"Yes," rejoined Frederick. "It has actually happened. It is absolutely the most improbable thing that has ever occurred in my life. The question is, What were we saved for?"
LI
The mess-room of the Hamburt was a small square cabin with iron walls, its only furniture a square table and a bench running around three sides. Once a person was seated, it was impossible to pass him; and when the officers gathered for meals, they shoved themselves into place in a certain order, the captain first.
At seven o'clock Doctor Wilhelm and Frederick appeared for supper. They found a soup tureen sending up clouds of steam and a well-constructed oil lamp over the table shedding a cheerful light. The Hamburt was not lighted by electricity.
The two physicians, like all victims of accidents, the objects of really touching solicitude, were assigned seats against the warmest wall, dividing the cabin from the engine-room. Captain Butor served the strong hot soup, and Mr. Wendler, chief engineer, a rotund little mariner, in an attempt to enliven the shipwrecked men, cautiously ventured a joke or two even before the roast was served. He came from Lindenau near Leipzig, and the rest of the crew teased him for his Low German.
"Don't talk," said the captain to Wilhelm and Frederick. "Just eat, drink, and sleep."
At first they were inclined to take his advice, but in the course of the meal, after one of the sailors had served an immense cut of roast beef, and the captain had carved it, and they had washed the meat down with red wine, their spirits rose from moment to moment.
Bulke appeared at the door showing evidences of the royal banquet to which he and the sailors of the Roland had been treated by the sailors of the Hamburt. Notwithstanding his condition, pardonable enough in the circumstances, he would not go to sleep without first receiving instructions from Doctor Wilhelm and Frederick, before whom he stood in military attitude, hand to his cap, awaiting orders.
It was decided that the sailor-nurse and another sailor of the Hamburt should go on night duty, since all the men from the Roland needed rest and sleep.