"Have you seen the phosphorus?" he asked, as she met him at the rail. His lifted cap showed his wind-tossed blond hair, and his ruddy face gleamed with salt spray.
Muriel admitted her ignorance of phosphorus.
"But," said von Klausen, "that is one of the sights of the voyage, and I have not often on the Atlantic seen it finer than it is to-night."
He took her forward, by the starboard rail, under the bridge. Behind them were the closely curtained windows of the writing-room, forward was, only ten feet below them, the now emptied deck reserved for the third-class passengers, and beyond that, higher, rose and fell, rhythmically, the keen, dark prow. They were quite alone.
"Look there!" said von Klausen.
He pointed over the rail to where the inky surface of the sea was broken by the speed of the Friedrich Barbarossa's passage, bursting into boiling, hissing, angry patches of bright whiteness.
Timidly Muriel extended her head.
"Do you see it?" asked von Klausen. He stood close beside her.
"I see the waves," said Muriel, "and the white foam."
"But the phosphorus—you do not see that? There—and there!"