he midnight heavens. It was gone, but it had
been; nor shall I ever again behold the stars with the same mind. He who
has seen the sea commoved with a great hurricane, thinks of it very
differently from him who has seen it only in a calm. And the difference
between a calm and a hurricane is not greatly more striking than that
between the ordinary face of night and the splendour that shone upon us
in that drive. Two in our waggon knew night as she shines upon the
tropics, but even that bore no comparison. The nameless colour of the
sky, the hues of the star fire, and the incredible projection of the
stars themselves, starting from their orbits, so that the eye seemed to
distinguish their positions in the hollow of space--these were things
that we had never seen before and shall never see again.

Meanwhile, in this altered night, we proceeded on our way among the
scents and silence of the forest, reached the top of the grade, wound up
by Hanson's, and came at last to a stand under the flying gargoyle of
the chute. Lloyd, who had been lying back, fast asleep, with the moon on
his face, got down, with the remark that it was pleasant "to be home."
The waggon turned and drove away, the noise gently dying in the woods,
and we clambered up the rough path, Caliban's great feat of engineering,
and came home to Silverado.

The moon shone in at the eastern doors and windows and over the lumber,
on the platform. The one tall pine beside the ledge was steeped in
silver. Away up the canyon, a wild cat welcomed us with three discordant
squalls. But once we had lit a candle, and began to review our
improvements, homely in either sense, and count our stores, it was
wonderful what a feeling of possession and permanence grew up in the
hearts of the lords of Silverado. A bed had still to be made up for our
guest, and the morning's water to be fetched, with clinking pail; and as
we set about these household duties, and showed off our wealth and
conveniences before the stranger, and had a glass of wine, I think, in
honour of our return, and trooped at length one after another up the
flying bridge of plank, and laid down to sleep in our shattered,
moon-pierced barrack, we were among the happiest sovereigns in the
world, and certainly ruled over the most contented people. Yet, in our
absence, the palace had been sacked. Wild cats, so the Hansons said, had
broken in and carried off a side of bacon, a hatchet, and two knives.