What was in the meantime happening on the deck of the _Roland_, so far as Frederick caught momentary glimpses of it, did not fit in with his conception of human nature. The things he thought he saw in detail had nothing in common with those civilised, decorous ladies and gentlemen whom he had seen in the dining-room and on deck, promenading, conversing, smiling, exchanging greetings, and daintily dissecting the fish on their plates with forks. He could have sworn that he distinguished the white figure of a cook cutting his way, with a long knife, through the honourable person of a first-class passenger for whom he had cooked. Frederick was convinced he saw a stoker, a black fellow, strike a woman who was clinging to him--perhaps she was the beautiful Canadian--pick her up and throw her overboard. Some stewards, whom he distinctly recognised, were still heroically executing orders. But they got entangled in fighting groups. One of them covered with blood, struggling and shouting, helped a woman and her child into a life-boat, but the boat capsized and disappeared. "Father! My father!" Ingigerd suddenly cried. It was only a faint breath blown away by the raging elements. She pointed, and Frederick looked where she pointed with vacant, staring eyes. Again the fog lifted and opened a sort of gap through which the sinking steamer could be seen in all its length. Somebody was standing at the railing waving a white handkerchief. It was impossible to tell who it was. But a man whom Frederick recognised as distinctly as if he were looking through a spy-glass was Hans Fuellenberg, racing about like a madman, leaping with the agility of a squirrel from one point of the deck to the other. The port-holes, making a slanting line from stem to stern, still shone with the electric lights inside. Now and then a stifled shot could be heard, as a rocket rose up into the air, making a pale line of light. But soon the gem-like gleam of the port-holes was extinguished. As if the sea in its unbridled hate of man's work had been waiting for this event, it swept over the deck from the other side. That instant the waters on the near side swarmed with human beings, swimming, shrieking, and struggling. Suddenly, no one knew how, the boat was carried close to the _Roland_ again, where maddened, half-drowned, desperate men clutched at it. A hideous, bestial conflict began.