“Berg’s goin’ to pieces!” yelled the second officer. “Come on back to the boat! That shot started the darned ice to slippin’! It’s rotten as punk. Come on, the whole blamed thing’s likely to go any minute!”
“But, but, where’s the bear?” gasped Tom, still unable to fully grasp what had occurred.
“Blast the bear!” ejaculated the second mate. “Get a move on!”
Urging the boys forward, Mr. Kemp rushed down the slope. As the boat drew in to the edge of the ice, the three scrambled aboard.
“Lift her, lads!” cried the excited officer as the boat shoved off, and the men bent to the long ash oars with a will. Hardly had they cleared the berg when there was a terrific, ripping, splintering roar. The overhanging summit of the berg moved bodily forward, hesitated an instant and then, with the deafening roar of thunder, came plunging, crashing down upon the spot where the three had been but a few moments before.
“Gosh!” exclaimed Tom. “Gosh! I’m glad we got away.”
“Gee Whitaker! yes,” cried Jim. “That old bear must be squashed flat as a pancake.”
Everywhere about the berg, huge detached masses of ice were floating, bobbing and turning and twisting about. Constantly more and more of the ice mountain was crashing down to the berg’s base, falling with prodigious splashes into the sea. Once started by the reverberations of Tom’s shot, the berg, softened, full of holes, and rotten, was going to pieces before the boys’ wondering eyes. It was a marvelous, fascinating, awe-inspiring sight to see the huge avalanches of gleaming ice, the jewel-tinted spires, the needlelike pinnacles, and the great overhanging precipices rending and tumbling. And as each mass dashed itself to pieces upon the base of the berg, or plunged into the waves, sending great mountains of spray into the air, the vibrations and shock of the blow loosened other masses. Then, as those in the boat gazed upon the dissolution of the mighty berg, Tom uttered an excited cry.
“Look!” he yelled. “The berg’s moving!”