Two men stood on the bridge of a speeding ship in a place of ice and fire. A storm rode with them, a tempest that shrieked and moaned and tore, and around the ship seethed and tossed the waters of the furious Antarctic Sea. Ice floes cracked and crashed. Giant bergs, staggering under the lash of the gale, added the dull thunder of their impact to the wild din. Yet all the fury and clamor afloat paled in comparison with the appalling splendor of that which was taking place on shore.

On the port side of the vessel, a scant league across the heaving frenzy of wave and ice, lay land. Once a stark, bleak mountain range, rising inland from its beetling shore cliffs, now it was gashed and quivering in the throes of a terrific volcanic outburst. Rocky hillsides were laced with streams of molten, iridescent fire. Above them mighty peaks tottered and crumbled. The titanic detonations of sundered mountains, with each new outpouring of the tremendous forces struggling for release, drowned all the strident discord of shrilling air and booming sea.

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