A minute afterwards they were handed bade again.
"Just what it is, Tom, after all," reported Beverly. "A pretty tall berg it seems to be, with an extensive ice-floe around it as level in spots as a floor. I thought I saw something move on it that might be a Polar bear, caught when the berg broke away from its Arctic glacier. We will pass directly over, and may be able to feel the chill."
"It was the Titanic, wasn't it, that bumped into an iceberg, and went down with such a frightful loss of life?" remarked Jack.
"No other," replied Tom. "But we'll try to make sure nothing like that happens to our frail craft. Try to guess what would happen to that monster berg if we hit head on?"
"Hardly a crack!" Jack retorted. "But I'm more interested in wondering what would become of us. Guess we'd better keep a good thousand feet up, and not bother trying to pry into the ice-floe's secrets."
"I'm not dreaming of dropping a foot lower just at present," Tom said decisively; and not one of them dreamed how soon that decision would have to be reversed, since all still looked fair about them, with no storm in sight and the wonderful motors kept up their regular pulsations as if capable of going on forever.
Yet strange vicissitudes and changes are the portion of those who follow the sea; which may also be applied to other voyagers of space, the sailors of the air. One minute all seems fair, with the sun shining; another, and a white squall is dashing down upon the ship, to catch the crew unawares and perhaps smother them with its mighty foam-crested billows.
It was not half an hour later when something happened that was calculated to chill the hearts of those bold navigators, such as even close contact to the ice-floe and berg could never bring about.
At the time they had reached a point almost above the field of ice from the Arctic regions, and Jack was scrutinizing its full extent, commenting the while on many peculiar features that attracted his attention.
"It's a Polar bear, all right, fellows," he announced, "and believe me he's some size in the bargain. If I had a rifle along I wouldn't mind dropping down there and rustling him. But what ails you, Tom? You seem bothered about something. Gee! you're as white as a ghost!"