“Ice on the lee bow!” shouted he. “Port your helm hard!”
But the warning came too late.
Almost at the same instant as the cry reached the ears of those aft, the Nancy Bell struck full butt against a dark object that loomed up out of the fog right ahead of the ship, and which had been unperceived a moment before.
There was a grinding rending crash and sound of breaking timbers, the vessel quivering from stem to stern; and then, the main and mizzen masts, with all their yards and the sails which had so lately been urging the ship on to her destruction toppled over the sides, whilst a wave, washing back from the base of the iceberg and coming in over the bows, swept the decks fore and aft.
Chapter Fifteen.
Making the best of it.
All hands were on deck at the time of the collision; and, with one concentrated cry of alarm which was more a yell than anything else, the men rushed in a body amidships to where the long-boat was stowed.
Captain Dinks, however hesitating and undecided as he had shown himself frequently of late in the navigation of the ship, now all at once brought out in this emergency that courage and capacity for command which he had really at bottom but which had been before dormant.