These
profits were quite satisfactory for after all expenses were paid they
averaged 100 and frequently 150 francs. I had been able out of these
profits to purchase at quite a favorable price five or six lots of wine
and several casks of liquors and brandy from the captain of the Mcuagran, a
ship in the harbor, and still had something like 4,000 or 5,000 francs
in my chest when suddenly, on the morning of September fifteenth, I was
awakened by my two servants who pounded on my door crying "Fire!"
This,
as I have said, was a terrible cry, this cry of fire in San Francisco,
which was built entirely of wood, especially when the city streets, in
place of being left in their natural condition of dust, or mire were
paved with wood and tended to spread fires by encouraging them. Upon
hearing this cry of fire, the one thought is how to escape death.
Despite this axiom of incontestible truth, I ran first for my trunk,
turned the key, and threw it out of the window; I then put on my
trousers, and started to escape down the stairs.
But
it was now too late; there remained open only the route used by my
trunk. I had no time to delay, so I seized this opportunity and jumped
out through the window. The fire had started in the cellar of the
adjoining house which was unoccupied. Once the flames reached my
cellar, full of wines and alcohols, it would be nothing but a huge
furnace which the combined efforts of all the firemen in San Francisco
would be powerless to check. As for the chest, there was no hope of
saving it, my one desire was to save what it contained.
The
fire lasted two and one half hours, burning 300 houses and all the
bakery quarters. By good luck my baker lived above Pacific Avenue; the
fire did not reach him. He offered me a refuge which I accepted. This
good man had the reputation of being a fair and just man; he was called
Aristid. There remained one last hope—my chest. I waited, in agony
until the aches were cold enough so that I might begin a search in
which my friends Tillier, Mirandole, Gauthier, and my two boys joined.
One of us constantly guarded the ashes, so that no one would come in
and do what we expected to do. Finally after three days it was possible
to begin to handle the ashes with a pick-axe.
I
knew where the chest had been in the main room and so consequently
knew where it ought to be in the cellar, since its weight led me to
believe that it had fallen directly down. But however much we dug,
excavated, and explored, we did not find a trace of the chest. I was
convinced that my poor chest had been stolen. Suddenly I
