The steward and Bulke had to hold him fast and use main force in putting
him to bed. Doctor Wilhelm abandoned his vain efforts to revive Siegfried
Liebling and came with his leather case of drugs, which he had managed to
save, just in time to give the painter an injection of morphine.
The sailor whose agony of pain had overcome him before he was lifted on
deck had such badly swollen, frostbitten feet that his boots had to be
cut off bit by bit. He clenched his teeth to keep from screaming, and
merely uttered low groans until they laid him in bed; when he called for
chewing tobacco.
The woman from the steerage clad in rags was also put to bed. All she
could tell was that she was bound for Chicago with her sister, her four
children, her husband, and her mother. Nothing of what had in the
meantime befallen her seemed to have penetrated, or remained in, her
consciousness.
The whole while Frederick, his upper body bared, with only the barber to
help him, kept working uninterruptedly over Mrs. Liebling. It was good
for him, because it made him perspire. Finally, however, his strength
gave out, and Doctor Wilhelm came to his relief. He tottered into the
nearest cabin, the door of which stood open, and fell face downward into
the unmade bed, utterly exhausted.
L
After a time Mr. Butor, the captain of the _Hamburg_, now speeding on
its way, appeared in the saloon to welcome and congratulate the two
physicians, who, notwithstanding their extreme exhaustion, were still
working without cease over Mrs. Liebling's body.
The room, of course, was flooded and was reeking with the sweetish-sour
smell of human exhalations. The captain sent a sailor to fetch dry
clothes for Frederick.
While continuing their efforts and relieving each other at intervals,
Doctor Wilhelm and Frederick gave a short account of the catastrophe on
the _Roland_. Captain Butor was greatly astonished. Though the weather
throughout his trip had not been especially good, yet it had not been the
reverse. Most of the time, as at present, it had been clear, with a stiff
wind and a moderately high sea. His vessel was bound for New York with a
cargo of oranges, wine, oil, and cheese from Fayal in the Azores, to
which it had carried a load of agricultural implements from Hamburg.
Frederick and Wilhelm could give little information concerning the cause
of the accident. Wilhelm said that shortly before six in the morning, he
had been awakened by a sound like the clang of a gong. In his half-waking
state, he thought it was the signal to dinner, until he remembered that
on the _Roland_ a trumpet blast was used to announce meals.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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