fact of him, as a creature like myself, with hair and blood and
seeing eyes, haunted me in that sunny, solitary place, not like a
spectre, but like some friend whom I had basely injured. Was the
great treasure ship indeed below there, with her guns and chain and
treasure, as she had sailed from Spain; her decks a garden for the
seaweed, her cabin a breeding place for fish, soundless but for the
dredging water, motionless but for the waving of the tangle upon
her battlements - that old, populous, sea-riding castle, now a reef
in Sandag Bay? Or, as I thought it likelier, was this a waif from
the disaster of the foreign brig - was this shoe-buckle bought but
the other day and worn by a man of my own period in the world's
history, hearing the same news from day to day, thinking the same
thoughts, praying, perhaps, in the same temple with myself?
However it was, I was assailed with dreary thoughts; my uncle's
words, 'the dead are down there,' echoed in my ears; and though I
determined to dive once more, it was with a strong repugnance that
I stepped forward to the margin of the rocks.

A great change passed at that moment over the appearance of the
bay. It was no more that clear, visible interior, like a house
roofed with glass, where the green, submarine sunshine slept so
stilly. A breeze, I suppose, had flawed the surface, and a sort of
trouble and blackness filled its bosom, where flashes of light and
clouds of shadow tossed confusedly together. Even the terrace
below obscurely rocked and quivered. It seemed a graver thing to
venture on this place of ambushes; and when I leaped into the sea
the second time it was with a quaking in my soul.

I secured myself as at first, and groped among the waving tangle.
All that met my touch was cold and soft and gluey. The thicket was