only get on the top I wouldn't mind," said the doctor,
after making half a dozen tries; but every one was a failure, for it was
for all the world like climbing the side of a slippery board.

"Suppose you did get up, sir--what then?" I said.

"What then, Captain Cookson? Why, I could take observations; notice the
structure of the ice; chip off specimens; but I suppose I must be
disappointed."

But he was not, for when toward evening we were sitting on deck, I said
to him, "I suppose we may cast loose now, doctor, and get on?" there
suddenly came a strange scraping noise, and a peculiar motion of the
ship.

"Cut away those ice-cables!" I roared, running to get an axe, for I
scented the danger.

But I was too late, and stopped paralysed, holding on by one of the
shrouds! for I suddenly woke to the fact that in going close in to the
visible part of the iceberg, we had sailed in over a part of it that was
under water, and now the huge mass of ice having grown top-heavy, it was
slowly rolling over, but fortunately away from us, though the result
seemed to threaten destruction.

Almost before I knew where I was, the steamer began to sway over to
starboard; then I saw that we were lifted out of the water; and as the
men gave a cry of horror, we rose higher, and higher, and higher, as the
great berg rolled slowly over till we were quite a couple of hundred
feet in the air, perched on almost an even keel in a narrow V-marked
valley, with the ice rising as high as the main yard on either side, and
the little valley we were in running steeply down to the sea.

We all remained speechless, clinging to that which was nearest, and the
motion made the doctor's nephew exceedingly ill; but as for the doctor,
he was standing note-book in hand, exclaiming, "Wonderful! Magnificent!
Captain, I would not have missed such a phenomenon for the world!"

"Other world, you mean, sir!" I said, with a gasp of horror. "We shall
never reach home again!"

"Nonsense, man," he said. "Why, this ice will melt in less than a
month, and let us down."

"Or turn over the other way, and finish us off, sir!" I said, gloomily.

"Meanwhile, captain, I am up on the top of the iceberg, and can make my
meteorological observations. Alfred, bring me the glaceoscope. Hang
the fellow, he's always poorly when I want him. Captain, will you
oblige?"

I stood staring at him for a few moments, astonished at his coolness.

"The long brass instrument,