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Several times in the course of her narrative, Achleitner and her father had come to take her inside, but she had angrily driven them away. It was Frederick who finally helped her back to her cabin. In his own cabin, without even removing his overcoat, he threw himself on his berth to think over the inconceivable story. He sighed, he gnashed his teeth, he wanted to doubt it.
"That would be foolish and useless," Frederick declared; whereupon Ingigerd wept. "The only friends I have," she wailed, "are friends that exploit me. Why isn't Achleitner here? Why did Achleitner have to lose his life, and not somebody else? Achleitner was my real friend. He knew how to go about things in the world, and he was rich and unselfish, too."
The six or eight gentlemen in attendance, with the exception of Achleitner, laughed and withdrew with a humorous show of great obedience. "Why do you stay here, Achleitner?" Thus the faithful canine received his dismissal.
He had dreamed he was wandering hand in hand with Achleitner among the dark smoke widows trailing backward over the ocean from the funnels of the Roland, far, far away. He and the Russian Jewess together with great difficulty dragged the dead stoker, Zickelmann, up into the blue ladies' parlour; and by means of a serum, which he himself had discovered, he brought him back to life.
He began to banter Hahlström and Achleitner, sometimes in rather caustic fashion, while exchanging glances with Frederick, as if he thought vastly more of him than of the other two men, who soon withdrew from his attacks to go on deck. "My name is Stoss." "Mine, Von Kammacher." "It's very good of you to keep me company. That Hahlström and his henchman are disgusting.
Achleitner was most uncomfortably perched on a small camp-stool directly in front of her, so that he could look straight into her face. He had wrapped her up to her shoulders in rugs. The setting sun, casting its rays across the mighty heavings of the sea, glorified a lovely face.
But since then, rumours had reached his ears which shook his faith in her chastity and caused him many agonised hours and sleepless nights. He had even had an excellent opinion of her father, and that, too, was shaken. Doctor Wilhelm, who also seemed to be extremely interested in Ingigerd, began to speak of Achleitner. "He told me in confidence, he's engaged to her." Frederick remained silent.
Not all of their remarks were pronounced sotto voce, and among the card players, who were again drinking champagne, the jokes aimed at Ingigerd and Achleitner were particularly loud and coarse. Could Frederick believe his eyes? Terror shot to his heart.
He had left the cabin door open, and close by they could see Pander and two sailors hacking away with axes at the frozen tackles by which a life-boat was suspended. Ingigerd asked for her father. She asked for Achleitner. "There's no time now for you to think of anybody but yourself. It's impossible to go below deck. It would mean sure death," Frederick explained. "Get dressed! Get dressed!"
Soon after, Achleitner entered with an anxious, questioning expression in his eyes, and Ingigerd dismissed Frederick most ungraciously. There was a look of hatred in her glance. But scarcely was Frederick outside in the fog with the knob of the door still in his hand, when it seemed to him as if ropes and chains, the chains of an enslaved man, were dragging him back to the girl's couch.
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