“I am dying,” he thought when he reached his room.  “I am dying, or else I am going crazy.”  The clock on the wall came into his vision and receded again.  He saw his bed and clutched for the post.

“Don’t fall,” said Rasmussen, who was still sitting there with the thermometer in his hand.

But no, this time it was not Rasmussen.  It was Mr. Rinck, with his yellow cat in his lap, the man who had been in charge of the mail on the Roland.

“What are you doing here, Mr. Rinck?” Frederick roared.

The next moment he was at the window in the light of the dazzling sun, which radiated, not light, but raven-black darkness, like a hole in the heavens pouring out night.  The wind suddenly began to moan and howl about the house.  It whistled derisively through the door cracks, like the jeers and taunts of a mob of rowdies.  Or was it Mr. Rinck’s cat miauing?  Or was it children whimpering in the hall?  Frederick groped about.  The house quivered and was thrown from its foundations.  It swayed to and fro.  The walls began to snap and crack like wickerwork.  The door flew open.  The rain and hail whipped in.  A sudden gust of wind lifted Frederick from his feet.  Somebody cried “Danger!” The electric bells raged and mingled with the voices of the storm.

“It’s not so!  It’s a lie!  The devil is hoaxing you.  You will never set foot on American soil.  Your hour is come.  You are at the Judgment seat.  You are going to perdition.”

Suddenly silence set in.  Something unheard-of was about to happen, something far worse to see perhaps than to experience.  Frederick wanted to save himself.  He tried to gather his things together, but he had no hat.  He could not find his trousers, his coat, or his boots.

Outside, the moon was shining.  In the bright light, the storm was raging.  Suddenly, like a wall broad as the horizon, the sea came rolling up.  The ocean had risen over both its banks.

“Atlantis!  The hour has come,” thought Frederick.  “Our earth is to be submerged like Atlantis of old.”

He ran down-stairs.  On the steps he caught up his three children and realised it was they who all the time had been whining and whimpering in the hall.  He carried the smallest one on his arm and led the other two by the hand.  At the front door, they saw the dreadful tidal wave sweeping nearer and nearer in the ashen light of the moon, carrying along the ship, which was a steamer rolling and pounding fearfully in the waters.  The whistles were blowing frightfully, sometimes in a prolonged blare, sometimes in abrupt toots, one after the other.

“It’s the Roland with Captain von Kessel,” Frederick explained to the children.  “I know it.  I was on the ship.  I myself went down with that superb steamer.”  He heard shots being fired from the struggling vessel.  Rockets hissed up towards the moon and burst in the sombre grey of dawn, dazzling his eyes.  “All’s over,” he said to the children.  “All those fine, brave men are doomed to rot in the water.”