Up rose the vessel inch by inch, foot by foot, slowly but surely, the dripping slope of the hull that had up to now been below the waterline rising above the surface. It was as though some monster of the sea had gripped the keel and was pushing it aloft.
For a moment the boys stood stunned and paralyzed. They felt as though they were in a nightmare. They could scarcely believe their eyes. Were the laws of nature being reversed? What mysterious force was lifting this huge vessel with its cargo of freight and human souls? And what gigantic lever was this mysterious force pressing?
Bob was the first of the boys to grasp the meaning of the phenomenon.
“Look!” he shouted. “Look at the iceberg! It’s tipping the other way.”
The other lads followed the direction of Bob’s pointing finger and saw the peak of the great berg slowly careening in a direction opposite to that of the apparently doomed vessel. And as it dipped in one direction, the ship was lifted that much higher in the other.
Then they understood.
The captain, in running so close to the berg, had apparently forgotten for the moment that a great spur of the monster might be projecting horizontally under the surface of the water. This had happened to be the fact in this particular case. The ship had come so close that the wash from its engines had disturbed the delicate equilibrium of the berg and it had tipped. As it careened, the underwater spur rose with it, and as the vessel was passing over it at the time, the spur had come up like a mighty hand and lifted the ship with it.
“She’ll be thrown off!” cried Joe, pantingly.
“And probably turn turtle!” added Herb, horrified.
The boy’s faces were as pale as death as they sensed the nearness of tragedy. If the ship were upset, it might mean the loss of scores of lives.