over would cause it to submerge temporarily. I fully realized
what a sucking maelstrom it would produce amid the worlds of
water on every side. They would rush into the depression in all
their fury, like white-fanged wolves eager for human prey.

In this supreme moment of mental anguish, I remember glancing at
our boat, which was lying on its side, and wondering if it could
possibly right itself, and if my father could escape. Was this
the end of our struggles and adventures? Was this death? All
these questions flashed through my mind in the fraction of a
second, and a moment later I was engaged in a life and death
struggle. The ponderous monolith of ice sank below the surface,
and the frigid waters gurgled around me in frenzied anger. I was
in a saucer, with the waters pouring in on every side. A moment
more and I lost consciousness.

When I partially recovered my senses, and roused from the swoon
of a half-drowned man, I found myself wet, stiff, and almost
frozen, lying on the iceberg. But there was no sign of my father
or of our little fishing sloop. The monster berg had recovered
itself, and, with its new balance, lifted its head perhaps fifty
feet above the waves. The top of this island of ice was a plateau
perhaps half an acre in extent.

I loved my father well, and was grief-stricken at the awfulness
of his death. I railed at fate, that I, too, had not been
permitted to sleep with him in the depths of the ocean. Finally,
I climbed to my feet and looked about me. The purple-domed sky
above, the shoreless green ocean beneath, and only an occasional
iceberg discernible! My heart sank in hopeless despair. I