Ancestors Part 49

"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."

X

Mac, so swollen with the prideful experience which enabled him to compare two great earthquakes, and his acc.u.mulations 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 a.s.sociated 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 s.p.a.ce."

"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 sh.o.r.e 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 Francis...o...b..y 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 nothing _phenomenal_ in 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 j.a.ps 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 G.o.d!" she exclaimed. "I did not dare to wonder if you were dead or alive. Why did we ever come to this G.o.d-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 Angelique, 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 a.s.sured 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-gla.s.s 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 pa.s.sing grat.i.tude 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 s.h.i.+fted his gla.s.s 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 das.h.i.+ng at breakneck speed between the Presidio and the city. For a moment he wondered, then remembered that General Funston lived on n.o.b 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 das.h.i.+ng 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 Dore: the smoky darkening atmosphere, the jets, the bouquets, the square ma.s.ses 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 munic.i.p.al 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 j.a.ps, 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.