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.