Ingigerd mutely hastened to carry out his orders. It was not until then that one of the stewards passing her cabin called in his brief message, "Danger!"
"Danger! What's the matter? Are we sinking?" she cried.
But Frederick had already picked her up and carried her over to the boat, which the next instant gave way under the axe and fell into the misty turmoil below.
"Women and children on the other side!" the third mate shouted commandingly.
His order referred not only to Ingigerd, but also to the maid Rosa, who, fiery-red with her exertions, appeared on deck dragging her mistress and both the children, with the air of a housewife loaded with purchases, afraid of missing a street car.
"Women and children on the other side!" the third mate repeated in somewhat too Prussian a manner. Fortunately his presence was now required for the next boat, over which the struggles were already commencing.
There was no time to be lost, and despite the determined resistance of two sailors, Frederick, Pander, and Doctor Wilhelm let Ingigerd safely down into the boat. In doing so, Frederick also turned somewhat too loud-voiced and Prussian. Through his iron energy, which hewed down resistance as the sailors had hewed at the life-boat tackles, he succeeded in having the children, Mrs. Liebling, and finally Rosa lowered into the boat. It was no easy matter. Frederick heard himself shouted at, roared at, and commanded, and he, in turn, shouted at the sailors, commanded, and roared. He fought, he worked, though without a gleam of hope and with the positive consciousness that the situation was beyond salvation. All was over, all was lost. If he had not thought so before, the next occurrence would have convinced him.
A second boat had been lowered, and three sailors had jumped in. It rolled from side to side and rose on a wave. About eight or nine other persons leapt for it—Frederick thought he recognised familiar figures. It filled and disappeared. As if by sleight-of-hand, the spot where the boat with the dozen people in it had been dancing turned into empty sea with mist and spray driving over it.
Slowly the dark grey of the early dawn turned into the lighter grey of the day, approaching coldly and indifferently. When the fog lifted a little, Frederick for seconds at a time had a dismaying illusion that he was in a green valley with glorious, flowery meadows, through which a snowstorm of blossoms was sweeping. But then the mountains came, driven by the ferocious spirits of the hurricane, and closed down on the valley. The heavy, glassy heights broke, and with the weight of their fluid masses, snapped away two of the Roland's masts like reeds.
With its boilers quenched, the poor wreck could no longer send up a cry for help. Its sad body was still towering upward at the bow in colossal majesty. Rockets flew, signals of distress fluttered briskly from the foremast; a futile language in that merciless raging of the elements.