CHAPTER I The Alarm—The Flames—The Ladder.

San Francisco, on the marge of the sea, with towering hills behind her, lay basking in the sun like a serpent by the side of a rock.

The dwellings of the more fortunate classes loomed pleasantly on the side of the large round hills in the distance, and might with the aid of a little fancy, have been metamorphosed into the castellated domains of the feudal barons whose reign succeeded that of absolute barbarism in Europe. Those quiet dwellings amid the solitude of nature, present a vivid contrast to the stirring scenes of the town below, and accordingly all who possess taste and the means of gratifying it, rear a building among the hills to which they can retire, after the fatigues of the day, and solace themselves with the comforts of domestic retiracy, and the grand simplicity of nature.

In giving a coup d’œil at the scene, from the city itself, one is struck by the pointed roof rising above a range of hills which lie to the south west of the noble harbor, and which crowns a dark pile that, on a nearer approach, seems to lean against the side of a mountain upon whose peak linger the last beams of the setting sun. This extensive edifice is the dwelling or homestead of the wealthy and far-famed Senor de Castro, an old resident of the country, and one of the proudest of the ancient lords of the soil. His horses are the best, his table the most sumptuous, and his servants the most numerous of any ranchero in the regions round about California.

It was early on one afternoon in June, 18—, that several young men, mostly Americans, were conversing around a table in one of the principle Cafes in the young city of San Francisco; a stout robust man nearly forty years of age, and dressed partly in the English style and partly in that of the country, with leggings and heavy blunt spurs, and a red sash about his middle, was discussing the merit of the auguadent sold in Santiago, a city of Chile, and having become very eloquent on this important topic, he set down his glass upon the table so violently as to shatter it to atoms.

‘Give me your good old-fashioned horn tumbler,’ cried he, with an oath, ‘and leave these baby-toys to the women and children!’

‘You like to take your liquor in a horn?’ said a young American clerk to a provision dealer, ‘now I prefer a glass, if it were only for the cleanliness of the thing,

‘You married men!’ exclaimed the stouter disputant, laughing.

‘A marriage extempore,’ muttered a saturnine young American, with an enormous head of black hair. ‘When are you going to send that little girl back to her mother?’

‘Silence, Pothook!’ cried the other, ‘you know that you would have given all the old shoes in your locker to have got one smile from her, yourself—’

‘Yes, envious Pothook,’ cried another youth, whose accent betrayed the Cockney, ‘if Cardwell has a notion to settle down in the calm of domestic life, and—’

‘Settle! Ten thousand blunderbusses!’ laughed the stout man, ‘When did you ever know Cardwell to settle anything but his grog bills—them’s the settlements he is most accustomed to.’

‘But I mean,’ added the Cockney; ‘that he is not running around after every pretty face like—like some people, always excepting the present honorable company, as a matter of course.’

‘Oh! of course!’ said Pothook feelingly.

‘Yet,’ remarked a tall, pale young man, who seemed to have recovered from some dangerous illness—‘Yet, let me tell you that Cardwell is not so innocent after all, as he seems to be. I saw him, the other day, stand for half an hour, looking up at a certain house in Clay street with all the eyes in his head, and meaning no offence to the gentleman, I don’t by any manner of means dispute his taste.’

‘Oh! the young villain!’ cried the stout man, roaring with laughter.

In the midst of his jollity and noisy vociferations, a young fellow from ‘the States’ who had been silent until then, demurely asked—‘Do any of you know what is good for rats?’

This made the stout man laugh still louder—‘You had better inquire what is bad for rats,’ said he at length; ‘for to judge by their sleek hides and plump bellies, I should think they had already had enough that was good and wholesome—perdition catch the born devils! Last night, about an hour before morning—’ the speaker stopped, as the sound of a bell rang violently, and the cry of ‘fire’ at once arose in the streets.

‘Never mind, go on!’ said the Cockney.

‘Never mind the bell,’ said Cardwell. ‘We can’t be disturbed in our pleasures by these domestic affairs.’

‘Why, by the noise,’ said the stout man, ‘it would appear that there was a polite invitation given to all citizens that their presence might be required in the adjoining streets, and as the wind is coming up fresh—’

‘There is no time to be lost, my good fellows!’ cried a tall, elegantly formed youth, rushing into the apartment from an adjoining room. ‘Half the city is in flames!’

So saying, the youth hastened away, followed by the revellers.

The whole town was in an uproar. As they gained the street, they were met by the strong sea breeze that filled the air with dust, and betokened no good to those whose property was at that moment encircled by the flames.

The Sansome Truck Company, with their hooks and ladders, were rushing by, their scarlet coats powdered with dust, and making the welkin ring with their shouts. The elegant youth of whom we have spoken was one of the first that reached the fire. Already was the house of Senor del Castro completely enveloped by sheets of flame, and from the windows of some of the adjoining buildings the streams of fire darted forth, and moved swiftly off toward the South on the wings of the gale.

Several persons, among whom were Cardwell, and the stout man of the cafe, busied themselves in tearing up the planks in the immediate vicinity of the conflagration, for the streets being laid down with plank, instead of stones, aid greatly in the spread of the flames. The firemen had brought streams of water to bear on the principal building, when suddenly there appeared at an upper window, a fair and youthful female form, evidently belonging to one of the higher classes of the country, whose dark hair fell in rich masses about her shoulders, and partly concealed a face in which the snow and the rose contended for mastery.

For an instant every one paused in astonishment, nor was her overmastering beauty unheeded in that moment of fearful excitement; for the cry that a woman was in the house now rose shrilly on the air, and was echoed in every street in the city. The ladders were hurried to the spot by men frantic in their haste to save so fair a specimen of mortality from a dreadful death, while the object of all this interest, the lovely cause of the wild confusion that pervaded the masses below, simply placed one little white hand to her eyes as if to shut out the sight of the surrounding horrors, and steadied herself with the other by placing it on the sill of the window.

In the moment that the ladder was placed against the side of the house, a shrill cry was heard in the rear of the firemen, and a stately form was seen forcing itself through the throng with giant strides, and thrusting aside everybody and everything which opposed its progress. One glance was sufficient to convince the spectators that the father of the imperilled girl was rushing to her rescue. His hat was gone, and his dark but silvered locks floated on the breeze, the sweat stood in beads upon his broad forehead, and his face, though bearded and mustachioed according to the custom of the country, was pale with anxiety and horror.

‘Oh, for the love of God!’ cried he, ‘my daughter! my daughter!’

As he reached the front of the building, the flames gushing from the lower windows drove back the brave men who had charge of the ladder. The Senor del Castro clasped his hands, and uttering a cry of despair, would have rushed into the house, the lower part of which was completely filled with flames. The stout man of the cafe threw himself upon the distracted father, and by the timely aid of Cardwell and the Cockney, succeeded in dragging him out of the reach of danger. But the fire companies had not been idle while these events were transpiring. They had brought the ladder to the building at another place. They had placed it firmly against the side of the house, when a man, addressing an officer of the Fire Department, exclaimed in a tone of despair, ‘Oh, my God! Charley, the ladder is too short. It don’t reach anywhere near the window!’

Quicker than thought, Charley placed himself in front of the window at which the girl stood, and bade them place the feet of the ladder on his shoulders. In an instant, this was done, one foot of the ladder resting on each of his shoulders. The elegant youth of the cafe then sprang forward—

‘That’s right, Monteagle,’ cried Charley, ‘climb right up by me and then on the ladder; bring down the young lady or never live to tell of your failure.’

But before these words had been fairly uttered, the daring youth was half way up the ladder. All eyes were now fixed on the adventurer. For a moment all seemed silent except the hysteric wailings of the anguished father, and the awful roaring of the flames, as the wind swept through every aperture of the building, and added ten-fold to the fury of the conflagration.

Before Monteagle had reached the lower sill of the window, he was discovered to be on fire; but at almost the same instant, a stream of water from the pipe of an engine drenched him to the skin. Then both the youth and the girl were entirely hidden from view by the rolling forth of a dense volume of smoke streaked with flame. One cry—one general cry of despair burst from the throng below, and the Senor, not doubting that both his daughter and her deliverer had perished, gave a deep groan and sunk senseless to the earth. But loud rose the voice of Charley upon the air at the awful crisis—‘They are alive yet! Don’t be frightened, man, I feel the weight of both of them on my shoulders, now—now—the ladder shakes! they are coming down!’

Several men with large ponchos were crowded around the bottom of the ladder to smother the flames, in case the young lady should be on fire, by wrapping her tightly in these ample garments, and they looked up on hearing the cheerful exclamations of Charley. The feet and legs of a man were discerned below the smoke that had enveloped the upper part of the ladder, then the bottom of a lady’s robe, and finally the face of Monteagle begrimed and blistered looked down upon the trembling expectants. The head of the girl reclined on the shoulder of the gallant youth, her black hair flowing down his back, while her arms hung listless by his sides—she was in a state of insensibility.

As soon as Monteagle and his lovely burthen were within reach of the multitude a dozen hands grasped them, and while the friends of the youth bore him off on their shoulders to administer such healing remedies as his case required, for a part of his hair—his heavy brown locks—was burnt off, and a blister on his forehead showed too plainly that a moment longer would have consigned both the young lady and her deliverer to the realm from which no returning spirit has come back to describe the final parting of the soul from its material envelope.

The girl herself was carried to the arms of her father, who, just awaking from his swoon, cried in a gasping voice ‘Inez! Inez! where is my Inez?’ and plucking a sharp-pointed dagger from his breast, he was about to end his agony by thrusting it to the hilt in his heart. Quicker than lightning, the man who was called Charley grasped the wrist of the desperate man, and holding it like a vice in his stalwart grasp, pointed with the other hand to the girl, and said in his rough masculine voice:

‘None of that! If I’d thought you would take it so hard that we had saved your daughter’s life, but we would have—no, not that exactly, for she’s worth saving on her own account!’

While Charley was delivering this speech, the cinders were raining down on his head, and he shook them off as a lion would have shaken great flies from his forehead, but others were not so insensible to a shower of fire-brands, and the Senor was dragged farther from the scene of ruin.

When the Senor perceived that his Inez was really by his side, he gave vent to the most extravagant exclamations of joy. Rushing to the Chief Engineer, whom he supposed to be the savior of his child, he clasped the sturdy fireman in his arms, called him every name that is flattering to the pride of man, emptied his pockets of all his gold, and tried to force into his hands a precious ring that he wore on his finger, and which was said to contain a diamond of great value. Charley said that his duty called him elsewhere, and we next saw him plunging into the thickest of the throng to bring up his forces to the principal point of attack, and to expedite the tearing up of the planks on the street, for they had become thoroughly ignited in some places, and the flames were marching through the slight wooden buildings of the town with the imperious step of a conqueror.

No sooner had the young lady recovered consciousness, than she raised herself to her feet, and looked anxiously on every side as if in search of some object which she could not find.

‘Here comes your father,’ said Cardwell, who had been the most officious in bearing off the girl to a place of safety, and applying cold water and other restoratives to her face and temples.

Inez took the hand of her father, but still her eyes wandered through the throng as if seeking another, and while she was led away by the old Senor, she walked listlessly and thoughtfully, as if something pressed heavily upon her mind.

By this time every gambling-house, every drinking shop, every pulperie, and every thieving den had poured out its crowds upon the streets of San Francisco, and a vast proportion of the inhabitants of the city were thronging around the scene of conflagration. Here was a gang of thieves, pretending to be very officious in removing the goods from a store-house that had just kindled, while the eager glancing of their eyes, and the half-shy, half-brazen way they shouted to each other, by way of encouragement to preserve and to hasten the work, sufficiently denoted that they had come to purloin whenever an opportunity offered, and that their zeal was merely intended to blind the eyes of others, and lull suspicion in regard to their ulterior purposes; and it would seem that no lack of opportunity was here, for such was the excitement, such was the confusion, the tumbling of men upon others, the running hither and thither, the cries of alarm and distress, the shriek of the wind, and the roaring of the flames as they went leaping, darting, and whirling

from house to house, from corner to corner, and from street to street, that the cautious thief whose heart was marbled against human sufferings, and thought only of turning the disasters of others to his own advantage, might carry on his nefarious trade with almost as much impunity as that of the burrowing mole, who treasures his stolen grain under the earth while the plain above is rent by the tempest’s fury.

Yet, even in the general whirl of reason and reflection attendant upon these rapid conflagrations, there sometimes chances to be an eye unengaged for a moment which may light upon the plunderer in the very nick of time, and when least expected by himself. Such was the case now, just as the flames had reached Montgomery street, and were reaching forth their long red tongues towards the pile of stores on Jackson street, the Cockney mentioned at the commencement of this narrative saw a fellow hugging to his bosom a little iron safe, and stealthily escaping under cover of the smoke, along the street towards the harbor.

He raised the cry of ‘Stop thief! Picaroon! Coquin!’ and in as many other languages as he could bring to his aid, he gave the alarm to such individuals as were within the reach of his voice. The merchants themselves who were near the spot, joined in the chase, and in less than two minutes more than a hundred persons were at the heels of the man with the safe. He headed directly for the water, and had nearly reached it, when a couple of Chinamen in blue nankeens threw themselves across his path. The desperate wretch dashed the iron safe into the face of one of them, still retaining hold of it, however, and he fell covered with blood, and then, with one hand, the thief grasped the long cue of the other and jerked him to the ground. He then darted forward again, leaving the two disastered Fee-fo-fums sitting upright in the middle of the street, and uttering the most doleful lamentations. Amain the crowd came sweeping down to the water’s edge, tumbling the two Chinamen over and over, who cried out most piteously while rolling in the dust under

the feet of the pursuers. The thief perceiving no way of escape on the land, sprang into a skiff and pushed off from the shore. For a moment, his foes stood panting on the shore like baffled tigers, eyeing the man as with two small oars he ploughed through the waves and receded farther and farther from the strand. At length a loud hail was heard from a point farther down, some three hundred yards from the spot where the pursuers were clustered, and on turning their eyes in that direction, the crowd beheld a slender but well-formed youth tugging at a heavy boat, which lay partly on the shore and partly in the water, and vainly endeavoring to get it afloat.

With a yell that rang on the air like the onset cry of a troop of wild Indians, the whole body of pursuers ran towards the boat.

‘Hah! Monteagle, is that you?’ cried our Cockney, who arrived first at the spot—‘It was I who gave the alarm! How much is there in the safe?’ ‘That is best known to my employers,’ returned Monteagle evasively, ‘enough, you may be sure, to warrant the most vigorous endeavors in getting it into our hands. Those who take the thief will be well rewarded.’

‘Come then! heave O! heave, ahoi!’ cried three or four lusty fellows who had now come up, and applied their shoulders to the boat in good earnest. It began to move, and as it finally slid roaring into the waves, Monteagle, and a dozen others leaped on board. A few strokes of their long oars cleared them from the beach and gave free play to their motions as they sunk the blades of their oars deep into the brine, and threw themselves far back at every stroke; a movement which to the practised eye of the mariner at once announced that whatever experience they might previously have had in this line, was not in the service of the nation, but had been acquired in the pursuit of that marvellous fish which swallowed Jonah.

The winds were unusually violent that afternoon, and the water was very rough. This circumstance was much in favor of the large boat, and although the robber was a powerful man, and exerted his utmost, yet his pursuers continually gained upon him. He was obliged to stop a few moments to bail out his skiff, using one of his boots for that purpose; and this fact at once convinced Monteagle and his men that he labored under great disadvantages in a sharp, combing sea such as was then driving into the harbor before the screaming gale. The thief himself seemed to give up all hope of escape and relaxed his efforts, no doubt husbanding his strength for exertions of a different character.

‘Now, my brave fellows,’ cried Monteagle, ‘lay back and give it to her! do your prettiest and you can make the old barge hum, and we’ll soon come up with that picaroon yonder; and understand that I am authorized to promise a high reward.’