ars, and the young husband
argued with his wife in vain: she made no response, but her passive
resistance was as effective as if her feet had been six. She would not
let her maid touch her, and her husband dared not relinquish his hold on
his strong-box while surrounded by his formidable neighbors of Telegraph
Hill.

Isabel, glad to be able to do something for some one, told him to hand
the box to Mr. Clatt, then carry his wife on board the launch. The nurse
followed with the child, while Isabel and Sugihara, having cast their
own burdens on board, and drawn their pistols, brought up in the rear.

As the launch entered the current that would carry it east of Angel
Island, Isabel looked at her guests--the Chinese wife and her child
lying on the cushions of the cabin, stolid once more; the big-footed
maid and the husband, his strong-box between his knees, seated opposite;
the Japanese, sitting cross-legged on the roof, his back to the land--no
doubt to emphasize his contempt for the rabble; Mr. Clatt, shaking his
fist at a group of vociferating Italians--and smiled grimly as she
recalled the romantic boat party that escaped from Pompeii. She did not
feel in the least romantic, but she felt something greater and deeper.

She turned her head many times to look at the wonderful spectacle of the
burning city, the red curtain in the background, along whose front
rushed the pillars of fire driven by the rolling masses of smoke. Where
the fires on Nob Hill had burned low the flames looked like red
sprouting corn. Fairmont had caught at last. It stood, a great square
pile of white stone against the red background, and from its top alone
poured a steady square volume of curling white smoke. The windows, and
there were many hundreds of them, looked like plates of brass. The last
thing she saw, as the launch shot up the bay towards San Pablo, was a
wave of fire roll down Telegraph Hill, and hundreds of black pigmies
fleeing before it.

It was a beautiful evening of perfect peace when the launch entered
Rosewater creek. The marsh was bathed in all the faint colors of the
afterglow. The birds were singing. People were sitting under the trees
in their parks or gardens. A fisherman was sailing up to Rosewater with
his catch. But for the red light in the south and the faint sound as of
a besieging army, there was nothing to recall that a civilization had
been arrested and a great city was burning down to its bones.

THE END