"How much enthusiasm have you pumped up?"
"Enthusiasm!" Gwynne's eyes roved over his "fair domain." Isabel, at least, was not far from its borders! "I cannot say that I am at boiling-point, but I don't fancy that matters much. I have my work cut out and I shall do it. Perhaps I shall work more disinterestedly without enthusiasm. Certainly I shall be more clear-sighted. If ever there was a time in the history of a country to sink individual ambition, it is now."
"Gwynne!" said Colton, abruptly. "What in thunder does it all amount to, anyhow? What difference does it make—will it make a thousand years hence—that you and I are sitting here on the very edge of creation, solemnly discussing the rottenest subject of our little time—American politics? What's the use of the socialists frothing, and nations trying to overturn one another? I had rather die on the spot than that the United States should be conquered for five minutes by Japan or any other Asiatic power, although I could endure the victory of a people that I recognized as our equals. Why are instincts planted so strongly? There may be a reason for a few years; but that's just it, a few mean little years and it is all over. What difference does anything really make, so long as we are comfortable? Everything else, every other instinct, is artificial. My wife is a religious little body and believes in reward and punishment hereafter, that we must spend at least a certain part of our time in this life preparing for the next. I'd like to believe the same, not only to please her, but because I could look forward to meeting my child again; but, somehow, I can't. The present has always been about as much as I could tackle. And I fancy that when I'm through with it, I won't want any more. But although the present whirls so fast that I don't have time for the sort of thinking intellectual people like you and Isabel do, still it does sometimes dash across my mind—that question: 'What is it all for? And why do we sweat through life for what amounts to exactly nothing in the end?'"
"You cannot be sure it amounts to nothing. Sometimes I have the fancy that the entire round globe has just one inhabitant, of which we merely appear to be individual manifestations: that we are, in fact, a part of the earth herself, and she absorbs and casts us forth again, as she rushes along to her own destiny as sentient as ourselves. All the planets are alive in the same way, and they are all racing to see which will make the greatest showing on what we call down here the Judgment Day—that is to say, which shall have produced the most balanced and perfected being; which shall have whirled away the most original sin and sifted out a man, great and good without self-righteousness—to my mind the worst of mortal failings because its correlative, injustice, is the source of most of the unhappiness. That will be the millennium, and having no windmills and evils left to fight, we minute visibilities will welcome deindividualization. Then, no doubt, there will be a grand final battle between the great body of good thus formed, and the evil cast out, but roaming space and joining forces. If we do our best here we shall win, and be happy ever after. There is no question, that if you follow your higher instincts you are happier in the long run than if you fall a slave to your base and mean; and that, to my mind, is the proof that the highest instincts are meant to be followed to some greater end."
"Hm. I have heard a good many theories, first and last, and that sounds as plausible as any."
"All this is very casually related to American politics, except that we had better clean up when the opportunity is vouchsafed us; for nothing degrades human nature nor retards civilization so much as politics gone altogether wrong. As far as you are concerned, although it was understood that the compact was to end with my citizenship, I have no thought of ending it unless the conditions I hope for shall crystallize meanwhile. If it seems best to keep the Democratic party unsplit I shall do your canvassing and speaking, for it will make me known, and give me the opportunity to inculcate the principles I purpose to advocate. If you ignore them when you are in office, so much the worse for you, and better for me; for, as I have told you more than once, the moment I am in power I shall devote my energies to pulling you and your like down and out. But I should advise you to join the third party if it arises."
"No doubt I might, if it were strong enough," said Colton, frankly. "I don't propose to play any losing game, and if the Democratic party goes by the board, T. R. Colton doesn't follow. And if a third party came in to stay it would have to have a boss—"
"Not your sort."
"Oh, well, time enough." Colton's ill-humor was now somnolent under some two pounds of peanuts. He rose and shook hands with Gwynne. "Glad to see you looking so well—you're some heavier than when you came to California, by-the-way, and it suits you first rate. Be sure you call on my wife the first time you come to town."
He declined Gwynne's invitation to dinner, and drove off, looking slothful and amiable once more. But what went on behind that mask, within that long ill-built cranium, Gwynne had never pretended to guess. Nor, to-day, did he care.
At three o'clock he gave his horse to Abe, was told that the lady of the manor was out walking, and went into the house. He had a fancy to meet her again in the room that harbored the sweetest of his California memories. It was dark and cool. Only one window, looking upon the garden, was open. Beside it was a comfortable chair which he took possession of and looked out into the wild old garden so different from the excessively cultivated plots of Rosewater and his own meagre strips. There was no veranda on this side of the house, and the great acacia-tree, with its weight of fragrant gold, was but a few feet from the window. The entire garden was enclosed by a hedge of the Castilian roses of which he had heard so much, rare as they now were in California. The dull green leaves and tight little buds could hardly be seen for the mass of wide fluted roses of a deep old-fashioned pink. And there were large irregular borders covered with the luxuriant green and the blue stars of the periwinkle, beds of marguerites and violets, bushes of lilac and honeysuckles, roses and jasmine. The blended perfumes were overpowering, however delicious; Gwynne had sat up half the night before talking to his mother after a long hot journey; he fell asleep.
Perhaps it was his late conversation, perhaps something more subtle, but he felt himself transported to a void. In a moment he realized that the void was not space as he knew it, but rigid invisible substance. He slipped along through rocky strata, hearing strange echoes and inhaling the disagreeable odors of healing waters. Suddenly he found himself in a vast hollowed space, empty but for many pillars. His vision grew keener. In the very centre of the hall he saw two pillars of a colossal size, and standing between them a being almost as large. This unthinkable giant had an arm about each pillar and strained as Samson had strained at the pillars of the temple. Then a new and powerful force drew him upward once more, and he awoke.
He turned his head towards the dim interior of the room and for a dazed moment thought that he beheld Spring herself. She wore white and had dropped a mass of wild flowers at her feet; she looked as if rising out of them. Her hat was covered with poppies and wild azalea, and she had a sheaf of buttercups and "blue eyes" in her belt.
"I haven't changed my ideas one bit," she said, with a shrug, as Gwynne rose and came towards her. "But I can't help it!"
Isabel rose as usual at five, but, instead of dressing at once, stood at her window idly and looked out over the marsh. Thirteen hours before she had made a decision on the instant, or so it seemed to her, and in that instant changed her life so completely that she was still a little dizzy, and the future as yet had taken on no coherent form. She had even told Gwynne she was positive she couldstandhim for ever, and this, with her varied if incomplete knowledge of his sex, she took to be even more significant and hopeful than the uncompromising sense of loving him. No doubt there would be many interesting battles before two such developed personalities became more or less one, but at least he had none of the petty and selfish and altogether detestable qualities of her father, her uncle, and Lyster Stone; and he was entirely human. And he was young and she was young. It all seemed very wonderful; wonderful to be so happy, and yet to feel that she had relinquished nothing, or at least not the tenth of what she would have lost if she had married Prestage—or any other man. If she had not met Gwynne she knew that she never should have married at all, and, not having had the best within her ken, been happy enough.
And yet she was a little sad, and it was by no means the gentle melancholy of reaction. She had reason, and felt a disposition to box her own ears. She knew that Gwynne, triumphant and happy as he was, had ridden away vaguely dissatisfied. He had turned and given her a keen questioning glance as he mounted, and had not turned again. She had laughed, and waved her hand, and felt a new desire to tantalize him.
She had abandoned herself to sheer happiness the day before, to the mere pagan delight in an ardent lover come in her own ardent youth, to the sense of an unbroken circle of companionship, and to so wild a triumph in having brought Gwynne to her feet, made him quite mad about her, that she had fairly danced about the room, and tormented him as far as she dared.
This was Wednesday. They were to be married on Saturday, that Lady Victoria, who was leaving for England in the evening, might nod them a blessing. Then, no doubt, Gwynne would have his way in most things, and she already felt the stirrings of mere female ductility. But meanwhile she should exercise and enjoy her own power to the full. And she had good reason to believe that no woman had ever been more charming, distracting, provocative. If Gwynne had been in love when he came, he had kissed her very feet when he left, and had been as bewitched as anyone so clear-brained could be. Moreover, she had promised him everything he wished, agreed without demur to the hasty marriage, and even, when he asked her whether she would prefer to live in her house or his, had sweetly left it to him to decide. They were to spend the honeymoon in the house on Russian Hill. She was incapable of looking beyond that. There had been at least twenty bewildering hints that when his time came one rein, at least, should be his—in all matters of great moment, two—and although no doubt she would break away very often, what more delightful than to recapture and subdue? What more could a man want than the most fascinating woman in the world, whom only his own passion could shock from mere existence into the fulness of life? But Gwynne, in the depths of his swimming brain, had wanted something more, and Isabel knew that if he had slept as ill as herself, the doubt had more than once assailed him if she were anything more than a charming beautiful and clever creature, save perverse and egotistical; who would keep him distractedly in love with her, but leave the best part of him unsatisfied.
Her perversity had gone with him, and during a more or less wakeful night she had repented, and even wept at the thought that something might occur to exterminate him before ten o'clock on the following morning—when they were to meet again—and he would depart unconsoled by the knowledge that it was the greater needs in his own nature that had called to hers. At least she hoped this was so, and, in an excess of humility, wondered if she really had enough to give—the power to insure their complete happiness. She had lived in a sort of fool's paradise, and no doubt imagined herself a far more rounded being than she was. Well, she could grow, and finally she had curled down into her pillow and fallen asleep.
This morning she was rather tired, and although still repentant, suspicious that when he returned her femininity would fly up with her spirits, and she would be more than content to fascinate and bewilder him. Like all women in love and fumbling blindly through the outer mysteries, she was eagerly psychological, discovering once for all her sex and herself.
Her eyes had been fixed dreamily upon Tamalpais, but suddenly they were drawn irresistibly upward by the pricking consciousness of something strange. It was a moment before she realized that she had never seen a sky just like that before. Her back was to the east, and although the sun was rising it was still low; at this stage of the dawn the sky was generally gray. This morning it was a ghastly electric blue. And then, while her eyes were still staring, and something in her brain moving towards expression, she heard a noise that sounded like the roar of artillery charging across the world. She fancied it rushing through the Golden Gate and up the bays and marsh, before it hurled itself with a vicious and personal violence against the wall beneath her window. She braced herself against the sash as the house shook in the strongest earthquake she had ever felt. It appeared to be brief, however, and she was turning away to dress herself, when it commenced again with a fury and violence of which she had never dreamed the modern earth to be capable. She threw herself on her knees the better to grip the window-ledge, but her only sensations were surprise and an intense expectation. Electric flames, as blue and ghastly as the reeling sky, were playing all over the marsh, she saw the long bare line of Tamalpais charge down and up like a colossal seesaw; and in that terrific plunging and dancing, that abrupt leaping from one point of the compass to the opposite, or towards all at once, that hysterical shaking and struggling as if two planets had rushed from their orbits and were fighting for life in midspace, Isabel expected the entire globe to stand on end, and was convinced that the finish of California, at least, had come. She had read of earthquakes that lasted for hours, and even days, and no doubt this one was merely getting up steam, for it increased in violence and momentum every second. The house rattled like a big dice-box. She expected it to leap down the slope into the shivering marsh. Pieces of rock fell down the face of the cliff opposite, but so great was the roar of the earthquake, so close the sound of creaking and straining timbers, of falling chimneys, and china, and even plaster, that she could not hear the impact as they struck the ground and bounded high in air.
Then, there was a bulge of the earth upward, a twist that seemed to wrench the house from its foundations, and the earthquake ceased as suddenly as it had come. Isabel waited a few moments for it to return, incredulous that the mighty forces beneath could compose themselves so abruptly; then rose and began to dress herself.
Human blades of a fine temper meet a sudden and terrific onslaught of Nature in one of two spirits: utter cowardice, or an attitude of impersonal curiosity. It is not a matter of heroism but of nerves. The bravest may become abject, if their will has been weakened by some drain on the nervous system; others, that would run from a mouse or prove unequal to the long-heralded danger, rise, in the intense concentrated excitement and surprise of the moment, to a state of absolute and even cynical indifference. One of the unwritten laws that has descended from father to son in California is that an earthquake, no matter how severe, is a mere joke, and should incite prompt and facetious comment. Isabel being both heroic and hardy, paid the California tradition the tribute of a smile and a shrug, and regretted that she had not been in San Francisco; she "liked being in the midst of things." Sentiment, psychology, egoism, had literally been bounced out of her. She knew that Gwynne might easily have been killed, but although she intended to find out in the least possible time, to feel merely human in the face of such a stupendous exhibition of what nature could do when she chose, was a descent of which she, at least, felt herself incapable.
She hurried on her riding-clothes, dropped her braid under her jacket, and ran down the stairs. Chuma, trim and spotless, was sweeping the hall, white with fallen plaster. He gave her his usual good-morning grin and went on with his work. She paused and regarded him curiously.
"What do you think of our earthquakes?" she demanded.
"Oh, very big shake," he said, cheerfully. "Very big shake."
Vaguely nettled she took her hat from the rack and went out by the back way. Mac had knocked on her door immediately after the earthquake, and was now with Abe in the colony on the hills. He came running down when he saw her, and it was patent that his rheumatism, for once, was forgotten. His old red face with its prominent bones set in thick sandy gray hair was more animated than Isabel had ever seen it.
"Glory be!" he exclaimed, as he reached her. "That was about the worst! I was just tellin' Abe that I felt the great earthquake of '68 in this very house, in that very room, by gum, although I was up and dressed, for it was eight o'clock, and I'd gone back for my pipe. So, I know what I'm talkin' about, Miss Isabel, when I say that this was about four times as bad—"
"Please saddle my horse."
"Yes, marm. Wisht I could have got out of bed. I'd like to have seen if the earth rose and fell in a long wave like the shake of '68. Land's sakes, but those chickens did squawk." And although he saddled Kaiser rapidly, he never paused in his reminiscence of the last Northern California earthquake to pass into history. "But this one! By Jiminy! Well, I guess we take the cake in everything out here, earthquakes included."
Isabel patted the still shaking horse. "Get the launch ready," she said, as she mounted; and Mac nodded. It was characteristic that neither thought of the danger of sudden shoals, of the always possible tidal wave, or of some new and diabolical trick of nature. The nerves were still keyed too high for anything so shabby as prudence.
Kaiser, no doubt glad to put himself into motion, bounded forward as his mistress lifted the bridle, and although Isabel did give an occasional glance ahead, to make sure the earth was not yawning, she never drew rein, and the horse galloped with all his might towards Rosewater. As the marsh narrowed she saw that the town was still there, and that there were no fires. As she approached the great iron bridge that connected Rosewater with the continuation of the county road, a horseman entered at its other end and galloped across, regardless of the law or a graver danger still. The next moment Isabel and Gwynne had shaken hands casually, and were riding towards Old Inn.
His eyes were shining and almost black. "I saw the mountains rock!" he exclaimed. "Rock? Dance. Then I thought they would plunge down into the earth and disappear. And St. Peter is flat. All the business district, including the four hotels, are down, and everybody in them buried in the ruins. A man dashed up as I was mounting, and I told all the men on the place to go to the rescue. The news came just in time to prevent the murder of Imura by Carlos, for not admitting that we had had the greatest earthquake in the history of the world. It was the first symptom of patriotic fire I ever saw in Imura, but he stoutly maintained that in the matter of earthquakes Japan could do as well as California."
"That is all very well, but I have read a lot about Japanese earthquakes, and never of such anextraordinaryone as this. Has anything terrible happened in Rosewater?"
"I saw a few chimneys down, but no buildings except the old brick school-house. Mrs. Haight was sitting on the curb-stone in her night-gown, wailing like a banshee, but although all the rest of the town appeared to be in the streets, and similarly attired, they were quiet enough. As I passed the cemetery I gave it a hasty side glance, half-afraid of what I might see. All the monuments are down and pointing in every direction. What gyrations! Do you suppose they've had it in San Francisco?"
"Do I suppose—much you know about our earthquakes! San Francisco always gets the worst of it, or seems to, there is so much more to shake. Your mother is probably in hysterics, although up on the hills one is safe enough. It is the sandy valley and the made ground down by the ferries—up to Montgomery Street, in fact—that get the worst of it. I have ordered the launch."
"Good. I wish my mother had gone east from El Paso, as she had half a mind to do. But she wanted to see her doctor again. I am afraid she won't look at this as we do. I never was so interested in my life. Was sure we were going to smash, but that it was worth while in anything so stupendous. I suppose it is too early to telephone."
Isabel pointed to the wires. They were sagging, and two of the telegraph poles were down. "Doubtless the tracks are twisted, too. We are fortunate to have the launch."
Mac, so swollen with the prideful experience which enabled him to compare two great earthquakes, and his accumulations of practical data bearing thereon, appeared ten years younger, and, as Gwynne and Isabel rode up, was lording it over his fellow-hirelings. He had forbidden Chuma to make a fire in the kitchen stove until the chimney, what was left of it, had been repaired, directed him to bring down-stairs the oil-stove Isabel had bought for the old rheumatic's comfort, and cook breakfast upon it. As even the stovepipe in the out-building, used for preparing the elaborate repasts of the Leghorn, was twisted, Abe had been ordered to drag the great stove into the open, build a screen about it, and "do the best he could, and be thankful he was alive." Poor Abe, who had not been extant in 1868, and had even missed the considerable earthquakes of the Nineties, was in a somewhat demoralized state, and wondering audibly what people supposed he cared about chickens, anyhow.
Isabel and Gwynne sat down in the dining-room and ate their breakfast—on fragments—calmly and methodically, talking constantly of the earthquake, it is true, but instinct with that curious casuistry that a certain safety lay in following the ordinary routine of life; perhaps—who knows?—so great is the egoism of the human spirit—that the unswerving march of man in his groove might restore the balance of nature.
After breakfast Isabel went up to her room and dressed hastily and mechanically in a short walking-suit, as mechanically expecting the same earthquake to return to the spot associated with it. Gwynne wore his khaki riding-clothes, but it was doubtful if any one would be critical in San Francisco that morning. Nothing, as it happened, could have suited his purpose better, and it was long before he took them off.
When the launch was under way Isabel told Gwynne of the blue flames that had danced over the marsh during the convulsion. "If electricity is not a cause of earthquakes, it certainly is let loose by them," she added. "I expected every moment that we would blow up and fly off into space."
"I saw something of the same sort on the hills, and expected to see St. Helena spout flames."
In a few moments they were sensible that the constant artificial vibration of the boat was the most grateful sensation they had ever known, and of the wish that they could leave it only for a train, to be transferred at the end of a long journey to another train, and still another. But these sentiments were not exchanged, and their conversation was purely extrinsic. Here and there along the shore an old shanty lay on its side, or had tumbled forward to its knees; but for the most part dilapidated chimneys and fallen poles were the only visible symbols of the tumult beneath the smiling beautiful earth. Never had Earth looked so green, so velvety, its flowers so gay and voluptuous. Even the sky, now its normal deep blue, had this same velvety quality, the very atmosphere seemed to breathe the same rich satisfaction. But no birds were singing, and there was nothing normal in the groups of people, gathered wherever there were habitations: they wore bath-robes, blankets, overcoats, anything, apparently, they had found at hand, and had not re-entered their treacherous habitations. No trains were running, but the drawbridge that separated the marsh from San Pablo Bay opened as usual.
Gwynne steered the launch, and his conversation and Isabel's drifted to speculations as to what had happened in the city.
"Thank heaven I had the foundations of that old house replaced," she said, "or I am afraid your mother would have shot right down to the Hofers' doorstep. I am fairly at ease about The Otis, for in spite of the old drifting sand-lots that district is built on, its foundations go down to bed-rock, and thanks to the strikers there is nothing to fall off the steel frame. But I am rather worried about the islands. San Francisco Bay is supposed to have been a valley some two hundred years ago, and if it dropped once it might again. Those islands are only hilltops."
The islands, however, looked as serene as the rest of nature, although most of the chimneys were fallen or twisted, and there were the same groups of people in the open, awaiting another throe. These, however, had had time to recover their balance and clothe themselves. The launch, which had a new engine, had been driven at top speed, and it was not yet seven o'clock, barely the beginning of day to these luxurious people, but a day that would doubtless be remembered as the longest of their lives. On the military islands, routine, apparently, had received no dislocation, and on the steep romantic slopes of Belvedere the villas might have sunken their talons to the very vitals of the rock. The most precariously perched had paid no toll but the chimney.
As the launch bounded past the long eastern side of Angel Island, Gwynne contracted his eyelids. "Have you noticed that black cloud over the city?" he asked. "At first it did not strike me particularly—but—it looks as if there might be a big fire."
Isabel, who faced him, turned her head. "There are always fires in San Francisco after an earthquake," she said, indifferently. "And about seven a day at any time. There are none on the hills, so your mother is not having a second fright. Poor thing! I am afraid she is terribly upset. I wish she had gone."
She sat about, to observe the city more critically. Already its sky-line was changed, for every chimney, smokestack, and steeple, commonly visible, was shattered or down. The smoke cloud, which looked like a great ostrich plume bent at the tip, was as stationary as the hills, and had a confident permanent air that they would lack for some time. And fixed as it was it seemed to grow larger.
"Steer to the east of Alcatraz," said Isabel, suddenly; "and towards Yerba Buena. I should like to see where the fires are."
When the launch was well off the point of Telegraph Hill, they saw several large fires on the western side of East Street, the wide roadway that divided the city from the water-front and Ferry Building. Far down, in the South of Market Street district there appeared to be other large fires.
"Warehouses, probably," said Isabel. "What a sight!" She indicated the collapsed sheds about the moles, and the twisted and toppling appearance of the tower on the Ferry Building, which stood on the edge of the made ground. It was an immense structure of great weight, and only an uncommon honesty—and vigilance—in building had saved it from destruction. Had the piles been hollow, or too short to reach bed-rock, it would either have sunken or tumbled.
And then they noticed that the bay was silent and deserted. It was a moment before they realized that of the several lines of ferry-boats none appeared to be running. "That means that the tracks are out of working order," said Isabel, grimly. "We may have had the best of it, bad as it was. Ah!" One of the Oakland ferry-boats pushed out of its San Francisco mole. It was black with people. Isabel stared with wonder. "It looks as if people were running away from the city. Or perhaps a good many that live across the bay came over on the same mission as ourselves, and have been turned back. That would mean that all East Street was on fire and they could not get into the city. Well, let us hurry. Even although the fires are so far off they may terrify your mother. I remember she told me once in England that she had never seen a fire. I have a queer sensation in my knees."
Gwynne laughed. "I should think you might be used to fires by this time. And you have a celebrated fire department. I fancy you are just feeling the reaction."
"I was not a bit frightened during the earthquake!" said Isabel, indignantly. "But there is nothingphenomenalin fire to brace one up—and those had a sinister determined look—and that boat-load of people! I only hope your mother has not run away—under the impression that San Francisco alone was shaken. We wouldn't find her for a week."
"My mother's nerves are not what they were, but I am positive she will not run. She is certain to wait for us at the house."
A few moments later they ran the launch up to the landing at the foot of Russian Hill. There were a few tumbled shanties on the slope, but none of the well-built houses had been dislodged, and the great buildings on this water-front were in good condition. Mr. Clatt was not visible, but left his cottage at Isabel's call, and gave them something more than his usual surly greeting.
"Glad to see you are all right," he said. "Been expectin' you. Jest stepped in to git my pipe."
"Much damage done?" asked Gwynne.
"Considerable, but I guess the shake'll take a back seat. City's on fire."
"There are always fires after earthquakes," said Isabel, angrily.
"City's on fire. Thirty broke out s'multaneous. Water main's bust. Chief of Fire Department killed in his bed, or as good as killed. There's plenty left to fight the fire but nothin' to fight it with. Guess the old town'll go up in smoke this time."
"My knees feel rather weak, too," said Gwynne. He turned to the wharfinger, who was pulling leisurely at his pipe. "We—my mother and Miss Otis, at least, may need this launch to leave the city with," he said. "Can I rely on you? You shall have a hundred dollars if you let no one steal it; and if the fire should reach this side, you are welcome to a refuge on my ranch."
"I'll see daylight through any one that looks at it," said Mr. Clatt. "This ain't no time to stand on ceremony. The army's called out already to help the police keep order—the lootin' was disgraceful for about an hour. Every rat tumbled out of his hole, and of course they went for the saloons. I'm well enough known along here to be let alone when I show my teeth. Your house is all right, miss."
This side of the hill was almost deserted; nearly every one seemed to be watching the fires from the crest; but occasionally Gwynne and Isabel passed a solitary person clinging to his possessions, or a small group; and invariably were greeted with the same remark: "City's on fire. Water mains were broken by the earthquake."
As they passed through the crowd on the hill-top, they received similar information, although many added confidently that "something would be done. The wind was sure to change to the west."
And so far, at least, the picture from the heights was by no means appalling. There were a number of fires in the south, and a wall of flame and smoke along the water-front near the Ferry Building. Had the earthquake spared the mains they would merely have been spectacular.
Gwynne and Isabel, as they made the slight descent to the Belmont House, saw two of their Japs sitting on the roof throwing down the bricks of the fallen chimneys. Then they turned the corner and found Lady Victoria, an opera-cloak thrown over her night-clothes, pacing up and down the veranda.
"Oh, my God!" she exclaimed. "I did not dare to wonder if you were dead or alive. Why did we ever come to this God-forsaken country?" She did not offer to embrace them, but her eyes were brilliant, and there was a color in her cheeks. And no one had ever heard her talk so fast. "Was it as dreadful with you? Did you get out of the house? I was awake when I heard that awful roar. Somehow, I knew what it meant, and before the earthquake was well begun I was out here. I never ran so fast in my life, although I was flung against the walls. And I almost wished I had stayed in the house. Such a sight! That awful reeling city! Just imagine thousands of buildings plunging, and leaping, and dancing, and toppling. Towers bowing to you so solemnly that I almost disgraced myself and had hysterics. And steeples pitching off, or huddling down like corpses. And that awful loud deep steady roar and crash of a thousand walls and chimneys falling. And the dust that seemed to swallow the city. For a moment I thought it had gone, and expected the hills to follow. Then it rose and everybody on earth seemed to be in those streets—and in white. They looked like Isabel's Leghorns. Such pigmies from up here. Pigmies! That is what we all are. And Angélique, the wretch, has run away."
"Well, she cannot go far, as all the railroads but one seem to be injured," said Gwynne, soothingly. "Better go in and dress and we'll walk down and take a look at things. That will divert your mind."
But it was not until Isabel had assured her that the worst force of an earth movement in California spent itself in the first great shock, and offered to help her dress, that Victoria could be persuaded to enter the house. Gwynne fetched Isabel's field-glass and studied the scene below, picking out the more disastrous work of the earthquake. All the new solid buildings, and most of the old, appeared to be unharmed, and the residence district, built of wood on stone foundations, for the most part, was much as usual, save for its altered sky-line: every chimney and skylight had disappeared. But tall slender factory chimneys had broken raggedly in half, and the great tower of the City Hall, standing high against the blue sky and advancing smoke, seemed to shriek like a man whose flesh had been torn off with hot pincers until only the shamed skeleton was left. Nothing but the steel cage that had supported the bricks remained: eloquent of the millions that a dishonest city government and its confederates had stolen.
Gwynne, as his eyes travelled more precisely, picked out more and more evidences of the power of the earthquake. Steeples were gone, walls fallen outward, roofs caved in, or yawning where a heavy chimney had gone through, old houses were on their knees, or had fallen into their cellars. Great cracks and rifts in walls and asphalt, fallen cornices and shattered windows detached themselves from the general picture of the half-ruined but oddly indifferent city. Almost immediately, through the smoke in the southeast, he had caught a glimpse of The Otis, an immense skeleton of steel, that had defied the earth, and offered nothing to the fire. But although he experienced a passing gratitude that he should lose nothing by the disaster, he forgot the incident in a moment: he felt wholly impersonal.
Everybody in the city, apparently, was out-of-doors. The squares were black with people, quiet crowds, it would seem, moving slowly where they moved at all. He saw mounted officers and parading soldiers, and groups of firemen standing impotently by their hose and engines. In the burning South of Market Street district rivers of people were pouring towards the great central highway, their arms and shoulders burdened; fleeing no doubt with their household goods. Then Gwynne began to study the fires, and it dawned upon him that he was looking down not upon a mere conflagration but a burning city. It was more than likely that the fires would not cross Market Street, and that those near the water-front would be extinguished by water pumped from the bay; but "South of Market Street" was a city in itself, and not only did he feel a certain pity for all those terrified black pigmies down there, but a pang for the extinction of a region so identified with the early history of San Francisco. Rincon Hill was obliterated by the smoke, but no doubt she would go; with all her pretty old-fashioned houses, so unlike the horrors on the plateau below him—and South Park with its tragic memories. Moreover, if all the factories and warehouses, and the blocks devoted to the wholesale business, were destroyed, the city would be poorer by many millions.
He shifted his glass away from the fires. More and more details arrested his eye. Inert forms were being carried out of houses where chimneys or skylights had gone through the roof. Automobiles were flying about, hundreds of them. Mounted orderlies were dashing at breakneck speed between the Presidio and the city. For a moment he wondered, then remembered that General Funston lived on Nob Hill. He inferred that the Mechanics' Fair Building, down in the western section of the valley, had been turned into a hospital, for automobiles were constantly dashing up and delivering limp and helpless burdens. The old Mission Church, Dolores, was unharmed, but not far away, and in that crowded district built upon the filled-in lake, or lagoon, of the Spanish era, he saw that a large building, doubtless a cheap and flimsy hotel, had sunken to its upper story, and that people were digging frantically about it. Every house in the immediate neighborhood had dropped into its cellar or lurched off its foundations. But it was all like some horrid picture by Doré: the smoky darkening atmosphere, the jets, the bouquets, the square masses of flame, each seeming to embrace a block if not more, the dark slowly rolling clouds not far overhead, the tides of humanity dwarfed by the distance, the broken dislocated houses, the great haughty defiant buildings, with the superb conflagration behind them.
One of the neighbors, who lived on the crest, returning from a reconnoitring expedition, paused and informed him that the mayor had been persuaded to call a meeting of the more prominent citizens, to decide, if possible, what might be done to save the city, and to keep the people from falling into a panic. Mr. Phelan, the "Reform Mayor"—of the city's last period of municipal decency—had suggested sending to the military islands for dynamite enough to blow up a wide zone beyond the fire; but property-owners were already protesting. Many felt sure the fire would not cross Market Street, others were as certain that the whole city would go. A corps of marines had been despatched from Mare Island immediately after the earthquake and would undoubtedly save the Ferry Building and the docks, but if the fire ran over from Market Street a few blocks higher up, nothing could save all that great business, shopping, and hotel district; to say nothing of Chinatown, and possibly these hills. All South of Market Street was in motion, making for the ferries or the bare western hills, the Presidio and Park; they must answer for many of the fires, as they had not given a thought to cracked chimneys when they wanted their breakfast; but of course crossed wires and the overhead trolley system were responsible for as many more. Then he advised Gwynne to order that all the bath-tubs in the house should be filled with what water was left in the pipes, and that a stock of provisions from the neighboring grocer and butcher should be laid in. "Personally I don't believe the fire will ever come as far as this," he said. "But there'll be a famine, no doubt of that. The wires are all down, scarcely a train is running, the country may be as hard hit as ourselves—and all that crowd down there to feed!"
Gwynne thanked him and replied that the launch was in waiting; but when the man had gone he called the Japs, gave them money, and ordered them to follow his neighbor's suggestion. He realized that he had no desire to leave this city where life was suddenly keyed to its highest pitch, and retire to the security and inaction of the country. Moreover, he recalled the promise he had given Hofer and his other friends on the night of the ball: this might be the emergency, and what services he could render should be given freely enough.
Lady Victoria and Isabel came forth, and they all made their way rapidly down to Nob Hill. The stair was more rickety than ever, and many of the older houses they passed looked badly shaken within, if not without—every door was open. The floors were covered with plaster; more often than not the furniture and ornaments, and even mantels, were massed in an indistinguishable heap. The Hofers' door, like the rest, was open, and they saw that the spiral marble stair was a pile of glittering splinters and that the pictures had been turned completely round or flung across the hall. Mrs. Hofer had been too eager to reign on Nob Hill to wait for a new foundation. Several of the servants were sitting on the steps, and informed Gwynne that all the family, including the children, had gone out in two automobiles an hour before, to see the city.
They walked down the hill, stopped many times by returning citizens anxious to impart information. The Italians on Telegraph Hill were mad with terror: "they were no Californians," in accents of bitter contempt. Portsmouth Square was full of Chinamen laughing at the women that had run there from the hotels without shoes on their feet, and only an opera or automobile cloak over their night-clothes. Even more amused were those Oriental philosophers at the white scared faces of the prisoners clinging to the bars of the jail. Nobody could tell how many people had been killed by falling roofs and walls, although the wildest stories were current, but so far there were more doctors and nurses attending to business than patients to care for. Down in the Mechanics' Fair Building, which had been converted into an emergency hospital, they were working as methodically, with book and pencil, as well as with bandage and instrument, as if earthquake and fire were a part of the daily routine. "Almost everybody was quiet, but there were sights down there, Oh, Lord, there were sights!" One man button-holed Gwynne, as he had button-holed others on his ascent, and informed him that he had "got down there" just in time to see two hundred and fifty thousand dollars go up in smoke. "Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and it has taken me twenty years to make it!" he reiterated, with an excited bitterness that was almost hilarious. He did not ask Gwynne if he had lost anything, but passed on to button-hole the next man and pour out his tale of individual protest; upon him the earthquake and fire had made a personal attack.
"How strange it seems to be in the midst of so muchlife—mere physical life," said Lady Victoria. "A whole city tense and helpless! I wonder that man could think of himself. We are all mere fragments of one great whole."
Her eyes were still restless and bright, her mask had fallen, and with it, curiously, many of her years. For a time, at least, the heavy burden of self had slipped from her tired spirit.
Few stood in the doorways, or even gardens; nearly every one not exploring the city was in the middle of the street. In the boarding-house district, half-way down the hill, the corners were crowded with people watching the fires, although as many more had gone to the heights to command a better view. Some were still dazed and white with terror, a few looked distraught; more than one man was as nervous as his wife. But the majority were calm, although they wore an expression of being ready for anything. A few, mindful of the California tradition, were joking and relating the absurdities of their experience. There was no question that the shock had been far greater in the city than in and about Rosewater, and both Isabel and Gwynne, to Lady Victoria's disgust, expressed a regret that they "had missed anything." But it was possible that the convulsion had been even worse elsewhere. St. Peter was built over a known fault, and San Francisco was not; and indeed news was already coming into the city of coast hamlets that had literally been torn to pieces. Other wild rumors were flying about. New York had disappeared. Chicago had been swept by a tidal wave. As the telegraph wires were all down no one attempted to account for these items of news, but so much had already happened that if the eastern hemisphere had dropped to the level of Atlantis, no one would have stared.
When they reached Union Square they found it so crowded that they hardly could make their way. Not only the guests of the St. Francis Hotel, that flanked it, had taken refuge in the open, but those of many other hotels. A few of the men were still in pyjamas, and of the women in dressing-gown or opera-cloak, caught up as they fled. But the majority had ventured back and dressed themselves, so that the "sights" were not what they may have been an hour earlier. But no one seemed to care for shelter; at all events they liked companionship in misery, although few besides the foreign members of the Grand Opera Company were voluble. Gwynne and Victoria and Isabel saw many of their acquaintance, not all recognizable at first, for even those that had returned to their rooms to dress themselves had taken little pains with their hair. One woman of great beauty, however, whose husband's hat surmounted her flowing locks, was just informing Isabel that she had reached that frame of mind where vanity was pressing apprehension to the wall, when there was an explosive sound, another as of rushing wings, the crowd stumbled against one another, and the large buildings about the square rocked. Again there was an exodus, and some clutching and gasping; but only a few of the refugees from the burning district, sitting on the furniture they had dragged with them, screamed. It was over in a few seconds, and then Gwynne pressed his women gently out of the crowd and down, through the tide of refugees, to Market Street. They walked in the middle of the street, for the sidewalks in this business district, where many of the buildings were of brick or stone, were littered with the débris of fallen cornice and shattered windows and chimneys. Market Street was kept open for automobiles, and the crossing refugees; the spectators stood on the edge of the northern pavement only, and in some cases on the top of bricks that represented an outer wall. A number of the refugees were marching towards the ferries, although a curtain of smoke bounded the lower end of Market Street. Others were moving stolidly towards the western hills. All were burdened with pillow-cases packed with clothing, or dragged trunks, cribs, baby-carriages, in which was a strange assortment of utensils, children, and household pets. The scrape, scrape of these unwieldy objects could be heard in a monotonous reiteration above the distant roar and crackling of the flames. Behind the tide of humanity rolling in from the burning district, at the end of every street, was a vista of flame and smoke. And the dark clouds were mounting higher and higher, lit with a million golden sparks. The temperature was tropical.
People were already beginning to talk in phrases: The doomed city. The fire zone. Razed to the ground. Brains were not active, and any one energetic enough to put a few expressive words together was sure of disciples. Here, more than elsewhere, it was apparent that the army was in possession of the city. Mounted officers rode slowly up and down, and at the mouth of each of those dusky and menacing avenues was a guard with drawn bayonets. They permitted the unfortunate to emerge, but few to enter. In spite of the audible energy of the fire, the slow tramp of the refugees, the scraping of their furniture on the ill-paved streets, the city was extraordinarily silent. People scarcely spoke above a mutter. There was no shouting of orders. Even the children were not whimpering, the tawdry women were not hysterical, not a parrot raised his voice nor a dog whined. Faces were dazed, blank, imprinted with a stolid determination to get to a place of safety and keep families and belongings together. The present moment was as much as they could grasp, and truth to tell there was a good deal in it.
Some of the sightseers speculated mildly—those that owned no property in this district—as to what would happen if the wind drove the fire much farther north. The opposite side of the street was lined with some of the greatest business houses in the city. The Palace Hotel looked like the rock of Gibraltar. Not a vase in its court had been overturned, some one said. The other buildings were of stone, brick, concrete. They had stood the earthquake; even the great square tower of the Call Building, unsupported by other buildings, had barely lost a cornice. Was it possible that the fire would take them? But the fire was rolling nearer every moment, for it met little to resist it but wood. Down by East Street several of the Market Street buildings were blazing. But no doubt the marines would extinguish those, and surely that sea of flame would break and retreat before the wall of rock opposite; and behind it were other structures of stone and brick and concrete. Now and then a refugee, permitting his attention to be drawn from his own little affairs, told that the back windows of these buildings were already hung with wet blankets, and that people stood by the cisterns on the roofs, hose in hand. But the South of Market Street fraternity shook a united head, and when the new phrase, The doomed city, was wafted into its dull ears, it adopted it promptly, and marched on muttering it over and over.
Already a number of automobiles had flown by, some filled with people anxious to leave town before it might be too late, but most of them containing surgeons and their assistants, or relays of firemen, alone permitted to enter the burning district; or prominent men bound for the citizens' meeting to be held in the cellar of the old jail in Portsmouth Square, a site upon which their ancestors had gambled and Jenny Lind had sung. Gwynne, who was already beginning to chafe at inaction, to feel the excited blood shake his pulses, was revolving excuses to send his mother and Isabel home, when an automobile came charging down Market Street at a terrific rate of speed. From some distance he recognized Hofer sitting beside the chauffeur. Not in the least considering his act, he stepped in front of the crowd and made a signal. Hofer responded with a shout, the automobile slowed slightly, two men stood up and clutched Gwynne, dragging him into the machine. Gwynne's long legs flew backward as if he were plunging head first over an embankment, and he had only time to right himself, turn and shout "Go home," before the automobile had regained its speed and was out of sight.
Victoria turned to Isabel with wide eyes. "It looked like kidnapping!" she exclaimed.
"I fancy they merely want him at the citizens' meeting. No doubt they want every steady clear brain they can muster. I think I had better go out and see what has become of Paula and the children. Will you come?"
Victoria shook her head. "This is all too interesting," she said. "I must see more of it, and I am no longer afraid. When I am tired I will go home. Shall we agree to meet there for luncheon?"
Isabel nodded and started up Stockton Street alone, intending to take the first car that led in her sister's direction. Some of the trolley wires were down, but no doubt others were uninjured, and the cable-cars had always seemed to her as fixed as fate. She could no more conceive of their system being dislocated for more than an hour at a time than of the city burning. So far she was merely interested, and although sorry for the unfortunate poor, felt that the fates had conspired to do the city a service in cleaning out so objectionable a quarter. Of the millions invested in that district she did not think, but sighed as she thought of South Park and Rincon Hill. Still, they would have been obliterated in the course of events and before long; and as for the fire itself it would be stopped by the great walls of masonry on and near Market Street. She looked eastward down the deserted streets towards the bay, and although the vista there also was closed with flame and smoke, the fires were far away, and the marines were fighting it.
She passed many people ascending and descending, some with pressed lips, others arguing with a certain fettered excitement against the pessimistic attitude. After she left the business blocks the sidewalks again were free of débris, although she could see the ruin within. The disreputable section of this street, known as the "Red light district," was crowded with women, to whose rescue or comfort no man would seem to have come. Isabel looked at them with an irresistible curiosity, but no sense of repulsion; she even stopped and answered their eager questions as best she could. She was possessed with the idea that there was but one person in San Francisco that day, no matter what the optical delusion. She was not at all dazed, but utterly impersonal.
Even in the blazing sunshine most of these women were handsome, and young. But all assurance was gone; when not strained and haggard from the recent and the menacing terror, they looked indescribably forlorn. But they were very quiet. Isabel heard but one excited cry, and something of its thrill ran along her own nerves. "My God! The wind is blowing from the southeast and it's blowing strong!"
Isabel glanced back. It seemed to her that the great suspended waves of smoke, red-lined, were rolling with more energy, and they certainly were inclining west as well as north. She wondered, with some irritation, why the wind blew from the southeast when the first of the trades should be roaring in from the Pacific. A strong steady west wind and the fire would be blown towards the bay, where it could be extinguished from the marine boats. Every time a gust ruffled her hair she shook her head irritably, wondering that she had ever loved the wind.
She reached California Street. The cars were not running. Far down where they should have started she saw nothing but smoke. Nor was there the usual rumble indicating that the cable was at work, a sound which was among the first of her memories. She turned west and climbed the almost perpendicular blocks to the summit of Nob Hill. The beautiful massive pile of white stone, to be known when finished as Fairmont Hotel, and which had already done so much to redeem the city from its architectural madness, looked as serene and unravaged as if it crowned a hill of ancient Athens; but so, for that matter, did its neighbors, two as faultless in their way; the others appearing even more outrageous than usual, inasmuch as they had had their opportunity to disappear and failed to take advantage of it.
From the summit of the hill Isabel gave a hasty glance southward, then walked rapidly west; the fires seemed to cover far more ground than when she had first looked at them from Russian Hill, an hour ago.
After she had tripped over two large paving-stones that had met in an upward bulge, she took more note of detail. Some of the houses had private cisterns, and their roofs and walls were still quite wet. Pretentious garden walls, and stone pillars supporting façades, had fallen, while next door an apparently more delicate structure was intact. It seemed to be a matter of foundation. And everywhere there were groups of silent people watching the fire. Even when the Red Cross men and women carried out the injured, Isabel did not hear a groan. And all were losing their dazed and frightened expressions. The careless philosophy of the city was reasserting itself, although in a more dignified phase.
At Van Ness Avenue, the wide street that runs through the residence part of the city from north to south, Isabel shuddered for the first time, and, as she was ashamed to run across, stood and stared with a new sense of fascination at the inexplicable old earth. The street lay in a narrow valley, what would have been a mere cañon in the mountains, and the soil was loose and sandy, although the great houses sat upon most of the brief level and held it firm. But the stone blocks in low garden walls were bulging and broken, and the street itself was horribly torn. Here and there it had sunken, and looked as if a wave had passed over it and left an impress. A large stone church had fallen, one tower into the street and another upon the neighboring house. The stone walls of houses were cracked; one of the "mansions" had a zigzag crevice from top to bottom.
And the proudest had brought forth chairs and were sitting in their gardens or on the pavement. Isabel recognized a girl who had been one of the belles of Mrs. Hofer's ball, clad in a bath-gown and a pair of socks, and another, noted for her gowns, passed in a wagon, a handkerchief tied about her head and a half-filled pillow-case on her lap. Isabel knew that both had lived in one of the beautiful private hotels on the avenue, and she had already heard that it was so badly wrecked that the guests had been thankful to get out alive and had not ventured to return for their clothes. The stately building had been run up in a night, its feet set in sand, and the wonder was it was not lying across the avenue.
Many of the refugees had already reached this third and last wide street of refuge, and although the greater number were still down at the southern end, others had pushed on, intending to walk to the Presidio, where they were likely to be fed. They were resting on their cumbrous belongings, strange groups, unkempt and half dressed. Many of the householders had sent within for food, and one wealthy dame, whose maid had had time to build her coiffure and groom her properly, sat with a dirty frowsy baby on her lap and was coaxing it to take milk from a spoon, its bottle having been overlooked in the flight. The mother was sitting on the bureau her husband had rescued, by no means abashed, nor even surprised.
Isabel crossed the street and ascended and descended again, traversed several blocks to the north, and finally approached the house in which the Stones had their apartment. Although high-perched, it was uninjured, and as Isabel climbed the hill she saw Paula and her children seated, with many others, on the long flight of steps. Paula waved her hand and walked down composedly to meet her sister. She was dressed, laced, and painted. A sufficient time had elapsed since the earthquake to permit her ruling passion to regain its throne.
"Well, I am glad to see you!" She greeted Isabel with something of the grand air. She felt almost pompous with the sense of playing her part in a great event, fancied herself, perhaps, its central figure. "Of course, I knew you were all right up there, especially as we came off fairly well. But you should have been here. You've missed it!"
"I know," said Isabel, humbly. "But I am glad you were not hurt. And not frightened?"
"Oh, fearfully. And being up so many flights of stairs made it seem so much worse. But Lyster and I managed to get out of bed and into the nursery before it was half over, and hold the children in the doorways. I didn't make a fool of myself like so many others, and run out in the street before I was dressed; my hair was up on pins. Lys was more frightened than I was—it's a wonder he has any nerves at all—and now that there are so many fires he is fearfully excited at the idea that all his favorite haunts may go. He has gone down-town to see what is happening—also," in a happy afterthought, "to try and borrow some money. He literally had not ten cents in his pocket. We have some in the bank for a wonder, but everybody says the banks will go, and also that there will be hard times."
Isabel handed over her purse mechanically. "Victoria and Elton have plenty, I shall not need it," she said. But the desire to save Mrs. Stone's feelings was superfluous. The purse disappeared with a polite "Thanks, dear," and Paula hastily changed the subject, lest the luxury of a carriage for the return to Russian Hill should appeal to Isabel. "Of course you'll go back to the ranch where you can be comfortable," she remarked.
"I have no plan. The launch is ready for us, but it will depend upon the others. Should you care to go to the ranch? I don't suppose you are in any danger from fire, out here, but things may be very uncomfortable for a time."
"Oh, I'll take the risk," said Paula, easily. "I should be bored to death up there, and here there are so many people to talk to. I have heard about fifty experiences this morning, and all fearfully interesting. I guess we'll make out. It will only be for a day or two anyhow, and everybody that has food in the house is offering to share with the rest. I never have much on hand, but Mrs. Brooks, who lives under me, always keeps her store-room filled, and has invited me to lunch. You had better stop, too."
"I have promised Victoria to return. Just suppose the fire should come out here, what should you do?"
"Oh, take a mattress or two out to the Presidio. It's not far, and would be a regular picnic. But it won't."
"Well, I'll go, then. If you change your mind you can have the launch. Only come to me first. Mr. Clatt is standing over it with a six-shooter."
"Thanks. Sorry you won't come in. Lys won't sit down for about a week, he'sthatnervous, so you'll probably see him up on the Hill."
Isabel started for home, and when she reached Fillmore Street discovered that she was tired. It was then that she regretted not having reserved a dollar or two; but no doubt Victoria was at home by this time. She found a livery-stable, and asked the proprietor, lounging in the entrance, if he could send her to the foot of her bluff.
"Yes, for fifty dollars," he said, coolly. Fillmore Street was a prosperous slum, another brief level between two steep acclivities. It was not yet aware of the proud destiny that awaited it, that for the next year or more it was to be the teeming centre of the abbreviated city's life, but there never was a time when it was burdened with manners, or the grand point of view. When Isabel stared, the man continued: "Yes, ma'am! Fifty's the ticket. And two hours later it may be five hundred. Some people are getting mighty nervous, and I've let five hacks and buggies already, at my own figure, to them as wants to get out of town quick."
Isabel turned her back on him, and climbed and descended again. Lower Van Ness Avenue was even more torn and lumpy than where she had crossed it at California Street, and hundreds of the South of Market Street refugees were sitting or lying in the middle of the street, worn out but stolid. Just beyond, she caught up with a teamster, who, noticing the fatigue in her eyes, stopped his horses and offered her a "lift," provided she was "going his way."
Isabel gratefully climbed to his high perch, after stating that she had no money, and being royally silenced.
"Oh, shucks!" said the man. "I guess this is the time to do other folks a good turn. You'd do the same for me, I'll bet. What do you think of this business, anyhow?"
Isabel replied hopefully, but he shook his head.
"City's doomed. Far as Van Ness, anyhow. Nothin' ain't goin' to stop that fire but water, and water's just what they haven't got. Lord! to think of that bay on three sides of the city. Talk about the Ancient Mariner. I don't live in the city, but I'll be sorry to see it go. Lord! warn't that a shake? I was flung plumb out of bed and against the wall, and the house next to mine, or the one I war in, went plumb out into the middle of the street. Lord! what a yellin' there was inside! Nobody hurt, but one woman went plumb out'r her mind. They've got her tied to the bed-post now. And what a lootin' of saloons there was until the soldiers marched in! Now, I hear, that there mayor has issued an order, which is to be pasted up all over, that any man caught lootin' anything, saloons or otherwise, is to be shot dead and no questions asked. Good job, that. I guess we're in for high old times, miss. I'm makin' for Oakland, where I live. I brought in a load last evenin' and stopped over. Some of my friends live down by the ferry, and I'll pick them up, if they want to get out. Don't you want to come along? My wife and me'll be glad to put you up if you can't do any better."
Isabel thanked him warmly, and assured him that she would be safe in any case, then discovered a loose half-dollar in the pocket of her jacket. The man accepted it philosophically.
"You were welcome to the ride, but I'm not the one to say nay to a bit of silver so long as you say you're not hard up yourself. Guess it'll come in handy. Well, s'long. Good luck to you. I've enjoyed your society very much."
The teamster had deposited her at Taylor and Jackson streets, and as she passed the Trennahans' door it occurred to her to ask how they fared. The house appeared to be uninjured, but the electric bell was useless, and it was not until she had knocked several times that an old Mexican servant answered the summons. Then she learned that the family had left for Menlo Park in their touring car immediately after the earthquake, as the boys were at the country-house with their tutor. The woman had been maid for many years to Mrs. Polk and had lived with Magdaléna since her aunt's death. She was a privileged character, and during Isabel's visit had accepted her relationship to the house of Yorba and waited on her personally.
"So tired you look," she said. "Come in, no?" Then, as the invitation was declined, she leaned her stout shapeless figure against the door-frame and begged Isabel for an account of her experience. Isabel gave it briefly, and the old woman shook her head. "So terreeblay thing!" she sighed. "Seventy years I live in California and this the more bad earthquake I never feel. My mother she feel the great earthquake of 1812 in the south, when the padres plant a long straight branch in the middle of the square of San Gabriel, and it never stop shake for four months. Ay yi, California! I theenk we all go into the bay this morning, and I fall down twice when I run to see how little Señorita Inez she feeling. Ay yi!"
"Why did you not go to the country?"
"And who take care the house? The car come back bime-by for the other servants, but I no go. Si, I can go in the train—then—perhaps. But no in automobilia. Is devil, no less."
"Well, if you should be frightened come up to me," and Isabel went on hurriedly to her own home, suddenly reminded of the uncertainty of her relative's nerves. But Victoria was standing on the porch staring outward with such an intensity of gaze that she took no notice of Isabel's approach. And when Isabel reached her side, she too stood silent for a time.The CallBuilding was on fire. This square tower of seventeen stories and a dome, with some seventy windows on each side, had caught fire at the top, and as the flames devoured the contents of one floor as quickly as possible that they might dart down another flight and gorge themselves anew, in an incredibly short time the two hundred windows in sight, and no doubt those in the rear, were spouting flames like the mouths of so many cannon: each sharply defined, owing to the indestructible nature of the walls. Volumes of white smoke poured upward to be lost in the black clouds above. At times the fire and smoke, on either side, torn by the wind, seemed to dance and gyrate in a Bacchanalian revel, taking monstrous forms, that exploded in showers of sparks, glittering like the fabled California sands. Above the burning district the smoke clouds changed form constantly. Sometimes they reeled along like colossal water-spouts. The roar of the fire waxed louder as one listened to it: a deep persistent energetic roar, as of a sea climbing over a land its time had come to devour.
Suddenly a curtain of smoke swept down and obliterated the scene, conveying a sense of respite, challenging the memory, although a moment later it was shot with a million sparks.
Victoria announced briefly that they were to have lunch of a sort, but for her part she would prefer a bath.
A bath, however, was out of the question, and, without washing the cinders from their faces and hands, they sat down to beefsteak fried on one of the oil-stoves used for heating the Mansard story, and canned vegetables. That much indulgence they might have permitted themselves, but human nature is prone to extremes, and they were tuned to a severe economy that might embrace more than water for some weeks to come.
Isabel sent a plate of sandwiches and a bottle of beer down to Mr. Clatt, and the servant returned with the information that the faithful wharfinger was sitting on a chair in front of the launch, a pistol on his lap; and that already a small crowd was crouched like buzzards in front of him. Isabel asked Victoria if she cared to retreat, but the older woman shook her head.
"Do you?" she asked.
"Oh no. I shall remain until the last minute, certainly until I know what Elton's plans are. If the launch is seized we can go down to Fort Mason or out to the Presidio. Every one is in the same boat. I should hate being too comfortable. But I don't think you should sleep out-of-doors. It is always damp at night."
"I can stand as much as you can. I am quite fit again. And this is the first time, for heaven knows how many years, that anything has interested me. I shall stay till the last minute; and surely no fire could climb this hill. Did I tell you that Mr. Trennahan came up at once and asked me to go to Menlo Park with them? Ungrateful—but I have not thought of it since."
Isabel announced her intention to take a nap. "No one knows what may happen to-night," she said. "And I feel as if I had not slept for a week."
She fell asleep at once. Lady Victoria awakened her by bursting unceremoniously into her room.
"You must get up and look!" she cried. "The Palace Hotel and the other big newspaper buildings are on fire. The sight is something awful—and wonderful."
Isabel ran to the window. All the valley was a rolling sea of flame, and all space seemed to be filled with enormous surging billows of smoke. From every window of the Palace Hotel, an immense square building of some seven stories, from the great newspaper buildings, and from other brick and stone structures near by, tongues of flame were leaping; the wooden buildings were mere shapeless furnaces. Again a volume of smoke descended, and for the moment nothing was to be seen but a red blur somewhere in the midst of rolling black.
Victoria communicated to Isabel the information she had received from the neighbors, always coming and going. People were pouring out of the city, not only by the Southern Pacific boats to Oakland, and indirectly to Berkeley and Alameda, but by freight-boats and launches to the Marin towns. They were obliged to make a long detour round the base of the northern hills, as the water-front and the streets behind were a roaring furnace, although the fires had not crossed East Street. All houses in the towns across the bay had opened to the refugees, tents had been erected in the public squares, and emergency hospitals had been started before nine o'clock. The militia had been called out to assist the regulars, and also the Cadet Battalion of the State University. A Citizens' Patrol had been formed to protect the still unburned districts, each man provided with arms at the Presidio. People on the lower slopes were now in full flight towards the western parks and hills, as well as the Presidio, many being under the impression that the ferry-boats were not running. It was doubtful if a hotel or a boarding-house would harbor a soul that night; not east of Van Ness Avenue, at least, and many in that region were preparing to sleep in the Park and squares, lest the fire attack them from the south. Refugees, exhausted, were lying on the doorsteps and in the streets of the Western Addition.
Victoria relapsed into silence and Isabel gazed down upon the beautiful terrible scene—the curtain had rolled upward again—at the enormous tongues of flame leaping from every window, the showers of golden sparks, the swooping and soaring clouds, many of them white, with convoluted edges, and faintly tinted like the day smoke of Vesuvius. These curled white masses rolled among the black waves towards the west, and the low deep roar waxed louder as one listened to it.
All the wooden bow-windows of the Palace Hotel had been eaten off, but it would be hours before the stoutly built old hotel ceased to feed the flames. Sometimes sheets of fire seemed to drive from the apertures across the great width of Market Street, to be beaten back by a solid wall of flame. In the intense clear yellow light that bathed the street Isabel could see the twisted car tracks. More than once she fancied she saw a prostrate body, but it may have been an achievement of the shifting flames, and certainly nothing living moved down there. The mounted officers and their men were patrolling the blocks along all the northern front of the fire.
"Are you not in the least worried about Elton?" asked Isabel, abruptly.
"Not a bit. I never worried about him when he was a child. He was always the most agile and ready youngster I ever saw."
"But he is very venturesome. He might be caught in one of those furnaces as well as another, or killed by falling bricks."
"He is a man of destiny," said Victoria indifferently. "He will live to accomplish what he was born for."
Isabel, in truth, found worry as impossible as any other common emotion, nevertheless thought it odd that he did not come to them for a moment or send a message. She could appreciate his wholly masculine mood, his temporary indifference to the charms of her sex, but he had an ingrained sense of responsibility, and was more considerate than the average man.
Lady Victoria returned to her vantage-point on the veranda, and Isabel went down to the garden fence where the three Japs were standing, and asked them if they intended to remain—half the servants had already fled from the city. Two replied that later in the day they should go to Oakland where they had friends. Isabel told them that she should not part with what little money there was in the house, and they answered politely that they expected to wait for their wages. The oldest of the three, a respectable man of thirty, who looked like, and no doubt was, a student, announced his intention to remain.