g found Niagara pitched to the key of his lacerated and tumultuous
feelings. There were few people at the Cataract House, and either the
bridal season had not set in, or in America a bride has been evolved who
does not show any consciousness of her new position. In his present mood
the place seemed deserted, the figures of the few visitors gliding about
as in a dream, as if they too had been subdued by the recent commission
which had silenced the drivers, and stopped the mills, and made the park
free, and was tearing down the presumptuous structures along the bank. In
this silence, which emphasized the quaking of the earth and air, there
was a sense of unknown, impending disaster. It was not to be borne
indoors, and the two friends went out into the night.

On the edge of the rapids, above the hotel, the old bath-house was in
process of demolition, its shaking piazza almost overhanging the flood.
Not much could be seen from it, but it was in the midst of an elemental
uproar. Some electric lamps shining through the trees made high lights
on the crests of the rapids, while the others near were in shadow and
dark. The black mass of Goat Island appeared under the lightning flashes
in the northwest sky, and whenever these quick gleams pierced the gloom
the frail bridge to the island was outlined for a moment, and then
vanished as if it had been swept away, and there could only be seen
sparks of light in the houses on the Canadian shore, which seemed very
near. In this unknown, which was rather felt than seen, there was a
sense of power and of mystery which overcame the mind; and in the black
night the roar, the cruel haste of the rapids, tossing white gleams and
hurrying to the fatal plunge, begat a sort of terror in the spectators.
It was a power implacable, vengeful, not to be measured. They strolled
down to Prospect Park. The gate was closed; it had been the scene of an
awful tragedy but a few minutes before. They did not know it, but they
knew that the air shuddered, and as they skirted the grounds along the
way to the foot-bridge the roar grew in their stunned ears. There,
projected out into the night, were the cables of steel holding the frail
platform over the abyss of night and terror. Beyond was Canada. There
was light enough in the sky to reveal, but not to dissipate, the
appalling insecurity. What an impious thing it seemed to them, this
trembling structure across the chasm! They advanced upon it. There were
gleams