Belgica 1898

They went south into the ice. Past the last known coast and the last known men. The ship Belgica groaned in the black swell like some weary beast driven too far from the pasture of the living world. Her timbers creaked with the cold and the iron sang faintly in the night. The men spoke little. Words froze in the air between them and fell away like dust. De Gerlache stood upon the deck, eyes turned to the horizon that was not a line but a wound—where the sea met the pale desolation and neither yielded.