midnight
Yet even with this very thought came once more the old inconsistent tenderness he had as a boy lavished upon the almost unknown and fugitive father who had forsaken his childish companionship , and remembered him only by secret gifts . He remembered how he had worshiped him even while the pious padres at San Jose were endeavoring to eliminate this terrible poison from his blood and combat his hereditary instinct in his conflicts with his school-fellows . And it was a part of this inconsistency that , riding away from the scene of his first bloodshed , his eyes were dimmed with moisture , not for his victim , but for the one being who he believed had impelled him to the act . This and more was in his mind during his long ride to Fair Plains , his journey by coach to the Embarcadero , his midnight passage across the dark waters of the bay , and his re-entrance to San Francisco , but what should be his future was still unsettled . As he wound round the crest of Russian Hill and looked down again upon the awakened city , he was startled to see that it was fluttering and streaming with bunting . From every public building and hotel , from the roofs of private houses , and even the windows of lonely dwellings , flapped and waved the striped and starry banner . The steady breath of the sea carried it out from masts and yards of ships at their wharves , from the battlements of the forts Alcatraz and Yerba Bueno .