Part 51 (1/2)
”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! n.o.body 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 a.s.sured 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.”
XII
The teamster had deposited her at Taylor and Jackson streets, and as she pa.s.sed 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 Magdalena since her aunt's death. She was a privileged character, and during Isabel's visit had accepted her relations.h.i.+p 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 Senorita 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 Call_ Building 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 Baccha.n.a.lian 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 was.h.i.+ng 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 p.r.o.ne 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 s.p.a.ce 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 a.s.sist 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.