Port O' Gold Part 61

She tried to protest, to push him away; but Frank held her close. And, after a moment, like a tired child's, her head lay quiet on his shoulder; her arms stole round his neck; she began to weep softly.

The horror came at dawn.

Frank, startled from a late and restless slumber, thought that he was being shaken or attacked by some intruder. He sprang up, sleepily bewildered. The room rocked with a quick, sharp, jerking motion that was strangely terrifying. There was a dull indescribable rumbling, punctuated by a sound of falling things. A typewriter in one end of the room went over on the floor. A shaving mug danced on the shelf and fell.

The windows rattled and a picture on the wall swayed drunkenly.

"d.a.m.n!" Frank rubbed his eyes. "An earthquake!"

He heard his mother's scream; his father's rea.s.suring answer. Hurriedly he reached for his clothes. Downstairs he found his father endeavoring to calm the frightened servants, one of whom appeared to have hysterics.

Presently his mother entered with the smelling salts. Soon the maid's unearthly laughter ceased.

"Anyone hurt?" Frank questioned anxiously.

"No," his father answered. "Thought the house was going over ... but there's little damage done."

Suddenly Frank thought of Bertha. He must go to her. She would be frightened.

He ran into the debris-cluttered street. Cable cars stood here and there, half twisted from the tracks, pavements were littered with bricks from fallen chimneys, bits of window gla.s.s. Men and women in various degrees of dishabille, were issuing from doorways. As he mounted higher, Frank saw smoke spirals rising from the southeastern part of town. He heard the strident clang of firegongs.

Automobiles were tearing to and fro, with a great shrieking of siren whistles.

It seemed like a nightmare through which he tore, without a sense of time or movement, arriving finally at the marble vestibule of Bertha's home. It was open and he rushed in, searching, calling. But he got no answer. Bertha, servants, aunt--all apparently had fled.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

THE TURMOIL

Frank never knew just why he turned toward the town from Bertha's empty dwelling. It was an involuntary reaction. The excitement of those lower levels seemed to call, and thence he sped. Several times acquaintances--newspaper men and others--accosted him. Everyone was eagerly alert, feverishly interested, as if by some great adventure.

j.a.panese boys were sweeping up the litter in front of stores. In many places things were being put in order, as if the trouble were over. But at other points there was confusion and dread. Half-dressed men and women wandered about, questing for a cup of coffee, but there was none to be had, for the gas mains had broken.

People converged toward parks and open s.p.a.ces. Union Square was crowded with a strangely varied human ma.s.s; opera singers from the St. Francis Hotel, jabbering excitedly in Italian or French, and making many gestures with their jeweled hands; Chinese and j.a.panese from the Oriental quarter hard by; women-of-the-town, bedraggled, sleepy-eyed and fearful; sailors, clerks, folk from apartment houses.

Near the pansy bed a woman lay. She screamed piercingly at intervals.

Frank learned that she was in travail. By and by a doctor came, a nurse.

They were putting up tents on the green sward. Automobiles rolled up, sounding their siren alarms. Out of them were carried bandaged men who moaned, silent forms on litters, more screaming women. They were taken to the tents. Extra police appeared to control the crowds that surged hither and thither without seeming reason, swayed by sudden curiosities and trepidation.

San Francisco was burning. The water mains were broken by the quake, Frank learned. The fire department was demoralized. Chief Sullivan was dead. A falling chimney from the California Hotel had crushed him.

There were emergency reservoirs, but no one seemed to know where. They had not been used for years.

Swiftly the fire gained. It ravaged like a fiend in the factory district south and east, toward the bay.

By noon a huge smoke curtain hid the sky; through it the sun gleamed palely like a blood-red disc. Wild rumors were in circulation. Los Angeles was wiped out. St. Louis had been destroyed. New York and Chicago were inundated by gigantic tidal waves.

Frank decided to return home and discover how his people fared. Perhaps there would be a bite for him. He found his father's house surrounded by a cordon of young soldiers--student militiamen from Berkeley, some one said. They ordered him off.

"But--" he cried. "It's my HOME. My father and mother are there."

"They were ordered out two hours since," said a youthful officer, who came up to settle the dispute. "We'll have to dynamite the place.... No water.... Desperate measures necessary...."

He stopped Frank's effort to reply with further stereotyped announcements. "Orders of the Admiral, Mayor, Chief of Police.... Sorry.

Can't be helped.... Keep back, everybody. Men have orders to shoot."

He made off tempestuously busy and excited.

Frank shouted after him, "Wait, where have my parents gone? Did they leave any word?"

The young man turned, irritably. "Don't know," he answered, and resumed his vehement activities. Frank, with a strange, empty feeling, retraced his way, fought a path by means of sheer will and the virtue of his police badge across Market street, and struck out toward Lafayette Square. Scarcely realizing it, he was bound for Aleta's apartment.

A warped shaft had incapacitated the automatic elevator, so he climbed three flights of stairs and found Aleta packing.

"Frank!" she cried, and ran to him. "This is good of you." She took both of his hands and clung to them as if she were a little frightened.

"Wait," she said. "I'll bet you've had nothing to eat. I'll make you a cup of coffee and a toasted cracker on the spirit lamp."

Silently he sat on a broken chair and watched her. He was immensely grateful and--he suddenly realized--immensely weary. What a dear girl Aleta was! And he had not thought of her till all else failed him.

Soon the coffee was steaming in two little Dresden cups, one minus a handle. There was a plateful of crackers, b.u.t.tered and toasted, a bit of Swiss cheese. Frank had never tasted anything so marvelous.

"Where were you going?" he asked, finally.

"To the park ... the panhandle ... everybody's going there."

"Your--mother!" A swift recollection smote him. "Where is she?"

"Mother died last week," Aleta turned away. "I'm rather thankful--now."

Silently he helped her with the packing. There were a suitcase and a satchel for the choice of her possessions. They required much picking and choosing. Many cherished articles must be abandoned.

Suddenly Aleta ran to Frank. The room was rocking. Plaster fell about them. The girl screamed. To his astonishment, Frank found his arms around her waist. He was patting her dark, rumpled hair. Her hands were on his shoulders, and her piquant, wistful face close to his own. She had sought him like a frightened child. And he, with masculine protective impulse, had responded. That was all. Or was it? They looked into each other's eyes, bewildered, shaken. All was quiet now. The temblor had pa.s.sed instantly and without harm.

In the street they joined a motley aggregation moving westward in horse-driven vehicles, automobiles, invalid chairs, baby buggies and afoot. Rockers, filled with household goods, tied down and pulled by ropes, were part of the procession. Everyone carried or dragged the maximum load his or her strength allowed.

When they reached that long narrow strip of park called the Panhandle it was close to dusk. They advanced some distance ere they found a vacant s.p.a.ce. The first two blocks were covered like a gypsy camp with wagons, trunks and spread-out salvage of a hundred hastily abandoned homes.

Improvised tents had been fashioned from blankets or sheets. Before one of these a bearded man was praying l.u.s.tily for salvation. A neighbor watched him, smiling, and drank deeply from a pocket flask. A stout woman haled Aleta. "You and your husband got any blankets?" she asked.

"No," the girl said, reddening. "No, we haven't ... and he's not ..."

"Well, never mind," the woman answered. "Take these two. It may come cold 'fore morning. And I've got more than I can use. We brung the wagon." She drew the girl aside and nudged her in the ribs.

"We ain't married, either--Jim 'n' me. But what's the diff?"