"My lady is retching her soul away, if she has such a thing as a soul. Two hours ago I helped her to bed. That Englishwoman is already a full-blooded American. Shameless, I tell you! Something tremendous. I rubbed her forehead with brandy. She partook of a goodly quantity, and then I unbuttoned her waist. She seems to take me for a masseur chartered extra by her munificent husband. The thing became boresome. And besides, in that pitching boudoir, my own soul began to rise up through my stomach, and the poetry went to the devil. She showed me the photograph of her devoted husband in New York. I think she has another in London." He was interrupted by the first call for dinner, which the trumpeter announced at the bottom of the companionway. The trumpet blast was lost without resonance in the heavy air and the bluster of the waves. "What's more," he concluded, "she sent for Doctor Wilhelm." The dining-room presented a very dreary appearance. Neither the captain nor any of the officers of the _Roland_ were present, the demands upon them in such bad weather being too severe to permit them to leave their posts. The tables had been provided with a wooden apparatus dividing them into small compartments, which prevented the plates, glasses and bottles from slipping any distance. Nevertheless, there was much breaking of crockery, and it required all the skill of the stewards to serve the dishes, especially the soup. From the kitchen and the china room every now and then came the sound of a tremendous crash. There were scarcely twelve people at table, among them Hahlstroem and Doctor Wilhelm. After a time the skat players, as usual, came bursting in, talking noisily and red of face. Their winnings were immediately transmuted into Pommery. Notwithstanding the fearful weather, the band was playing. There seemed to be something frivolous, almost challenging, in the playing of music when, at short intervals, the _Roland_ would come to a quivering standstill, as if it had run upon a reef. Once the illusion was so strong that a panic arose in the steerage. Mr. Pfundner, the head-steward, brought this explanation of the horrified shrieks that had penetrated the dining-room above the noise of the raging waters, the rattling of the plates and the blare of the band.