The _Roanoke_ shook herself as if her rivets were pulling out, as the engines strove to hold her back, but the momentum of the vast bulk could not be checked on the instant. Then there came a far more violent shock, a grinding roar, and the sound of rending steel and timber. Every man on deck was pitched off his feet. The stricken steamer listed heavily to port and then slowly righted, as the masses of ice dislodged from the berg by the collision slid off her fore deck.