Here and
there a few treetops were discovered and then whelmed again; and
for one second, the bough of a dead pine beckoned out of the spray
like the arm of a drowning man. But still the imagination was
dissatisfied, still the ear waited for something more. Had this
indeed been water (as it seemed so, to the eye), with what a plunge
of reverberating thunder would it have rolled upon its course,
disembowelling mountains and deracinating pines! And yet water it
was, and sea-water at that--true Pacific billows, only somewhat
rarefied, rolling in mid air among the hilltops.
I climbed still higher, among the red rattling gravel and dwarf
underwood of Mount Saint Helena, until I could look right down upon
Silverado, and admire the favoured nook in which it lay. The sunny
plain of fog was several hundred feet higher; behind the protecting
spur a gigantic accumulation of cottony vapour threatened, with
every second, to blow over and submerge our homestead; but the
vortex setting past the Toll House was too strong; and there lay
our little platform, in the arms of the deluge, but still enjoying
its unbroken sunshine. About eleven, however, thin spray came
flying over the friendly buttress, and I began to think the fog had
hunted out its Jonah after all. But it was the last effort. The
wind veered while we were at dinner, and began to blow squally from
the mountain summit; and by half-past one, all that world of sea-
fogs was utterly routed and flying here and there into the south in
little rags of cloud.
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