In the space at the head of the companionway Frederick came upon the
same company as the day before, sitting close together in steamer
chairs--Toussaint, the timid skipper of the sailing vessel, the woman
artist, the woman physician, the tall electrical engineer, and a man who
had not been there the day before, an American colonel. He was a handsome
specimen of the highest type of his widely spread species. He was engaged
in a conversation on the number of miles covered by all the railroads in
the United States, and his statements concerning their extent set fire to
the European chauvinism of the electrical engineer. They forgot the
weather in their debate. Each party to the dispute named an incredible
number of miles and vaunted the advantages of the railroads in his native
country.
"We are running at only half speed," said Toussaint to Frederick. "Isn't
it strange how suddenly the weather changed?"
"Very," answered Frederick.
"Of course," Toussaint continued with a pale grimace intended for a
smile, "I don't understand anything about cyclones, but the seamen say
this storm is cyclonic."
"It may be called a cyclone," said the timid little skipper of the
sailing vessel. "If it were striking us astern instead of ahead, it would
not be so bad. As it is, the _Roland_ at the utmost cannot make more than
three miles an hour. Were I on my schooner and had the same storm blown
up so suddenly, we should not have had time to furl a sail. We should
have been lost. Thank the Lord, it is better on modern steamers.
Nevertheless, I feel more comfortable on my four-master, and the devil
knows, I'd like to be on it now."
Frederick could not help laughing.
"As for the _Roland_," he said, "I would rather be, let us say, in the
Hofbräuhaus in Munich. Your four-master has no greater charms for me than
a cabin on the _Roland_."
Hans Füllenberg came lounging in and told them a wave had swept away one
of the life-boats on the after quarter. At the very same instant an
arched mass of water came flying slantwise over the port bow.
"Oh!" everybody cried.
"Magnificent, beautiful," said Frederick.
"That's cyclonic," the woman artist repeated.
"Believe me," they heard the colonel say again, "the stretch from New
York to Chicago alone"--
"That was a Niagara Falls," said Toussaint.
The wave, dropping into the ventilators and chimneys, had fairly bathed
the vessel. It was cold, too, and the _Roland_ was continuing its
obstinate, praiseworthy trip under a crust of ice and snow. Icicles were
hanging from the rigging. Glassy stalactites formed about the chart-room
and everywhere on the railings and edges of things. The deck was
slippery, and it was a perilous venture to attempt to make one's way
forward. But when Ingigerd's cabin door opened and her long light hair
rumpled by the wind appeared in the slit, Frederick instantly made the
venture. She drew him into her cabin, where he found two children keeping
her company.
"I invited them to stay with me because it's fairly comfortable in this
cabin."
The seriousness of the situation had extinguished in the girl all
coquetry and capriciousness. Frederick almost forgot what he had suffered
on her account and in what fatal dependence he had been upon this
creature only a short time before.
"Tell me, is there danger, Doctor von Kammacher?" she asked.
His evasive answer seemed to make no impression upon her. He was
astonished to see how energetic and resolute she was, in contrast with
her behaviour of yesterday, when she played the spoiled, suffering,
helpless child. She begged him to go try to find her father.
"In case anything happens, you know, it would be well not to be so far
away from him."
"What do you suppose will happen?"
Without answering this, she asked him to stop at cabin 49 on the way and
tell Rosa to come up.
"My little guests keep clamouring for her. If she doesn't come up for
a while, I can't keep them quiet. Then she can serenely go back again
to her silly, sentimental mistress. What do you think of a man like
Achleitner?" she continued. "He is lying on all fours in his cabin,
crying and groaning, 'Oh, my poor mother! Oh, my poor sister! Why didn't
I obey you, mamma!' and so on. Just fancy, a man! Poor fellow!" she
added, her tone changing. "It's enough to move a heart of stone." She
held fast to the bedstead, not to be thrown into a corner like a
splinter, and shook with laughter.
The mountain of stones under which Frederick had buried the little
sinner, Ingigerd, was at that moment removed, and love stood there with
unparalleled might. Such genuine bravery and genuine humour, combined
with so much tenderness, he had never credited her with. Nervous and
tired as he was, he felt irresistibly drawn to her, felt his will
slipping from him. But a little, and he would have thrown himself to
the floor and kissed the small feet in slippers.
Frederick's amazement waxed when all of a sudden she wanted to cross
the deck and go below to comfort that donkey Achleitner. Frederick
would not allow her. He was ashamed of his previous attack of fright,
called himself a miserable coward, and got himself under perfect
control. In this attitude he played the rôle of a severe mentor,
Ingigerd's responsible guardian and protector, strict, but fatherly
and good-natured. Though she laughed at him, it by no means displeased
her to let him have his way.