“That’s the bay,” said Candon, pointing ahead.
It was noon and the Wear Jack, with all plain sail set, was driving straight for a great blue break in the reefs, Hank at the helm and Candon giving directions. The Chinks were all on deck, gathered forward, their faces turned shoreward, gazing at the land almost with interest.
“Where are the whales?” asked Tommie suddenly. “You said it was all covered with the skeletons of whales.”
“You’ll see them quick enough,” said Candon. “Port, steady so.”
The rip of the outgoing tide was making a lather round the reef spurs. Ahead the diamond-bright dead blue water showed up to a line where it suddenly turned to emerald.
“It’s twenty fathoms up to there,” said Candon, “and then the sands take hold. I’m anchoring somewhere about here. It’s a good bottom. Make ready with the anchor there!”
He held on for another minute or so, then the wind spilled from the sails and the anchor fell in fifteen fathom water and nearly half a mile from the shore.
The boat was got over, with two Chinks to do the rowing, and they started, Candon steering.
“Where’s the whales?” asked Tommie.
They were almost on to the beach now and there lay the sands singing to the sun and wind. Miles and miles of sand, with ponds of mirage to the south, and gulls strutting on the uncovered beach; a vast desolation, with, far overhead, just a dot in the blue, an eagle from the hills of Sinaloa. An eagle so high as to be all but invisible, whose eyes could yet number the shells on the beach and the movement of the smallest crab. But where were the whales?