Late in the afternoon of the same day, the captain of a sturdy little
trading vessel from Hamburg sighted a boat drifting on the long, high
swells. The weather was clear, and the captain made certain that the
people in the boat were signalling with handkerchiefs. Within half an
hour, the shipwrecked passengers of the _Roland_ were with great
difficulty hoisted on board the trader, one at a time.
There were fifteen persons in all, three sailors and a cabin-boy, with
the well-known name of the _Roland_ on their caps, two ladies, a woman
evidently from the steerage, a maid, a long-haired man of about thirty in
a velvet jacket, an armless man, the man who had been steering, two other
men, and two children, a boy and a girl. The boy was dead.
The hardships and terrors to which the delicate child had succumbed had
had almost equally dire effects upon the others. With the exception of
the maid Rosa, they looked as if they had been drowned beyond hope of
resuscitation. A very wet man--it was Frederick--attempted to drag an
unconscious wet young woman up the gangway-ladder, but his strength
failed him, and the sailors of the trader had to catch him as he
tottered, take the young woman from his arms, and help him struggle up
the ladder on deck, like a man whose every bone and muscle is racked by
rheumatism. Attempting to speak, he could produce only an asthmatic,
sibilant wheeze. On deck, he groaned, burst into a senseless, cackling
laugh, and spread out his purple, frozen hands. His lips, too, were
purple, and his sunken eyes glowed feverishly from a face crusted with
dirt and brine. He seemed to want nothing so much as to be dried, warmed
and cleaned.
He was followed by Rosa. Upon laying an unconscious little girl in the
arms of the first mate, she turned back to descend to the boat again, but
found the way barred by Bulke and one of the sailors of the trader,
hauling up the armless actor, Arthur Stoss. He was dripping wet, his eyes
were staring blankly, his nose was running, and his eyelids were red and
inflamed, while the tip of his nose was waxen white. After several vain
attempts to produce a sound through his chattering teeth, he finally
succeeded in framing "Rum! Hot rum!"
A mutual inclination seemed to make Bulke and Rosa pull together in their
rescue work like two old mates. Fairly raining water, they descended
again for Mrs. Liebling, who was lying prone in the bottom of the boat
in a serious condition.
"She's dead, and the boy is dead," said the sailors of the trader, and
wanted first to carry up the other woman, the steerage passenger, who
showed she was still alive by a rattle in her throat, fearful to hear.
Rosa burst into a howl and swore Mrs. Liebling was not dead.
"She's blue," the sailors declared. "She swallowed too much water."
But Rosa would not desist, and the sailors were compelled to carry Mrs.
Liebling up first.
As they were lifting on deck the unconscious woman from the steerage,
still emitting the fearful rattle, one of the _Roland_ sailors, whose
feet were frozen and who, during the whole long, dreadful drifting about
on the ocean had not uttered a sound, suddenly began to bellow in pain.
"Shut up!" said his mates. "Don't carry on like an old woman."
He was the next to be lifted on board, merely whimpering now in ineffable
agony. After him came the man in the velvet jacket, who was maundering,
Doctor Wilhelm, Max Pander, and the other two sailors. Lastly the little
corpse of Siegfried Liebling was lifted from the boat.
When the absurdly dressed man with long hair reached deck, he performed
the drollest antics. For a moment he would stand upright, chest out, like
a recruit, the next instant bow profoundly, or take aim, as if hunting;
and all the time he kept bawling:
"I'm an artist. I paid for my cabin. I am well known in
Germany"--striking a conscious attitude--"I am Jacob Fleischmann.
I am a painter, from Fürth."
Every now and then he would writhe pitifully and vomit salt water. The
water dripping from his clothes formed a pool where he stood.
Doctor Wilhelm had completely lost the faculty of speech. All he could do
was to sneeze incessantly.
In the meantime, the steward of the vessel brought Frederick hot tea,
and one of the sailors, who acted as barber and nurse on the vessel,
attempted to restore Mrs. Liebling to life. Within less than two minutes,
Frederick felt sufficiently revived to meet the demands of the occasion
and assist the sailor-nurse with his Good Samaritan work.
After swallowing several glasses of brandy, Doctor Wilhelm with the help
of the chief engineer, Mr. Wendler, attempted to revive Siegfried
Liebling, though with small hope of success.
Mrs. Liebling, in no wise differing from a corpse, had been laid on the
long mahogany table in what would have been the dining-room, had the
vessel been carrying passengers. Ugly, dark, purplish patches disfigured
the forehead, cheeks, and throat of the woman, who was still young and
who, before the shipwreck, had been beautiful. On baring her body, they
found that it, too, was marked, though less closely, with the same
gangrenous spots, somewhat duller in colour. Her body was swollen. Death
might have resulted from choking in a moment when she fell into a faint
unobserved by any of her companions. Toward the last, there had been
several feet of water in the boat, and Rosa had for some time been
entirely occupied with the dying boy.
When Frederick and the sailor-nurse laid Mrs. Liebling's body face
downward on the table, water flowed from her nose and mouth. Her heart
was no longer beating, and she gave no sign of life. As Frederick
assumed, what had happened was, that she had sunk unconscious to the
bottom of the boat and had lain for some time under water. He opened her
mouth, forced her gold-filled teeth apart, put her tongue in the right
position, and removed mucus, which had gathered at the opening of the
air-passages. While the ship's cook rubbed her body with hot cloths,
Frederick tried to induce artificial respiration by raising and lowering
her arms and legs like a pump-handle.
The mahogany table took up the larger part of the low, creaking saloon,
the only one the vessel possessed. It was on the quarter-deck and was
lighted from above. The two walls running the length of the room were
formed of the mahogany doors of the twelve staterooms, six on each side.
In the twinkling of an eye the deserted saloon was converted into a
medical laboratory.
A common sailor had peeled Ingigerd Hahlström out of her clothes,
and without circumstance had laid her delicate body, shining like
mother-of-pearl, on a couch against the wall taking up the full width of
the room. At Frederick's instruction, he rubbed her body vigorously with
woollen cloths. Rosa was doing the same for Ella Liebling, who was the
first to be put to bed. The steward was working away in a glow of zeal to
get each of the dozen beds freshly spread, and as soon as the second one
was ready, Ingigerd was laid between the warmed covers. Thanks to his
faithful valet, Arthur Stoss, his teeth still chattering, was the next to
be ready for bed.
Jacob Fleischmann gave his rescuers much trouble. When a sailor spoke
to him kindly and attempted to undress him, he struck about wildly, and
shouted in a rage, "I'm an artist!"
The steward and Bulke had to hold him fast and use main force in putting
him to bed. Doctor Wilhelm abandoned his vain efforts to revive Siegfried
Liebling and came with his leather case of drugs, which he had managed to
save, just in time to give the painter an injection of morphine.
The sailor whose agony of pain had overcome him before he was lifted on
deck had such badly swollen, frostbitten feet that his boots had to be
cut off bit by bit. He clenched his teeth to keep from screaming, and
merely uttered low groans until they laid him in bed; when he called for
chewing tobacco.
The woman from the steerage clad in rags was also put to bed. All she
could tell was that she was bound for Chicago with her sister, her four
children, her husband, and her mother. Nothing of what had in the
meantime befallen her seemed to have penetrated, or remained in, her
consciousness.
The whole while Frederick, his upper body bared, with only the barber to
help him, kept working uninterruptedly over Mrs. Liebling. It was good
for him, because it made him perspire. Finally, however, his strength
gave out, and Doctor Wilhelm came to his relief. He tottered into the
nearest cabin, the door of which stood open, and fell face downward into
the unmade bed, utterly exhausted.
L
After a time Mr. Butor, the captain of the _Hamburg_, now speeding on
its way, appeared in the saloon to welcome and congratulate the two
physicians, who, notwithstanding their extreme exhaustion, were still
working without cease over Mrs. Liebling's body.
The room, of course, was flooded and was reeking with the sweetish-sour
smell of human exhalations. The captain sent a sailor to fetch dry
clothes for Frederick.
While continuing their efforts and relieving each other at intervals,
Doctor Wilhelm and Frederick gave a short account of the catastrophe on
the _Roland_. Captain Butor was greatly astonished. Though the weather
throughout his trip had not been especially good, yet it had not been the
reverse. Most of the time, as at present, it had been clear, with a stiff
wind and a moderately high sea. His vessel was bound for New York with a
cargo of oranges, wine, oil, and cheese from Fayal in the Azores, to
which it had carried a load of agricultural implements from Hamburg.
Frederick and Wilhelm could give little information concerning the cause
of the accident. Wilhelm said that shortly before six in the morning, he
had been awakened by a sound like the clang of a gong. In his half-waking
state, he thought it was the signal to dinner, until he remembered that
on the _Roland_ a trumpet blast was used to announce meals.
Frederick thought the _Roland_ had probably struck a wreck or a rock. But
rocks, the captain said, were out of the question. There were none in
those waters, and the _Roland_ could not have been carried by strong
currents into a region where there were rocks, since in that event the
life-boat would not have entered the course of his own vessel within so
short a time. The skipper, who knew Captain von Kessel personally and had
met him in Hamburg only recently, spoke of him in the highest terms, as
one of the most experienced, trustworthy captains in the German merchant
marine. The catastrophe, he said, was possibly the worst that had
occurred in decades, if the steamer had actually sunk and not been towed
into a port.
Before leaving, Captain Butor invited the two men, as soon as their task
was ended, to supper at the mess table.
An hour and a half passed. The physicians were about to give up their
attempts to resuscitate Mrs. Liebling, when her heart began to stir and
her breast to heave. Rosa's joy was boundless. With the greatest
difficulty restraining an emotional outburst, she felt the warmth return
even to Mrs. Liebling's soles, which she had been rubbing unwearyingly
with her palms, hard as flat-irons. The rescued woman was carried to bed
and packed in hot water bottles, like a premature baby.
This great success of the physicians' efforts--it was like a raising of
the dead--produced profound emotion in all that witnessed it, including
Frederick and Doctor Wilhelm, who were suddenly moved to shake hands with
each other.
"We have been saved," said Wilhelm. "The most improbable, the most
incredible thing has actually happened."
"Yes," rejoined Frederick. "It has actually happened. It _is_ absolutely
the most improbable thing that has ever occurred in my life. The question
is, What were we saved for?"