
Twice did I pass from one end to the other of the rocks, and in the
whole distance I could see nothing of the wreck, nor any place but one
where it was possible for it to be. This was a large terrace in five
fathoms of water, raised off the surface of the sand to a considerable
height, and looking from above like a mere outgrowth of the rocks on
which I walked. It was one mass of great sea-tangles like a grove, which
prevented me judging of its nature, but in shape and size it bore some
likeness to a vessel's hull. At least it was my best chance. If the
_Espirito Santo_ lay not there under the tangles, it lay nowhere at all
in Sandag Bay; and I prepared to put the question to the proof, once and
for all, and either go back to Aros a rich man or cured for ever of my
dreams of wealth.

I stripped to the skin, and stood on the extreme margin with my hands
clasped, irresolute. The bay at that time was utterly quiet; there was
no sound but from a school of porpoises somewhere out of sight behind
the point; yet a certain fear withheld me on the threshold of my
venture. Sad sea-feelings, scraps of my uncle's superstitions, thoughts
of the dead, of the grave, of the old broken ships, drifted through