“I’m all right,” answered Joe. “But I never want to have such a close call as I had on that berg. If you hadn’t got to me just as you did, I’d have gone up with the berg.”
“It surely was a case of touch and go,” replied Bob. “Gee, but my heart stood still for a moment when I missed you and thought of that TNT!”
The Meteor sped on her course, and soon had made her way out of the welter of ice fragments that strewed the sea. Several times in the course of the next few hours, they sighted other bergs, but none that was nearly so large as the one they had destroyed. The positions of these smaller ice mountains were carefully noted, and their locations wirelessed to all vessels that might be within the zone of danger.
“But that only gives the positions at the time they’re discovered,” remarked Jimmy, with a slightly puzzled air. “They’re getting away from that location all the time.”
“True enough,” explained Bob. “But they’re moving at the rate of about seven-tenths of a mile an hour. Given the direction of the drift, the vessel that is warned can figure just where that special berg will be with every hour that passes.”
The incident had served to engross their minds for the time being, but now their thoughts returned with a doubled intensity to those at home.
“No news yet,” groaned Joe, after a fruitless errand to the wireless room.
“Let’s hope that in this case no news is good news,” replied Bob, with a greater display of confidence than he really felt.
“If only our folks’ lives are safe!” muttered Jimmy.
There was silence for a few minutes, each busy with his own troubled thoughts.