CHAPTER XII--ESCAPING AN EARTHQUAKE
As the cars drew near Florence, Mr. Fabian described the naturalprotection afforded that city by the mountains surrounding it. Thisfigured mightily in past ages, he said, when enemies of the Florentinestried to overcome the city and break the power of their trading.
"You'll find everything about Florence savoring of antiquity," announcedMr. Fabian, as they entered the city. "The winding narrow streets, theirregular roofs that break the sky-line, the ancient churches with bitsof old carving in the least expected places, and last but not least, thefolk of Florence with their quaint costumes of bright colors."
The first day in Florence was spent in visiting the Pitti Palace, thebasilica of San Miniato, which was of architectural value to thestudents, and then the Museo Nazionale.
The second day was given to visiting at the Piazzale Michelangelo, andto see the Cathedral Santo Maria del Fiore, with its beautiful facade.
Mr. Fabian conducted the girls to Pisa, the third day, but the elders inthe party preferred to remain in the cars when the ardent admirers ofantiquity visited the places of past glories.
Then they drove on from Florence and stopped over night at Arretzo; andin the morning they went to Perugia, a mediaeval town with ancientbuildings and still more ancient churches.
From Perugia the route lay due south to Rome. It proved to be adelightful trip through the wonderful country-lanes and spreading fieldswhich were cultivated to the last inch.
As they came nearer Rome, they began to feel the oppressive heat whichhad been gradually growing more intense all that day. Mr. Fabian hadplanned to spend a full week, or more, in Rome in order to give thegirls ample time to see everything there, worth while.
The first day they visited the Coliseum, the Forum and other famousplaces. Then he escorted them to the Cloaca Maxima to study EtruscanArt. Next they visited the Museum in the Villa of Pope Julius; then theEtruscan Museum of the Vatican; also the Mamertine Prison, and manyplaces famed for their collections of antiquities and art.
One day they went to see the famous facade and bits of architecturestill to be found in Rome, such as the "Spanish Steps" of the Piazza diSpagna, and the Triumphal Arch of Septimus Severus. Mr. Fabian hadunwillingly to end the day's visits, however, because of the terrificheat.
The sun had been shining through a red haze for several days, and thereflection from the Mediterranean was so oppressive that the touristsdecided to cut their stay in Rome short and drive on across Italy toNaples, which always boasted a fine breeze from the Bay.
So the hotel bill was paid that night, and the baggage made ready for anearly start. The travelling trunk was locked on the rack of theautomobile, and everything else was prepared that no time would be lostin the morning.
The heat that evening was even worse than at any time during their stayin Rome, and rumors were heard that the seismograph had registeredtremors and slight earthquakes, all day. This was not encouraging to theAmericans, and they retired at night with all apparel on excepting shoesand their coats.
Fatigue and the drowsiness produced by the heat overcame everyone aftera time, and they slept until about one o'clock. A strange shaking ofPolly's bed woke her suddenly. She sat up and felt the room swaying. Shereached out and called to Eleanor.
"Get up, Nolla! Get up--it's the earthquake!" cried she, springing fromthe bed.
"Uh! Wh-a-d you s-ay?" mumbled Eleanor drowsily.
"Quick! We've got to get out. The earthquake's here!" shouted Polly,trying in vain to catch hold of the bed-post while everything rocked asif on a vessel at sea.
A falling picture upon Eleanor's feet startled her so that she jumped upand gazed in affright at Polly. "What is it?" asked she, seeing thetoilet dishes on the stand roll upon the floor.
"Earthquakes! Hurry--hurry!" screamed Polly, almost too frightened tofind the buttons on her dress.
Dodo and Nancy tumbled headlong into the room now, both crying andwishing they had "left this old Rome before this happened."
The girls managed to get into their shoes in short order and when Mrs.Fabian rushed in to drag them forth, they were all dressed. Polly andEleanor remembered to catch up their bags, and then ran after theFabians who had roused the Alexanders and told them to run for the openstreet.
But the street presented such a scene that Mr. Fabian instantly decidedto leave whatever they had forgotten in the hotel rooms and get away inthe automobiles.
"Oh, see that chimney topple over!" cried Nancy, as the brick structureof a distant building was seen to fall in.
Screams and cries, pushing and huddling of the mobs in the streets,created a panic with the excitable Latin people, and Mr. Alexanderquickly turned and said to his party: "I'm going to get out the cars.Dodo can go with me to handle Ma's roadster. You-all follow Mr. Fabianthrough the safest streets and go out along the Appian Way. I'll meetyou there and pick you up. We'll get out of Rome at once!"
He had not been gone a minute before another severe quake shook the cityso that it seemed as if the earth rose and fell in billows. Collapsingbuildings were heard crashing down upon the streets, dogs howled, otheranimals added their fearful noises to the panic-stricken cries of thepopulace, and a pandemonium was the result.
Mr. Fabian and his wife kept their presence of mind in all thisdistraction, but Mrs. Alexander wept loudly and dragged at her blondehair in despair when she realized that this was her end. "Oh why did Iever want to come to Europe to be killed in Rome, when I could havelived a long life peacefully in Denver!" wailed she, hysterically.
It took all of Polly's and Eleanor's time and temper to soothe thefear-paralyzed woman. But she was able to follow the Fabians when theystarted for the Appian Way--in fact she wanted to run ahead and get outof the city.
It took a long time of trial and tortuous going before they reached thequieter sections of Rome; and finally they began to glimpse the AppianWay through the haze of fire and smoke that now spread a pall over thecity.
They had just heard the welcome sounds of Mr. Alexander's voice, whenanother tremor shook the city so that the girls clung to each other insupport. Instantly a man's genial voice called: "Well, I'll begol-durned if I had to come all the way to Rome to get an earthquake! Wecan get these sort nearer Denver, without charge."
In spite of their fear everyone smiled at the little man who could jokein the face of such disasters. But he created the effect of releasingthe tension, and thus destroying much of the fear.
Mr. Alexander directed the Fabian party to their cars, and when they hadclimbed in and wished the tourists who crowded around, a safe escapefrom the city, the two drivers started away.
They had not gone more than a mile, when another very severe shockseemed to move the ground from under the cars. The screams from thecrowded city streets could be heard at this distance from the scene, andPolly said: "It makes me feel like a criminal to run away and leave allthose people to their doom."
"It's better for as many to get out of the city as can go, unless theyare trained to help in this emergency," said Mrs. Fabian.
Mrs. Alexander had calmed down considerably when she was seated in thecar, and now she began to question her husband.
"Ebeneezer, did you bring my travelling bag?"
"I dun'no. I grabbed up everything in sight, from my old razor strop tomy scarf-pin," returned her spouse, jovially.
"My bag held that new evening coat," cried Mrs. Alexander.
"Never mind a little thing like that!" advised her lord.
"That's all _you_ care for a two-hundred dollar wrap, but I know youdidn't forget that horrid pipe!" retorted she.
"I _know_ I diden', too, 'cause it's goin' in my mouth this minute!"chuckled Mr. Alexander, making his companions laugh.
"Call Dodo--stop her, this minute," commanded Mrs. Alexander. "I mustask her if she took my bag. If she didn't I'm going back for it!"
To pacify her, the cars stopped and Dodo was asked if she saw the bagthat had held her mother's evening wrap.
"No, but I thought I caught up one of Ma's belongings," Dodo calledback. "When I got to the garage and turned the light on to see what Ihad saved I found it was a bed-pillow!"
A laugh greeted this reply, and Nancy then admitted: "I didn't know whatI was doing when I first jumped out of bed, but I intended getting myhair-brush and comb in case of need. When we got out on the street Ifound I had the cake of soap and the telephone pad that was kept on thestand beside the bed."
"Well, Ma," asked Mr. Alexander, as Dodo started her car again, "are yougoing to get out and go back for them things?"
"You are a bad cruel man, Ebeneezer Alexander, and I wonder that I couldlive with you as long as I have," snapped his wife.
"I wonder at it myself," chuckled the cheerful "cruel" man.
But they drove on and no more was said about the elaborate evening wrapthat was lost in the earthquake that night.
As they sped away, determined to get as far from the scene of disasteras possible, that night, Eleanor spoke.
"I wonder if there is anything else I have to live through before I cansettle down quietly."
"Now what's the matter?" demanded Polly.
"Oh nothing, but I was just thinking--I went through a snow-slide onGrizzly Peak; a land-slide on the Flat Top; a great mountain blizzard,on the Rockies; a hold-up in New York, one night; an avalanche on theAlps, and now an earthquake in Rome. What next, I wonder?"
"You ought to be grateful that you never experienced a sinking at seacaused by a German submarine," said Polly, earnestly.
The very seriousness of her remark made her friends laugh, so thatspirits rose accordingly, and just as they felt that the worst was over,another severe quake shook the ground they were speeding over.
Dodo's car was ahead, with its headlights streaming in advance upon theroadway. Immediately after the last shake, a deep rumbling and cracklingwas heard as if something ahead of them had parted and fallen down. Dodoleaned forward anxiously and gasped.
Mrs. Fabian was with her in the roadster, and the girl quickly put onthe brakes and reversed the wheel. "Just look out, Mrs. Fabian, and seeif you can see a gap across the road."
Even as she spoke, Mr. Alexander passed the little car and shouted toDodo: "What'd you stop for--right in the middle of the road?"
The next moment he was biting his tongue when the front wheels on hiscar caved into the newly made crevice across the road. Everyone wasjounced up and down frightfully as the wheels settled into the softearth, and Dodo jumped out to see if anyone was injured.
"Oh, oh! I know Pa's broken my neck!" cried Mrs. Alexander, as shecaught her plump neck between two fat hands.
"Blame it all on the pesky earthquake!" shouted Mr. Alexander, thickly,while the end of his tongue began swelling where his teeth had cut intoit.
Everyone was ordered out, while Mr. Alexander tried to back the touringcar out of the cleft across the roadway. But it was a deep trench andthe front of the car had settled into the earth.
"The only way to get her up is to plank down several rails and run herout on them," said Mr. Alexander, lispingly, as he studied thesituation.
"It's too dark to hunt for rails or boards, and there isn't a house insight," Dodo replied.
"What can we do, then?" asked the perplexed little man, scratching hishead for an idea to start from his brain.
It was nearly dawn when the peasants started from their homes for thecity, to sell their market-goods, so the tourists had not long to sitand wait, before a cart drawn by two sturdy oxen rumbled along.
"Hey, there! If you hook them beasts to my car and pull it out of thishole fer me, I'll pay fer the animals!" called Mr. Alexander, hoping theman understood his English.
Mr. Fabian then interpreted what had been said, and the man examined thecondition of the ditch before he replied. Then he gave Mr. Fabian tounderstand that he could remove two heavy side-boards from the cart andtry in that way to help run the wheels out.
After strenuous labor and many pulls and tugs on the part of the oxen,the car was backed to the road again. But the ditch was still there, andit was too deep to cross without a bridge, or by filling it in.
By the time the peasant had been paid his price, a number of other cartshad driven up and the men sat pondering how to get over. It was Mr.Alexander who waved his arms like a wind-mill in Holland, and shouted tomake them understand.
"Let's all get busy and scoop the earth into the ditch. Some of us candig it from that field and others can carry it in their hats to fillin."
Mr. Fabian tried to explain, but the peasants shook their heads. One manjumped out and ran back in haste along the road.
"What's the matter? Is he afraid we'll make him work?" demanded Mr.Alexander, impatiently.
"No," explained Mr. Fabian, "he said he knew where he could get a shoveland other implements. There's a farm a bit farther on."
Shortly after that, the man returned and with him came two young men,all carrying shovels, and one pushed a cart. With these tools for work,every man went at the job, and in half an hour the crevice caused by thequake was temporarily filled up.
While they worked the men asked Mr. Fabian about the earthquake in thecity, and he told them what havoc it had made. The sun had risen by thetime the two cars were able to cross the bridged crevice, and thenwaited to allow the ox-carts to get past.
"Say, there! Are you going to take that stuff to Rome, to sell?" calledMr. Alexander, eagerly.
The men comprehended and nodded their heads.
"Well, here! We're starved now and will buy the fruit and ready-to-eatstuff. Got anything cooked?" called he.
One farmer had fowl, another had fruit and still another had a load ofvegetables, so the tourists bought all the fruit they wanted, and thepeasants went their way, rejoicing at the good luck the quake hadbrought them in the form of rich Americans who paid so well for fillingthe ditch, and then selling them fruit.
As soon as the tourists reached a quiet spot beside the road, theyhalted the cars and enjoyed the fruit, for that was all the breakfastthey would have until they reached Naples.
Late in the afternoon they stopped at a good hotel and sighed in reliefto think they could have a good, long, night's rest. The daily paperswere filled with the account of the damage done in Rome by the recentearthquake, but the list of those dead or lost was not yet complete, asso many were buried under the debris of fallen buildings.
Suddenly Mr. Alexander threw back his head and roared.
"What's the matter, Pa?" asked Dodo, frowning at his shout.
"Ho, I just read how we're all dead. Did you know we were lost in the'quake last night?"
They all stared at him. Mr. Fabian ran over to see the article forhimself. Then he read it aloud: "Among those stopping at the Hotel ----in Rome, which collapsed at the third severe shock, were a party ofAmerican tourists who were with Mr. Fabian, the well-known authority onAntiques. Mrs. Fabian and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Alexander and daughter,and two young misses, were members in this party. A few other guests ofthe hotel are also unaccounted for."
"If that isn't the strangest thing," exclaimed Mr. Fabian, "to sit hereand read our own death-notice. Now I'll have to wire Ashby that we'reall right, and we'll have to cable to the States that this report isfalse."
The girls wanted to read the notice, too, and Nancy said they ought tokeep the notice as a joke on journalism in Italy.
"No joke about it, say I. Now I have to wear crepe fer myself, becauseeveryone out West will celebrate when they believe me done for," saidMr. Alexander.