one morning, a week after our arrival, as we sat at breakfast, we felt the billowcrest suddenly rock beneath us, and a moment later there came a roar so mighty that it seemed the whole world must shudder with it. we looked at each other, our minds reverting to the moment of our arrival with the pacemaker. but there was a difference in the sound. that had been a splitting, crashing terror. this also seemed the cry of a great rending asunder, but followed by a splendid, universal groan of peace. at first no one spoke, and we half rose to hasten on deck. but then, to ferratoni, came the truth.
“have no fright,” he said, “it was but the borning of a giant.”
we felt the vessel now slowly rising beneath us. going out we found the water pouring into our harbor, displaced by the new-born berg. had we been outside, the billowcrest might have repeated her diving experiment.
151when the water receded we went out in the launch to investigate. following the wall for more than a mile we came to a wonderful gleaming monster, an infant titan, setting out clumsily on its first voyage. already there was a space between it and the mother barrier, and the great life current of the ocean was tugging it to the east.
“it’s got a long trip before it,” said gale. “it’ll be in many a tight place and get lots of hard rubs before it sees home again. how long do you suppose it will be?”
i shook my head.
“depends a good deal on what luck it has, i suppose; same as with the rest of us.”
we went a little way in behind the berg to inspect the new surface there. it was smooth and transparent.
“look!” cried edith gale, pointing up.
our eyes followed in the direction indicated, and we saw in the clear ice just above our heads something frozen. the light dazzled at first and we moved to the other side. then we saw a huge animal form enclosed in the crystal. it was perfectly preserved. the body was smooth and dark, with long flippers, and extending in front for many feet was a slender neck or throat, ending in a head something like that of a great bird. we looked at it in silence for some moments; gale said:
152“are we going to find such things as that when we get inside? if we are you can refund my money, now.”
“that,” i said, “is a plesiosaurus, or an ichthyosaurus. i can never quite remember which is which. but it’s some kind of a ‘saurus,’ and it was washed up, or crept up there to die, probably more than a million years ago. if this were a scientific expedition we would rejoice, and dig it out. we might, anyway.”
“no,” dissented gale, “i don’t want to bring down another iceberg just yet, and besides, we’ve got other fish to fry.”
“one might say other sauruses of amusement,” added edith gale, with becoming solemnity.
“i think we’d better go home after that,” said her father.
entering the harbor, ferratoni pointed to the surface of the water, a little way ahead, where something appeared to be floating. as we drew nearer our wonder increased, for it proved to be a part of a small boat, or canoe. it did not appear to have been in the water for any great length of time, and did not much resemble any craft we could recall. captain biffer decided that it was from some island of the south pacific, and had been brought to us by the salt undercurrent. it had been forced into the harbor, he said, by the recent in-tide caused by the 153new berg. to me, however, his argument did not seem tenable. i believed the craft had been brought by our warm river from the inner continent, battered to pieces on the way by rocks or crushed against the ice overhead. edith gale quite agreed with me in this, as did ferratoni. her father also seemed to favor the idea. we took the fragment—it was a piece of a sharp bow—to the forward cabin of the billowcrest. here we placed it on a little table, and gathering about it, edith gale, ferratoni, and i constructed some curious fancies of those whose hands had fashioned it. to ferratoni more than to us it seemed to speak; but, on the other hand, he revealed less of what it told him.
