The following night and day were passed like their predecessors.
Another night came, and we were over the eastern bound of the State of
California. A few hours more, without accident, would terminate our
remarkable voyage, and set us down in the city of San Francisco. All of
us were brimming high with hope. Though we did not anticipate reaching
the station before one or two o'clock in the morning, and probably
should not disembark before dawn, we were loath to retire to rest. It
was near midnight before all of us were in our berths.
But when at length there, I found it impossible to sleep. The
excitement attendant on the beginning of the trip seemed to have
returned on me with a double force. I listened for some sound to
relieve the awful stillness which, like the wing of Death, seemed to
have settled over the "Flying Cloud"; but there was no soughing of the
wind, as at sea, and no noise to be heard, save the monotonous movement
of the engine and the paddle-wheels; and this, so evenly did they play,
was rather a motion than a sound.
This period of restlessness was succeeded by one of strange
bewilderment, which might have been sleep, or might not Rapidly
changing scenes and fantastic figures, some of them beautiful and some
horrible, flitted before me like a dissolving panorama.
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