Although they spent a good twenty minutes after that, joking over superstitions, and he had repeated to her some of Tracy’s and Arnold’s most ingenious “spooky stunts,” to make the neighborhood keep its distance from Casa Fuerte, and they had laughed freely, she as heartily as he, nevertheless he divined that her smile was a pretense. Suddenly, an unruly tremor shook his own firm spirits. Looking out on the stepped and lanterned arches of the wing, he was conscious of the same tragic endowment of the darkened pile, which had oppressed him that night, weeks before, when he had stood outside on the crest of the hill; and the would-be murderers might have been skulking in the shadows of the pepper-trees. He tried vainly to shake off this distempered mood. Although he might succeed for a moment in a lover’s absorption, it would come again, insidiously, seeping through his happiness like a fume. After futile attempts to sleep he rose, and still at the bidding of his uncanny and tormenting impulse he took his bath and dressed himself for the day. By this time the ashen tints of dawn were in his chamber and on the fields outside. He stood looking at the unloveliest aspect of nature, a landscape on the sunless side, before the east is red. The air felt lifeless; there were no depths in the pale sky; the azure was a flat tint, opaque and thin, like a poor water-color. While he gazed the motionless trees, live-oaks and olives and palms, were shaken as by a mighty wind; the pepper plumes tossed and streamed and tangled like a banner; the great elms along the avenue bent over in a breaking strain. Yet the silken cord of the Holland window-shade did not so much as swing. There was not a wing’s breath of air. But gradually the earth and cloud vibrated with a strange grinding noise which has been described a hundred times, but never adequately; a sickening crepitation, as of the rocks in the hills scraping and splintering. Before the mind could question the sound, there succeeded an anarchy of uproar. In it was jumbled the crash of trees and buildings, the splintering crackle of glass, the boom of huge chimneys falling and of vast explosions, the hiss of steam, the hurling of timbers and bricks and masses of stone or sand, and the awful rush of frantic water escaping from engine or main.
“’Quake, sure’s you’re born!” said the colonel softly.
Now that his invisible peril was real, was upon him, his spirits leaped up to meet it. He looked coolly about him, noting in his single glance that the house was standing absolutely stanch, neither reeling nor shivering; and that the chimney just opposite his eye had not misplaced a brick. In the same instant he caught up his revolver and ran at his best pace from the room. The hall was firm under his hurrying feet. As he passed the great arched opening on the western balcony he saw an awful sight. Diagonally across from Casa Fuerte was the great house of the California magnate who did not worry his contractor with demands for Colonial honesty of workmanship as well as Colonial architecture. The stately mansion with its beautiful piazzas and delicate harmony of pillar and pediment, shone white and placid on the eye for a second; then rocked in ghastly wise and collapsed like a house of cards. Simultaneously a torchlike flame streamed into the air. A woeful din of human anguish pierced the inanimate tumult of wreck and crash.
“Bully for Casa Fuerte!” cried the soldier, who now was making a frenzied speed to the other side of the house. He cast a single glance toward the door which he knew belonged to Janet’s room; and he thought of the boy, but he ran first to his old aunt. He didn’t need to go the whole way. She came out of her door, Janet and Archie at her side. They were all perfectly calm, although in very light and semi-oriental attire. Archie plainly had just plunged out of bed. His eyes were dancing with excitement.
“This house is a dandy, ain’t it, Uncle Bertie?” he exclaimed. “Mr. Arnold told me all about the way his father built it; he said it wouldn’t bat its eye for an earthquake. It didn’t either; but that house opposite is just kindling-wood! Say! here’s Cousin Cary; and—look, Uncle Bertie, Mr. Keatcham has got up and he’s all dressed. Hullo, Colvin! Don’t be scared. It’s only a ’quake!” Colvin grinned a sickly grin and stammered, “Yes, sir, quite so, sir.” Not an earthquake could shake Colvin out of his manners.
“Are you able to do this, Mr. Keatcham?” young Arnold called breathlessly, plunging into the patio to which they had all instinctively gravitated. Keatcham laughed a short, grunting laugh. “Don’t you understand, this is no little every-day ’quake? Look out! Is there a way you can look and not see a spout of flame? I’ve got to go down-town. Are the machines all right?”
“We must find Randall; the poor soul has a mortal terror of ’quakes—” Aunt Rebecca’s well-bred accents were unruffled; she appeared a thought stimulated, nothing more; danger always acted as tonic on Winter nerves—“Archie, you go put your clothes on this minute, honey. And I suppose we ought to look up Millicent.”
The colonel, however, had barely set foot on the threshold when Mrs. Melville appeared, propelling Randall, whom she had rescued from the maid’s closet where she was cowering behind her neat frocks, momently expecting death, but decently ready for it in gown and shoes. Mrs. Melville herself, in the disorder of the shock, had merely added her best Paris hat and a skeleton bustle to her dainty nightgear. She had not forgotten her kimono; she had only forgotten to don it; and it draggled over her free arm. But her dignity was intact. The instant she beheld her kindred she demanded of them, as if they were responsible, whether this was a sample of the Californian climate. Keatcham blushed and fled with Colvin and the giggling Arnold and Archie, who were too polite to giggle.
Mrs. Winter put on her eye-glasses. “Millicent,” said she in the gentlest of tones, “your bustle is on crooked.”
One wild glance at the merciless mirror in the carved pier-glass did Mrs. Melville give, and, then, without a word, she fled.