Between the right arm of the reef and the starboard bow of the hulk a ridge of rock gave access to the deck, and as the others crossed over he took his seat to rest for a moment and contemplate the thing before him.
To see the Sphinx properly, one should visit it alone, and so with the great wreck of the Nombre de Dios,—if that were its name,—crouching here, camouflaged with rock-growth and weed, swollen, sinister in the blazing sunlight, and sung to by the chime and gurgle of the sea.
Sunk in shallow water,—so the tale ran,—raised by that alteration in level constantly in progress among the reefs and islands, freighted with treasure, and guilty of the death of many a man—well, the tale here rang true. On board the Sarah one might doubt, but here, even in face of that chart which seemed faked, one believed,—mainly, perhaps, because one wanted to believe.
Here, sitting on the reef, one became part of the story, just as when the lights of the theater are lowered one becomes part of the play. The flower-blue sky, the sapphire sea, the tepid wind, the shouting gulls, all became confederates. One saw, in the far past, the Nombre de Dios setting sail,—the tragic figure of Lopez on her quarterdeck; the sinking of her in shallow, reef-strewn water; the escape in the boats; men dying of starvation; the lapse of years; Lopez dying with her secret still hidden; and Lone Reef rising still higher out of the sea to expose more fully the murdered ship.
The reef had always been here, for it was down in the oldest charts. Had it really risen? Was that chart, as Satan supposed, a lie?
According to Sellers’ story, the Nombre de Dios had been sunk in six-fathom water, thirty-six-foot. Well, if that was so, Satan was right, for the highest point of the reef was only six feet above water, and when she was sunk the reef would have been thirty feet under water and so uncharted.
There was the chance that Lopez might have sailed her into the creek, deeper in those days, and that the creek bottom might have raised itself to its present level, the reef remaining the same. This seemed unlikely.
And yet the decks must have been under water once, to account for the old coral deposits.
It was low tide in the creek now: high-tide mark was six feet below the deck level. He tried to calculate how far she must have been lifted, gave up the attempt, and, rising, crossed by the rock bridge to her deck.
This bridge of rock was another factor in the insoluble problem. It seemed placed there by some marine architect without reason, built up out of huge fragments as if from some fallen peak or spire.