Part 11

The three of them together now walked a rather long distance to a wild section of the garden, where it had turned completely dark. The wind began to rush, and the shrubs, trees and bushes of the garden swished like breakers on the shore. The stoker beckoned to them, and they squatted on the ground in a circle. It seemed as if the stoker with his bare hand had taken a bit of burning wood from his pocket. He held it close to the ground, to illuminate a round opening, something like the burrow of a marmot or a rabbit.

"_Legno santo_," said Peter Schmidt, pointing to the glowing piece of charcoal. "Now, Frederick, you will get to see those ant-like little elves that are called _noctiluci_ or night-lights. They pompously call themselves Toilers of the Light. But whatever their name, it must be admitted that they are the ones that take the light hidden in the entrails of the earth, store it up, and sow it in fields, the soil of which has been especially prepared; and when it has grown to its full size and has borne fruit a hundredfold in the shape of gold sheaves or nuggets, they harvest it and save it for the darkest of dark times."

And, actually, looking through a crevice, Frederick saw something like another world, with a subterranean sun shining on it. A multitude of little elves, the Toilers of the Light, were mowing with scythes, cutting stalks, binding sheaves, loading carts, and storing in barns. Many cut the light out of the ground, like nuggets of gold. Undoubtedly it was the gold meant for the mint in Washington that was haunting Frederick's dreams.

"These Toilers of the Light," said the Friesian, Peter Schmidt, "are the most stimulating to my ideas."

At this point Frederick awoke, while the voice of the stoker close beside him was saying:

"Many will soon be following me."

XXXIV

The first thing Frederick did on waking was to look at his watch. He had a dull feeling that he must have slept through the whole night and even the following day. He peered at the hands incredulously and held the watch to his ear to convince himself it had not stopped. No, it was still running. Consequently, since his last waking, only six or, at the utmost, eight minutes had passed.

This fact as well as the peculiarity and the vividness of his dream set him to marvelling. He could not recall ever having dreamed so coherently and logically. Are there dreams that are more than dreams? Was Rasmussen dead? Had his friend, keeping his promise, chosen this way to make himself noticeable from the Beyond? A strange shudder went through Frederick. In his excitement it seemed to him that he had been honoured with a revelation. He took his memorandum book from the net bag over his berth and jotted down the date and hour that the remarkable chandler had mentioned as the time of his death. "Thirteen minutes past one," he distinctly heard Rasmussen's voice saying, "thirteen minutes past one, on the twenty-fourth of January."

The _Roland_ was tossing slightly again, and the great siren was bellowing. Its repeated thunderous cries, which indicated fog, the lurching of the vessel, the sign, perhaps, of fresh storms and hardships to be gone through, vexed and fretted Frederick. From the adventurous doings in his brain, he was transported to the no less adventurous doings in reality. Awakening from his dreams, he found himself locked into a narrow cabin, plowing through the high seas, on a vessel heavily freighted with the fearful dreams of many souls, and yet not sinking from the load of that cargo.

Frederick was already on deck before half past five. The fog had lifted, and from over the edge of a leaden sea of moderate-sized waves rose the dawn of a gloomy morning. The deck was empty, producing the impression of dreary loneliness. The passengers were all lying in their berths. None of the crew even were visible. It looked as if the mighty ship were pursuing its course wholly without human agency.

XXXV

Frederick was standing near the log-line, which dragged in the broad, churning wake. Even in the ghostly dawn, hungry gulls were following the ship, sometimes flying near, sometimes dropping back, ever and anon swooping down into the foamy wake with a mournful cry, as of condemned souls. This was no vision, and yet Frederick scarcely distinguished it from a dream. With his nerves unstrung, with his being still penetrated by the marvels of his sleeping life, which remained partially present to him, the strange heaving waste of the ocean seemed no less miraculous than his dreams. Thus the ocean had been tossing its mountains of waves beneath the blind eyes of millions of years, itself no less blind than those eons. Thus and not otherwise had it been since the first day of creation: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."

Frederick shivered. Had he ever lived with anything else than a spirit and spirits, that is, with ghosts? And at this moment was he not farther removed than ever from what is considered immovable solid ground, from what is called reality? In his state of mind, did he not believe in fairy tales, sailors' superstitions, the Flying Dutchman, and hobgoblins? What was that ocean hiding in its infinite waves rolling under the low, grey sky? Had not everything arisen from the ocean? Had not everything gone down into its depths again? Had some power disclosed the submerged Atlantis to Frederick's mental vision? Why not?

He was passing through profound, enigmatic moments of a fearful yet pleasurable dread. There was the ocean, on which an apparently abandoned vessel, a small spot in infinity, was staggering forward with no visible goal ahead and no visible starting-point behind. There were the heavens lying heavily upon it, grey and dismal. There was Frederick himself, alone. Every animate creature in that solitude was transformed in his soul into visions, phantoms and apparitions. Man is always facing the unfathomable alone. That gives him a sense of greatness along with a sense of desertion. There was a man standing at the stern of a vessel, while the darkness of night was yielding to the dawn, bound by the invisible, glowing threads of his fate to two continents of the globe, and awaiting the new, less tormenting form of life that comes from the sun, a strange star millions of miles removed from the planet earth. All this was a miracle to Frederick, almost overwhelming him, as if he were imprisoned in marvels. In a sudden seizure of hopelessness that he would ever throw off the suffocating oppression of riddles and miracles, the temptation came upon him to leap over the railing. Close upon this feeling followed the timidity of a man with a bad conscience. He glanced about, as if in fear of discovery. He wiped his eyes and forehead with his hands, because it seemed to him that the dead stoker with the bloody wound had for a long time been sitting nearby on a coil of rope. His chest felt heavy, as if a load were dragging it down. He heard voices. He saw his wife, Angèle, wringing her hands. Suddenly he thought he was to blame for her illness, that he was a criminal; and all his thoughts of Ingigerd Hahlström made him doubly despicable in his own eyes. His ideas grew confused. In a wave of absolute credulity, he thought the voice of his conscience was condemning him to death. He thought that his life was being demanded as an atonement, that he must sacrifice himself, or else the _Roland_, with all it carried, would sink.

At that moment Frederick heard a strong voice saying:

"Good morning, 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 determination, steadfastly cleaving the waves and tearing breaches in the mountains of water. New York was its goal, and it was hastening onward.

Frederick wanted to go on deck, but it looked bad there, and he remained on the upper step under the protection of the companionway penthouse. The level of the sea seemed to have risen, so that the warrior _Roland_ appeared to be making his obstinate way through a deep defile. One could not help succumbing to the impression that each instant the defile would close overhead and settle the faithful vessel's fate forever. Sailors in oilskins were climbing about to make fast every loose thing. Great waves had already swept overboard. The salt water was trickling and flowing over the deck. As if that were not enough, the heavens were driving down rain and snow. The rigging was howling, groaning, booming, and whistling in every pitch and key. That severity, that awfulness of the elements, that eternal rushing and roaring and seething of great masses of water, through which the steamer was staggering forward as if in mad, blind intoxication, that mournful, raging tumult kept up hour after hour. By noon it had even grown worse.

Very few responded to the trumpet-call for luncheon. There were about ten men beside the woman physician and the woman painter. Hahlström seated himself at Frederick's and Wilhelm's empty table. The ladies' places were not far away.

"No wonder," said Frederick, "that sailors are superstitious. The way this awful weather dropped out of a clear sky is enough to make a man believe in magic."

"It may even grow worse," Wilhelm observed.

The women heard his remark, looked up, and made horrified eyes.

"Do you think there is danger?" one of them asked.

"Danger is always imminent in life," he replied, and added with a smile: "It is merely a question of not being frightened."

Incredible to relate, the band began to play as usual, and, what is more, played a piece entitled _Marche triomphale_. The effect on all was at first a slight shudder; then nobody could resist a smile at the apparent irony of it.

"The musicians are heroes," said Frederick.

"In general," remarked Hahlström, "our grim humour nowadays is a great asset. If those musicians were to receive the order, they would play 'A Country Girl,' and 'My Hannah Lady,' in the jaws or the belly of a whale. If they didn't, they'd fare just as badly."

"O Lord, anything for a steady table, a steady seat, a steady berth! The man possessing these things seldom knows how rich he is," said Frederick, in a voice raised to a shout to make himself heard above the noise of the sea without and the music within. The men laughed, and the ocean, to add to their amusement, raised them up in the fog, the tempest, and the snow to the top of a wave ninety feet high. Everybody was instantly silenced. Even the orchestra played a frightened pause not indicated in the score.

On ascending the companionway after lunch, Frederick saw Arthur Stoss in the unfrequented smoking-room eating his meal in perfect equanimity and cheerfulness undisturbed by the weather. Frederick went in for a chat with the original, witty monstrosity. He was cutting his fish with a knife and fork held between the great toe and the second toe.

"Our old omnibus is jolting a bit," he said. "If our boilers are good, there is nothing to fear. But there's this much about it. If it is not a cyclone yet, it may still turn into one. I don't care. It looks more discouraging than it really is. What a man will do! To show the people in Cape Town, Melbourne, Buenos Aires, San Francisco and Mexico what a man with a firm, energetic will can accomplish, even if nature has not favoured him, he will plow through all the cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons of all the waters of the globe. Your business man sitting in the Winter Garden in Berlin, or the Alhambra in London, never dreams of all the things the performer giving his number must go through before he can merely stand where he is standing. He can't ever take it easy and let himself get rusty."

Frederick was feeling miserable. Although his dreams were still haunting his brain, and Ingigerd, or his sick wife, or the Russian Jewess was still present in his soul, he nevertheless felt that all sensations were becoming more and more submerged in the one sensation, that on all sides there was distinct menace of a brutal danger.

Hans Füllenberg entered. His face was lifeless.

"There is a corpse on board," he said, in a tone implying a causal relation between the dead stoker and the raging storm. It was very evident that the spice had been taken out of Hans Füllenberg's life.

"I heard the same thing," Stoss said. "My man, Bulke, told me a stoker died."

Frederick simulated ignorance of the event. Accustomed to observe himself honestly, he realized that though the fact was not new to him, Füllenberg's statement of it had made him shudder.

"The dead man is dead," said Stoss, now attacking his roast with appetite. "We won't be wrecked on the dead stoker's corpse. But last night a derelict was sighted. Those corpses, the corpses of vessels, are dangerous. When the sea is rough, they can't be sighted."

Frederick asked for more information about derelicts.

"About nine hundred and seventy-five drifting derelicts," Stoss explained, "have been sighted in five years here in the northern part of the Atlantic. It is certain that the actual number is twice as great. One of the most dangerous of such tramps is the iron four-masted schooner, _Houresfeld_. On its way from Liverpool to San Francisco, fire broke out in its hold, and the crew abandoned it. If we were to collide with anything of that sort, there wouldn't be a soul left to tell the tale."

"You can't pass through the gangways," said Füllenberg, "the bulkheads are closed down."

The siren began to roar again. Frederick still heard defiance and triumph in the cry, and yet something recalling the broken horn of the hero Roland in Roncesvalles.

"There is no danger yet," said Stoss to calm him.

XXXVII

Long after Stoss had been led away by his valet and tucked in bed for his afternoon nap, Frederick still remained in the unfrequented smoking-room. The place made an uncanny impression. Yet its very gloominess insured privacy; and in the gravity of the situation he had need to be by himself. He began, perhaps prematurely, to consider the worst eventuality. He thought it might be well to stand in readiness. Around the walls ran a bench upholstered in leather. Kneeling on it, he could look through the port-holes out upon the mighty uproar of the waters. In that position, watching the waves beat with inconceivable persistency against the desperately struggling vessel, he let his life pass in review before his mind's eye.

Grey gloom was closing down on him. After all, he felt that he yearned for life and was far from being as ready to die as he had occasionally supposed. Something akin to regret came over him. "Why am I here? Why did I not stop to consider and summon all my rational will power to keep me from this senseless trip? For all I care, let me die; but not here, not in a desert of water far from mother earth, immeasurably far from the great community of men. This seems to me a particularly awful curse. Men on solid land, in their own homes, men among men, have not the least notion of it." What was Ingigerd to him now? A matter of indifference. Shaking his head, he admitted that he now had only the narrowest concern for himself. What a beautiful hope to escape that brutal fate and land on some shore! Any fragment of land, any island, any city, any snow-clad village was a garden of Eden, an improbable dream of happiness. How extravagantly grateful he would be in the future merely to tread dry land, merely to draw breath, merely to see a lively street! He gnashed his teeth. Of what avail a cry for help here? How could a man find God's ear here? If the extreme thing were to happen, and the _Roland_ with its mass of human beings were to founder, one would see things that would prevent the man that had seen them, even if he escaped, from ever being happy again.

"I would not witness it," thought Frederick. "I would jump overboard to avoid the sight of it. And while that would be happening, none of my friends and relatives would be thinking of me at all. 'The steamship _Roland_ sunk' appears as a head-line in the newspapers. 'Oh!' says the reader in Berlin, the reader in Hamburg, and Amsterdam. He takes a sip of coffee, puffs at his cigar, and comfortably settles back to a taste of more details of the catastrophe, whether observed or fabricated. What a hurrah for the newspaper publishers! A sensation! More readers! That is the Medusa into whose eyes we look, and who tells us what the genuine value of a cargo of human lives is in the world."

Frederick attempted in vain to battle against a still-life picture, which the _Roland_, valiantly struggling onward, with its siren almost stifled in the storm, showed him at the bottom of the sea. He saw the majestic vessel in a coffin of glass. Across its decks swarms of fish swam hither and thither. Its cabins were all filled with water. The large dining-room, with its panels of walnut, its tables, and leather-upholstered revolving chairs, was filled with water. A big polyp, jelly-fish, and red, mushroom-like sea-anemones had penetrated into the very gangways along which the passengers were now walking. And to Frederick's horror, the liveried corpses of Pfundner, the head-steward, and his assistant stewards were slowly floating about in a circle. The picture would have been almost ridiculous, had it not been so gruesome and had it not so certainly lain in the realm of the possible. Think of all the things divers report! All the things they have seen in the cabins and gangways of submerged steamers; inextricably knotted masses of human beings, passengers or sailors coming toward them with outstretched arms, upright, as if alive and as if awaiting them. A closer examination of the clothes of those guardians and administrators of a lost estate at the bottom of the sea, those strange ship-owners, business men, captains, pursers, those fortune-seekers, money-seekers, embezzlers, adventurers, or whatever they might be, showed that they were filled with polyps, crustaceans, and all sorts of ocean worms, enjoying their stay there as long as something remained beneath their shredded garments except gnawed-off bones.

Frederick beheld himself down there, too, one of those decaying phantoms, months old, wandering about in the ghastly abode of the sunken _Roland_, in that horrible Vineta, where each man passed his neighbour mutely with a frightened gesture, each seeming to carry in his breast a congealed cry of anguish, which he expressed with bowed head and outstretched arms, or head thrown back and open mouth. Or else he was hideously crawling on his hands, or wringing his hands, or folding them, or spreading out his fingers. The engineers in the boiler-room seemed still slowly, slowly to be controlling the cylinder and driving-wheel; yet differently than before, since the law of gravity seemed no longer to be in force. One of the engineers was doing his work in a peculiarly twisted way, like a man asleep caught between the rim of the wheel and the piston-rod covered with verdigris. Frederick descended on his ghastly tour down to the stokers, whom the catastrophe had surprised in the midst of their occupation. Some were still holding their shovels in their hands, though unable to lift them. They themselves were floating, while the shovels to which they clung did not stir from the bottom. All was over. They could not kindle the fire into a white glow, and so could not keep the mighty steamer in its course. In the steerage the sight was so horrible to behold, with men, women and children of all nationalities huddled and tossed in thick, dark heaps, that even a cat-shark, which had made its way through the chimney of the stoke-hole and then through the engine, did not feel sufficiently courageous or hungry to mingle in the gathering. _Noli turbare circulos meos_, these people, too, seemed to be saying. All were thinking strenuously, absorbed in the profoundest meditation--they had plenty of time for profound meditation--upon the riddle of life.