ng, Doctor von Kammacher."

It was the first mate, Von Halm, on his way to the bridge. Before the
healthy beauty of the human voice, the haunting visions instantly fled,
and Frederick's soul was restored to sanity.

"Were you making deep-sea researches?" Von Halm asked.

"Yes," said Frederick with a laugh, "I was about to make a sounding for
the submerged Atlantis. What do you think of the weather?"

The giant was wearing his sou'wester and oilskin. He pointed to the
barometer. Frederick saw it had dropped considerably. Adolph, the
steward, came in search of Frederick. Having failed to find him in his
cabin, he was bringing him his zwieback and large peasant cup of tea on
deck. Frederick seated himself on the same bench as the day before,
opposite the companionway. He sipped the cordial drink and warmed
his hands on the cup.

Before he had finished, the wind was again beginning to boom in the
rigging of the four masts, and a stiff, obstinate wind was heeling the
vessel to starboard. Frederick set to bargaining inwardly, as if he had
to reckon with the powers on account of the new hardships to be gone
through. He suddenly longed to be with Peter Schmidt in America. Since
his dream, it seemed more and more important for him to see, and
associate with, his old comrade again. He thought he was rid of Ingigerd,
the more surely as she had played no part at all in the momentous
Atlantis dream. The sooner the voyage with her ended the better.

XXXVI

By the time Frederick was taking his real breakfast with Doctor Wilhelm
in the dining-room, at about eight o'clock, the whole mass of the vessel
was again quivering and at short intervals again seemed to be running
hard against walls of rock. The low-ceiled room in dismal gloom, dotted
here and there by electric lights, was leaping in a mad dance, one moment
riding high on the crest of a wave, the next moment plunging deep into an
eddying trough. The few men that had ventured to table tried to laugh and
joke away the situation, which by no means offered a rosy outlook.

"In the pit of my stomach I have the feeling I used to get as a child
when I swung too high."

"Kammacher, we're in the devil's cauldron. There'll be things doing
compared with which the things we've gone through aren't a circumstance,"
said Wilhelm.

From somewhere came the word, "Cyclone," a dreadful word, though it
seemed to make no impression upon the steamer _Roland_, a model of
determinatio