IN STATELY PROCESSION
The next morning after breakfast, Bob was the first one to reach the
deck, while Jimmy brought up the rear, with Hector at his heels.
But a shout of surprise and excitement from Bob caused even Jimmy’s
laggard feet to hasten.
“Hurry, fellows!” Bob fairly shouted. “Here’s a whole fleet of
icebergs! You’re missing the sight of your lives!”
His chums’ excitement was quite as great as Bob’s as they ranged
themselves by his side at the rail and saw the magnificent spectacle
that had provoked his outburst.
Moving along majestically and slowly were scores of icebergs, their
icy pinnacles catching the rays of the sun and throwing them back in
a thousand prismatic lights. They were of all sizes and areas and
shapes. Some of them were solid, irregularly formed masses of ice;
others had great passageways in them like Gothic arches; still
others towered aloft like mighty cathedrals, with spires and towers
shooting toward the skies.
The Radio Boys were breathless with rapt admiration. No painter’s
brush could ever have rendered the glory of the scene. No dreamer’s
imagination could have compassed it. It was sublime, supremely and
compellingly beautiful.
“Must be nearly a hundred,” conjectured Jimmy.
“Fully that many,” conceded Bob. “But I don’t want to count them. I
just want to look at them. It’s even a grander sight than the aurora
last night.”
“Look at that big one on the right,” said Joe. “That must be
hundreds of feet high. The top looks as though it were going right
up into the sky.
“What’s that noise?” exclaimed Herb, as a sharp succession of
reports came to their ears.
The question was promptly answered. The giant peak to which Joe had
pointed began to sway to and fro with a rhythmic motion, and then,
with one last thunderous roar, fell over into the sea, sending a
column of water hundreds of feet high into the air.
“What made that, I wonder!” exclaimed Joe, when their first stunned
sensation had subsided.
“I guess it was about due to fall,” remarked Bob. “That’s the way
they go to pieces. Perhaps just the wash from the _Meteor_ disturbed
its balance and set it going. They’re something like the avalanches
that get started sometimes just by a hand clap or the sound of the
human voice. Now just watch, and I’ll bet that the noise caused by
that fall will start lots of the others to going.”
His prophecy was correct, for a number of the other icebergs broke
apart, following the fate of their companion. New spires and angles
took the place of those that were lost, and the contours changed
almost with the rapidity of the figures in a kaleidoscope. But
whatever the changes, the net result was beauty. It was as though
Nature were determined that her handicraft should not be marred even
though changed materially in form.
For several hours the boys remained as though riveted to the deck,
feasting their eyes on the sight before them. They were thrilled,
they were deeply affected by the beauty of the changing bergs.
Others on the _Meteor_, however, had none of their leisure to enjoy
the spectacle. The situation was one that called for the greatest
care and vigilance. The wireless operators were up to their ears in
work with the sending of warning messages to all vessels that were
in or nearing the zone of danger, and officers and crew were active
and anxious for the safety of the _Meteor_ herself.
The vessel was under the necessity of keeping near enough to the
bergs to map and measure them, and yet far enough away to prevent
any possibility of coming in contact with an underwater projection
of a berg. The boys had sense enough not to ask questions or get in
the way during this anxious period, and for their part were
perfectly content to be left to themselves and keep their eyes on
the spectacle of absorbing interest.
Gradually the _Meteor_ worked herself into a position to the north
of the whole fleet that kept drifting steadily away to the south,
leaving only one great berg as a rearguard at the end of the
procession.
They were studying this, half regretting its gradual withdrawal,
when Captain Springer, who now had time to draw his breath, stopped
as he was passing by where they were standing at the rail.
“Well, boys,” he said, with a genial smile, “what do you think of
the free show that you’ve had this morning?”
“Wonderful,” answered Bob with enthusiasm.
“The most magnificent thing in the world,” affirmed Joe.
“Beats anything I ever saw or dreamed of,” declared Herb.
“That one thing alone was worth the whole trip to get here,”
asserted Jimmy, and even Hector joined in with a series of barks as
though he also wanted to show his approval.
“Seems to be unanimous,” observed the captain. “I don’t wonder, for
though it’s my business to hate the icebergs, track them down,
destroy them, I have to admit their beauty.”
“Do you often see so many in a flock?” asked Joe.
“Not often,” was the reply. “Though as many as a hundred and
twenty-five have occasionally been seen together. Sometimes a
peculiar twist of the current throws them together, and then they
move along like a regiment. More often, however, they seem to prefer
to flock by themselves or in small groups.”
“It looks as though they were bringing down all the ice there is in
the Arctic,” remarked Joe.
“There’s plenty more where they came from,” laughed the captain. “As
a matter of fact, they don’t come from the Arctic ice floes. They’re
part of the ice cap that breaks off from the coast of Greenland. And
they’re not composed entirely of ice, although they appear to be.
When they break away, they bring with them hundreds of tons of dirt
and gravel. That gradually drops away as they get into the warmer
waters, and sinks to the bottom of the sea.”
“That berg over there seems to be the grand-daddy of them all,” said
Bob.
“It is pretty big,” admitted the captain. “But it’s nothing near as
big as some of them. One of them that was reported a little while
ago by an ice-patrol boat, was estimated to contain thirty-six
million tons of ice.”
“There comes a vessel!” exclaimed Bob, whose keen eyes had descried
a hull a long distance off and coming rapidly in their direction.
The captain leveled his glasses upon the approaching steamer.
“A tramp,” he remarked, as he failed to note any signs indicating
that she was a liner. “One of the vessels, no doubt, that got our
wireless message a little while ago. Not that it matters so much in
broad daylight, as she can see the berg for herself.”
They watched the vessel with the interest that always attaches
itself to anything that lifts itself above the horizon on the great
wastes of the sea.
“Her course seems to be bringing her pretty close to the iceberg,”
remarked Bob, with a sudden quickening of interest.
“So it is!” exclaimed the captain, an anxious pucker showing itself
in his brow. “What can the captain be thinking of?”
He left them abruptly and hurried away to the wireless room.
On came the ship, perilously close, the boys thought, to the
iceberg, which, however, stood clearly revealed in the splendor of
the sun.
The next moment a cry of horror broke from the boys.
The vessel they had been watching was being lifted slowly up into
the air!