In the steerage it had grown still. But from the port side came a peculiar, persistent, unbroken sound, resembling the shouting and screaming of a crowd on toboggan-slides and merry-go-rounds at a village fair. A buzzing as of swarming bees pierced distinctly through the roaring of the tempest, while above it rose the shrieking of infuriated, frenzied women. Frederick thought of his dark-eyed Deborah. She, too, was doomed. He thought of Wilke.
Bulke, the faithful valet, appeared, leading Arthur Stoss by his coat collar. Within the next few moments, Wilke also appeared. He had been drinking, and was shouting as if the whole thing were a frolic; but he was half dragging, half carrying on deck an old, wheezing working woman. Thrusting Stoss and Bulke aside, he landed her safely in the boat.
Ingigerd was clamouring incessantly for her father and Achleitner. Instead of either of these, Stoss, whom Bulke and Wilke had lowered by a rope, dropped down beside her.
About thirty feet from Frederick, a man was standing in a cabin door, carefully hooked back. With incredible calm he was smoking a cigarette and inhaling, and stroking a yellow cat on his arm.
"It looks pretty bad, doesn't it, Mr. Rinck?" Frederick said, going up to him.
"Why?"
"Well, don't you think we're lost?"
Mr. Rinck shrugged his shoulders without answering.
"What's the matter? What's the matter?" somebody bellowed in his ear.
"Nothing," he said, stroking his cat.