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.