Jack’s heart seemed to be in his throat, and he waited in feverish suspense to learn whether success or failure was to be their fortune.  Faster now grew their progress, but would the stretch of ice prove a long enough area to give them the necessary momentum?

Every second they expected to hear horrible grinding noises from behind, such as must accompany the toppling over of the berg.  Even the splash of waves against the further side of the big ice-floe seemed like the pounding of a monster hammer, at least to Jack’s excited imagination.

They were now drawing perilously near the brink.  Was Tom ever going to elevate the plane and attempt the rise from the flat surface of the ice?

Just when it seemed to Jack that hope must yield to despair he realized that the jumpy motion of the plane ceased suddenly.  He knew what this meant, and that Tom had finally shown his hand, for they no longer bumped along but began to move through space!

Then Jack fell back, breathing freely again.  Success had rewarded their efforts, and once more the big bomber was speeding through its own element on the wings of the wind.

But it had indeed been a narrow escape for the adventurous trio; for hardly had they started to swing upward into space when from behind them arose a series of horrible crashings, gurglings, and the mad splashing of water, telling that in truth the giant berg had carried out its threat and rolled completely over, playing havoc with the entire floe.

No one spoke immediately.  In fact, none of them could have uttered a word, no matter how hard he had tried.  In each young heart a feeling of intense gratitude reigned, as well as a sensation of horror, for only too well did they know what their immediate fate must have been had they remained prisoners on the ice but another two minutes.

Tom pointed the nose of the plane directly into the southwest.  He even seemed to be getting additional speed out of his motors, as though bent on making up for the lost time.

All of them began to settle down for another long monotonous period with the whole night before them.  Far from comfortable might be their situation, but not a single complaint would be heard.  All they asked was that things might go on as they were, with the plane reeling off knot after knot of the cruise into the west.

After a while Jack remembered that Tom had had but a bite of supper.  Accordingly he got out the supplies and proceeded to serve them.  Then he took Tom’s place for a while and held the airship true to her course.

They kept about five hundred feet or so above the sea.  Somehow it gave them a little encouragement just to catch the glint of the stars on the tumbling waves below.  There was a friendliness in the billows, a something that seemed to keep them in contact with their fellow men; a thing which they missed when passing along two thousand feet or more above the surface of the terrestrial globe, even beyond the floating clouds.