midnight
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 ° 7 ' North Latitude and 118 ° 37 ' West Longitude -LRB- Greenwich -RRB- . 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 .