s, 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.

In the meantime Bulke and Wilke had lowered Doctor Wilhelm into the boat.

"That girl down there is giving herself a sore throat screaming for her
father," said Bulke.

Frederick decided, cost what it might, to take a look around below deck.
Perhaps fortune might favour him; he might discover Hahlstroem and perhaps
Achleitner, too, and help one or both into the boat. There was danger, to
be sure, that the boat would put off before he returned.

He had worked his way as far as the unused smoking-room. It was empty.
Suddenly Wilke was standing beside him.

"If you're looking for somebody, I'll help," the peasant declared.

The two together descended the rest of the companionway. The space in
front of the dining-room was empty and so was the dining-room. It was
tilted at an acute angle. A heap of dishes and silverware blocked the
doorway.

"Hahlstroem! Achleitner!" Frederick shouted again and again.

Wilke pushed a short way down the long corridor, on which the cabins
gave. But the spot closed off by the rising waters was only too clearly
distinguishable.

"Come away, come away!" Frederick cried, and ran. He ran for his life. He
ran in wild fear of missing the boat.

XLVIII

A moment later he was on deck, over the railing, and in the boat. The men
wanted to put off. Frederick protested, and disputed loudly with the
third mate, who in the meantime had entered the boat and was grasping the
tiller.

He could not make up his mind to desert Wilke of the Heuscheuer, who had
so courageously followed him below deck and had not yet reappeared. But
now he saw him, literally sliding from the companionway entrance to the
railing.

"Wilke! Wilke!" he shouted. "Jump into the boat!"

"Right away, right away," Wilke answered several times. Then he did
something that Frederick tried to scold him out of doing, because it
seemed so senseless and useless to every