help
of the chief engineer, Mr. Wendler, attempted to revive Siegfried
Liebling, though with small hope of success.

Mrs. Liebling, in no wise differing from a corpse, had been laid on the
long mahogany table in what would have been the dining-room, had the
vessel been carrying passengers. Ugly, dark, purplish patches disfigured
the forehead, cheeks, and throat of the woman, who was still young and
who, before the shipwreck, had been beautiful. On baring her body, they
found that it, too, was marked, though less closely, with the same
gangrenous spots, somewhat duller in colour. Her body was swollen. Death
might have resulted from choking in a moment when she fell into a faint
unobserved by any of her companions. Toward the last, there had been
several feet of water in the boat, and Rosa had for some time been
entirely occupied with the dying boy.

When Frederick and the sailor-nurse laid Mrs. Liebling's body face
downward on the table, water flowed from her nose and mouth. Her heart
was no longer beating, and she gave no sign of life. As Frederick
assumed, what had happened was, that she had sunk unconscious to the
bottom of the boat and had lain for some time under water. He opened her
mouth, forced her gold-filled teeth apart, put her tongue in the right
position, and removed mucus, which had gathered at the opening of the
air-passages. While the ship's cook rubbed her body with hot cloths,
Frederick tried to induce artificial respiration by raising and lowering
her arms and legs like a pump-handle.

The mahogany table took up the larger part of the low, creaking saloon,
the only one the vessel possessed. It was on the quarter-deck and was
lighted from above. The two walls running the length of the room were
formed of the mahogany doors of the twelve staterooms, six on each side.
In the twinkling of an eye the deserted saloon was converted into a
medical laboratory.

A common sailor had peeled Ingigerd Hahlstroem out of her clothes,
and without circumstance had laid her delicate body, shining like
mother-of-pearl, on a couch against the wall taking up the full width of
the room. At Frederick's instruction, he rubbed her body vigorously with
woollen cloths. Rosa was doing the same for Ella Liebling, who was the
first to be put to bed. The steward was working away in a glow of zeal to
get each of the dozen beds freshly spread, and as soon as the second one
was ready, Ingigerd was laid between the warmed covers. Th