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.