XXIV

“What is to become of me?” Frederick questioned himself.  He scarcely heard Hans Fuellenberg’s jolly shout of greeting as the young man reeled past.  Hans Fuellenberg did not fail to observe whose door it was that Frederick von Kammacher had just closed behind him, nor that, as he stood there with the knob still in his hand, he seemed to be in a state of indecision and absorption.

The siren was sending up its deafening roar.  It was that wild, fearful, ascending cry, as if torn from the breast of a monster bull, which he had first heard on the tender.  There was something menacing in it, and at the same time something of an anxious warning.  Frederick never heard it without applying menace and warning to himself.  Likewise, the driving mist seemed to be a reflection of his soul; or his soul a reflection of the driving mist and also of the vessel, as it struggled onward into the unknown, unseeing and unseen.  He stepped over to the railing and looked straight down the ship’s side.  There he could tell with what tremendous rapidity the Roland was cleaving the water.

“Isn’t man’s courage utter madness?” he thought.  Could any one, from captain to the lowest sailor, prevent the propeller-shaft from snapping at any moment?  The screw was constantly rising and buzzing in the air.  Who could sight a vessel in time to prevent the collision that would inevitably smash in the thin walls of the great hollow body?  Who could hope to avoid one of the many derelicts drifting in the fog almost submerged?  What would happen if the might of the waves were to hurl that great lumped mass of wood and iron against the Roland’s side?  What would happen if the engines were to break down?  If a boiler were to prove unequal to the uninterrupted strain put upon it?  Then, too, icebergs were met with in those waters.  And suppose the storm were to grow worse.

The things that European civilisation has accomplished are tremendous.  The trouble is, the object to which the means are applied is not worthy of the means.  The how is great.  The wherefore receives only a stammering reply.  So much is certain, that the life of the average man to-day is fuller of adventure and heroism than the life of a bold adventurer a hundred and fifty years ago.

Frederick went to the smoking-room on deck.  He found the card players, Doctor Wilhelm, Arthur Stoss, Professor Toussaint and some more gentlemen gathered over their afternoon coffee.

“Hullo!” they shouted when he appeared in the doorway.

The room smelled strong of coffee and the pungent odour of tobacco.  In the instant that Frederick held the door open, the wreaths of mist and heavy tobacco smoke met.

“What’s the matter, gentlemen?” Frederick asked.

“Did you operate on the dancer,” someone cried, “to remove that mole two inches from her backbone right over her left hip?”