“Ugh!” exclaimed Wendel, “I think we’d better get out of here as soon as possible!”
“And so we will,” declared Frank, “but this is a watercourse. I don’t believe we need fear lava. We ought to be near the summit.”
But they toiled on for another hour. Then, however, they emerged into the open air.
The transition was for a moment surprising. Even the semi-gloom of the Antarctic night was dazzling.
But they were high in the air, and a mighty panorama of country lay before their gaze.
To the northward, shrouded in dull gloom, was the barrier of ice and snow; to the south, the Polar Continent, in its green hue.
To the east, the great pass, and west, the line of mighty craters, which belched at intervals their fiery contents a thousand feet into the air.
It was a spectacle which literally appalled the adventurers. They were truly on a new continent in an unexplored world.
Then Randall exclaimed:
“How is it, Frank? Shall we stay here long?”