“So it may be, Captin’,” pursues Seagriff; “but thar’s somethin’ ’bout these breakin’ off an’ becomin’ bergs ez ain’t so well understood, I reckin’; leastways, not by l’arned men. The cause of it air well enough know’d ’mong the seal-fishers ez frequent these soun’s an’ channels.”
“What is the cause, Chips?” asked young Gancy, like all the others, interested in the subject of conversation.
“Wall, it’s this, Mister Ned. The sea-water bein’ warmer than the ice, melts the glasheer when thar’s high-tide, an’ the eend of it dips under; then at low tide,—bein’, so to speak, undermined, an’ not havin’ the water to rest on,—it naterally sags down by its own weight, an’ snaps off, ez ye’ll all easily understan’.”
“Oh! we quite understand,” is the universal response, every one satisfied with the old sealer’s explanation as to the origin of icebergs.
“How I should like to see one launched,” exclaims Leoline; “that big one over there, for instance. It would make such a big plunge! Wouldn’t it, Mr Chips?”
“Yes, Miss, sech a plunge thet ef this child tho’t thar was any likelihood of it comin’ loose from its moorin’s while we’re hyar, he wouldn’t be smokin’ his pipe so contented. Jest look at thet boat.”
“The boat! what of her?” asks the skipper, in some apprehension, at length beginning to comprehend the cause of Seagriff’s uneasiness.
“Wall, Captin’, ef yon glasheer war to give off a berg, any sort of a big ’un, it mout be the means o’ leavin’ us ’ithout any boat at all.”
“But how?”
“How? Why, by swampin’ or smashin’ the only one we’ve got, the which—”