CHAPTER II
A COLOSSAL SOMERSAULT
The voyage of the "Nautilus" was uneventful until she was far to the northward in Baffin Bay. It was long after leaving St. John that our friends saw their first iceberg. They should have seen them before, as Captain McAlpine explained, for, as you well know, those mountains of ice often cross the path of the Atlantic steamers, and more than once have endangered our great ocean greyhounds. No doubt numbers of them were drifting southward, gradually dissolving as they neared the equator, but it so happened that the "Nautilus" steered clear of them until many degrees to the north.
The captain, who was scanning the icy ocean with his glass, apprised the boys that the longed-for curiosity was in sight at last. As he spoke, he pointed with his hand to the north-west, but though they followed the direction with their eyes, they were disappointed.
"I see nothing," said Rob, "that looks like an iceberg."
"And how is it with you, Mr. Warburton?" asked the skipper, lowering his instrument, and turning toward the younger of the boys, who had approached, and now stood at his side.
"We can make out a small white cloud in the horizon, that's all," said Fred.
"It's the cloud I'm referring to, boys; now take a squint at that same thing through the glass."
Fred leveled the instrument and had hardly taken a glance, when he cried:
"Oh! it's an iceberg sure enough! Isn't it beautiful?"
While he was studying it, the captain added: "Turn the glass a little to the left."