"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."
XII
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 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 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.