eet. Cable cars stood here and
there, half twisted from the tracks, pavements were littered with bricks
from fallen chimneys, bits of window glass. 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 XXXIX

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.
Japanese 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 spaces. Union Square was crowded
with a strangely varied human mass; opera singers from the St. Francis
Hotel, jabbering excitedly in Italian or French, and making many
gestures with their jeweled hands; Chinese and Japanese 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