The wave, dropping into the ventilators and chimneys, had fairly bathed the vessel. It was cold, too, and the _Roland_ was continuing its obstinate, praiseworthy trip under a crust of ice and snow. Icicles were hanging from the rigging. Glassy stalactites formed about the chart-room and everywhere on the railings and edges of things. The deck was slippery, and it was a perilous venture to attempt to make one's way forward. But when Ingigerd's cabin door opened and her long light hair rumpled by the wind appeared in the slit, Frederick instantly made the venture. She drew him into her cabin, where he found two children keeping her company. "I invited them to stay with me because it's fairly comfortable in this cabin." The seriousness of the situation had extinguished in the girl all coquetry and capriciousness. Frederick almost forgot what he had suffered on her account and in what fatal dependence he had been upon this creature only a short time before. "Tell me, is there danger, Doctor von Kammacher?" she asked. His evasive answer seemed to make no impression upon her. He was astonished to see how energetic and resolute she was, in contrast with her behaviour of yesterday, when she played the spoiled, suffering, helpless child. She begged him to go try to find her father. "In case anything happens, you know, it would be well not to be so far away from him." "What do you suppose will happen?" Without answering this, she asked him to stop at cabin 49 on the way and tell Rosa to come up. "My little guests keep clamouring for her. If she doesn't come up for a while, I can't keep them quiet. Then she can serenely go back again to her silly, sentimental mistress. What do you think of a man like Achleitner?" she continued. "He is lying on all fours in his cabin, crying and groaning, 'Oh, my poor mother! Oh, my poor sister! Why didn't I obey you, mamma!' and so on. Just fancy, a man! Poor fellow!" she added, her tone changing. "It's enough to move a heart of stone." She held fast to the bedstead, not to be thrown into a corner like a splinter, and shook with laughter. The mountain of stones under which Frederick had buried the little sinner, Ingigerd, was at that moment removed, and love stood there with unparalleled might. Such genuine bravery and genuine humour, combined with so much tenderness, he had never credited her with. Nervous and tired as he was, he felt irresistibly drawn to her, felt his will slipping from him. But a little, and he would have thrown himself to the floor and kissed the small feet in slippers.