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."