"A new day has dawned," she said. "Let us give thanks to God."
CHAPTER XXX
THE END OF THE JOURNEY
For a few minutes we were silent. Water and land and sky started into
new glories at the touch of the rising sun. The many-hilled city took
on the hues of a fairy picture, and the windows gleamed with the magic
fires that were flashed back in greeting to the god of day. The few
cotton-ball clouds that lingered about the mountain-tops, sole
stragglers of the army that had trooped up from the south at the blast
of the rain-wind, turned from pink to white. The green-gray waters of
the bay rippled lightly in the tide as the tug sent the miniature
surges trailing in diverging lines from its bow. The curtain of mist
that hid the Alameda shore rose and lightened at the touch of the warm
rays. The white sails of the high-masted ships scattered through the
bay, drooped in graceful festoons as they turned to the sun to rid them
of the rain-water that clung to their folds. The ferry-boats, moving
with mock majesty, furnished the signs of life to the silent panorama.
It seemed scarcely possible that this was the raging, tossing water we
had crossed last night. And the fiery scene of passion and death we had
just witnessed was so foreign to its calm beauties, that I could
believe it had happened elsewhere in some dream of long ago.
I was roused by the voice of Mrs. Knapp, who sat at the head of the
cabin stairs, looking absently over the water.
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