Order and
law had passed away from the universe; but the sun still shone, the
wind still blew, the flowers still bloomed--that was the amazing
thing about it. That water should continue to run downhill was a
miracle. All the stabilities of the human mind and human achievement
were crumbling. The one stable thing that remained was Goliah, a
madman on an island. And so it was that the whole population of San
Francisco went forth next day in colossal frolic upon the hills that
overlooked the sea. Brass bands and banners went forth, brewery
wagons and Sunday-school picnics--all the strange heterogeneous
groupings of swarming metropolitan life.
On the sea-rim rose the smoke from the funnels of a hundred hostile
vessels of war, all converging upon the helpless, undefended Golden
Gate. And not all undefended, for out through the Golden Gate moved
the Energon, a tiny toy of white, rolling like a straw in the stiff
sea on the bar where a strong ebb-tide ran in the teeth of the summer
sea-breeze.
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