Colonel Clark again addressed the men in words stirring and heroic, and the command to embark was given. Company by company we stepped upon the flat boats, and drifted rapidly down the Ohio to the falls, each raft guided by a skilled poleman, who stood erect, steering carefully for the one channel through which we could safely shoot the falls. The crowd on the bank was still cheering the last boat load, as the first dropped over the edge of the rapids. At that moment the sun, which had beamed less fiercely for some time, though in our engrossment we had taken little notice of the fact, became suddenly obscured, and the dimness of twilight fell upon gliding river, green banks, and tumbling falls. One could scarcely recognize the faces of his companions beside him in the boat, nor the polemen see to steer. The cheering ceased, and over man, beast and nature fell an awesome stillness. The birds in the branches of the overhanging trees ceased their glad caroling, the insects their buzzing, the fish their plunging, even the hurrying river seemed hushed into a more subdued murmur, and the noise of the falls to subside into a muffled roar.
The men in my boat drew in their breath; one uttered a stifled sigh, another a low moan; and I realized that a word might precipitate a panic. I stood up and studied the sky for explanation of the phenomenon. The sun held his wonted place in a cloudless sky, but over his radiant face lay a black disc, leaving only a bright rim upon one edge.
"It is an eclipse, comrades," I called, in my loudest tones, "an eclipse of the sun. I take it for a good sign--symbol of what we shall do for autocratic power upon this continent, only that will be a lasting, as well as a total, eclipse."
My words had magic effect upon the men in our boat, and in the two others near enough to hear my words. Clark must have said something similar to those in his, and adjacent boats, for I saw him spring to his feet, pointing to the sun, and simultaneously with our shouts of "Eclipse, eclipse! good sign, good omen! Thus we'll blot out the forts in the northwest," came like cries from the other boats, and answering cheers from the bank. So the ominous portent, as it seemed at first, was changed into a symbol of encouragement.