He started up the path from which the polar bear had come, with his young friends at his heels. They did not stop until they could go no farther, when they turned about and shudderingly awaited the catastrophe that was at hand.
Their withdrawal from the edge of the iceberg to a point some distance away dimmed their vision, but the smaller berg was easily distinguished through the obscurity.
The two continued to approach with a slowness that could hardly have caused a shock in a couple of ships, but where the two masses were so enormous the momentum was beyond calculation.
The frightful crisis was not without its grim humor. The boys braced themselves against the expected crash as if in a railway train with a collision at hand. They lost sight of the fact that no force in nature could produce any such sudden jarring and jolting as they apprehended.
The two bergs seemed to be lying side by side, within a few inches really, but without actually touching.
"Why don't they strike?" asked Rob, in an awed whisper.
"There it comes!" exclaimed Fred; "hold fast!"
The smaller berg was seen to sway and bow, as if that, too, had swept against the bottom of the sea, and it was shaken through every part.
But amazing fact to the lads! they felt only the slightest possible tremor pass through the support upon which they had steadied themselves against the expected shock.
The smaller berg acted like some monster that has received a mortal hurt. It seemed to be striving to disentangle itself from the fatal embrace of its conqueror, but was unable to do so. Nearly conical in shape, a peak rose more than a hundred feet in air, ending in a tapering point almost as delicate as a church spire.