Page:The trail of the golden horn.djvu/181

Rh In this manner the two marooned travellers passed the weary hours. As night shut down upon them, they sang hymns and old familiar songs. Rolfe recited poetry and read inspiring selections from his worn and stained pocket manual.

“What a pity it is,” he said, after he had finished several short poems, “that the ones who wrote such verses cannot know of the great help they are to us.”

“Perhaps they do know,” Marion replied, “especially the ones we call ‘dead.’ I like to think that the departed have full knowledge of what is taking place on earth. Perhaps even now the writers of those verses are rejoicing because of the help they are to us. Anyway, isn’t it great to feel that we never really die, but that our deeds live after us.”

“It certainly is,” Rolfe acknowledged. “Tennyson has well expressed it in two lines when he says,

Our echoes roll from soul to soul,

And grow forever and forever.’

“Now, that is the idea. Tennyson was thinking of someone blowing a bugle, and how the notes sounded far and wide. In a similar way his words echo on and on, even to this desolate place.”

“Why don’t you write poetry, Mr. Rolfe?” Marion asked. “I am sure you could do it well. Why not try?”

The constable’s face flushed, and he became much embarrassed. He rose and placed several small sticks upon the fire. When this had been accomplished, he turned to Marion.

“I have tried my hand at it,” he confessed, “although so far I have accomplished very little. But when I am through with the Force, I hope to give expression to the thoughts which arise within me. There is so much