stance ready to
receive her orders. Even Flitte, sailor and barber and nurse, who was
supposed to give all who needed him equal attention, ran hither and
thither for her sake with special zeal.

The call for Flitte was the one most frequently heard on the _Hamburg_.
The undersized little man from Brandenburg, whom a love of adventure had
changed from a barber-surgeon into a sailor, unexpectedly experienced a
triumph of his personality. Now it was Mrs. Liebling who summoned him,
now Ingigerd, now the sailor with the frozen feet, now Fleischmann, now
Stoss, and even Bulke and Rosa--Rosa, who for several hours during the
day made herself useful in the contracted little kitchen, which was ruled
by a shrewd old cook. The physicians, too, had, of course, constant use
for him; and it was the most natural thing that he should become a man
of importance in the eyes of even his idolised captain, whom, in the
ordinary course of things it was his duty to shave. He was well aware of
this, and since, moreover, pity had fanned into a lively flame his old
inclination for nursing, he outdid himself in self-sacrificing deeds for
the sick, both by day and night. Frederick asked him the same question he
had asked each member of the _Roland's_ crew:

"Would you rather be a seaman than anything else?"

And Flitte was the first that without hesitation answered, "Yes."

LIV

The unexpected arrival of the little troupe of peculiar passengers on the
_Hamburg_ in mid-ocean produced a flutter of excitement in both captain
and crew. It was a feeling of mingled solemnity and gaiety. For the
benefit now of the captain, now of the boatswain, or the first mate, or
the cook, or the engineer, the physicians had to repeat again and again
the account of how they had been sighted and rescued. It was a story that
never grew stale, and from the eagerness with which the _Hamburg's_ crew
listened to the oft-told tale, the physicians realised that even to those
old sea-dogs the event was a miracle. None of them, in all the years they
had been sailing the high seas, had ever fished up such booty.

"When Captain Butor had me look through the spy-glasses," Wendler would
say, "his face was the colour of green cheese. And when I thought for a
moment that I made out a boat and the next second heard the captain say,
'Look sharp, there are people in it,' I felt my knees getting weak."

In telling of his impressions when the boat entered, and immediately
d