One quick turn of the helm, and the vessel glided past the nearest berg, so close that one of the projecting ice points scraped her taffrail. Even that slight contact with the mighty mass made her whole frame quiver from stem to stern; but the danger was past, and the crew breathed freely once more.
"Now, my boys," shouted the youngest of the men, "stand by and see them two have it out by theirselves."
It was even so. The two destroyers, balked of their prey, were rushing straight upon each other. The wind had lulled again as if holding its breath for the coming battle, and all was as still as death, when the two moving mountains clashed together.
There came a crash to which the loudest thunder would have been as nothing, and the smooth sea boiled up into huge waves, dashing the vessel about like a toy, while the very air was darkened with flying splinters of ice. When the rush passed, the contending icebergs were seen to be at some distance, swaying dizzily to and fro like two living combatants reeling under a heavy stroke.
"At it again, old fellers!" cried young Simmonds; "that first bout don't count neither way."
Again came the terrible shock, followed by a fierce, grinding crash, as a huge pinnacle of ice, heavy enough to sink a hundred-gun ship, fell thundering into the sea.
"Port your helm!—port!" shouted the Captain.
"Port it is," answered the steersman, coolly, and the vessel sheered off.
She was not a moment too soon. Hardly had she got clear when the nearest iceberg was seen to lurch heavily forward. For an instant it rocked violently to and fro, and then plunged down into the sea, with a noise that might have been heard for miles.[2] The billows cast up by its fall tossed the strong ship aloft like a feather, flinging all the crew upon their faces; and for a moment sea and sky were all one blinding whirl of foam.
There was a moment of awful silence, when nothing could be heard but the groaning of the ship's timbers and the awful roar of the waves.