High-Low Jack was the congenial spirit by
whose active and intelligent aid he promised himself the pleasure of
seeing before long the whole Pacific Ocean covered with a vast
reticulation of electric cables. The practical part, therefore, being in
such safe hands, Mr. Field could remain with a quiet conscience in
Washington, New York or London, seeing after the financial part of the
grand undertaking, worthy of the Nineteenth Century, worthy of the Great
Republic, and eminently worthy of the illustrious CYRUS W. himself!
As already mentioned, the _Susquehanna_ lay a few hundred miles south
of San Diego, or, to be more accurate, in 27 deg. 7' North Latitude and 118 deg.
37' West Longitude (Greenwich).
It was now a little past midnight. The Moon, in her last quarter, was
just beginning to peep over the eastern horizon. Lieutenant Brownson,
leaving the quarter deck, had gone to the forecastle, where he found a
crowd of officers talking together earnestly and directing their glasses
towards her disc. Even here, out on the ocean, the Queen of the night,
was as great an object of attraction as on the North American Continent
generally, where, that very night and that very hour, at least 40
million pairs of eyes were anxiously gazing at her.
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