The Most Important Image of San Francisco

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,
Yes, by the mass!
Give me a glass
To toast a lass,
In horns should never be,
Remembered when
We married men
Quaff denty or chee chee.’

‘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.