her bones in Sandag Bay, and how weak it would be to consider rights so
long extinguished and misfortunes so long forgotten in the process of
time.
I had my theory of where to seek for her remains. The set of the current
and the soundings both pointed to the east side of the bay under the
ledge of rocks. If she had been lost in Sandag Bay, and if, after these
centuries, any portion 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 along-side 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
<<BackPagesTo menuNext>>