There were so few of us, and the darkening waste about was so wide and desolate. Personal consideration and even tenderness crept into our daily round, and any dim shadows of discontent that may have lingered among us were gathered up by the approaching gloom.
The Captain informed us that on the Saturday before Easter we should see the sun for the last time. Gale said he was glad Easter fell late that year, and that we ought to do something special in the way of farewell ceremonies.
So on Saturday immediately after breakfast we began our programme. We were to have many other such diversions during the long night that followed, and as our first was fairly representative of the others I will give it somewhat in detail. There were a number of musical instruments on board and most of us could play, or at least strum a little. Edith Gale, who was a skilled musician, had composed something for the occasion, and led on the harp. Ferratoni played well on the violin, Gale had some mastery of the flute, and I could follow with chords on the piano. Then we had singing, in which all joined, and the great barrier behind us echoed for the first time in all its million years to a grand old English ballad with a rousing chorus.
Now followed a literary series in which we were to give things of our own composition. Edith Gale was first on this programme. She did not need to read her effort. It was very brief.
“Beauty,” she said, “and a love of the truly beautiful, are nature’s best gifts to men and women. We have only to look and to listen, and we learn something of the joy of the Universe and the soothing spirit of peace. Even in this loneliness, and through the long night that lies now at our Gateway of the Sun, we may find, if we will understand it, something beside desolation and unillumined dark. Within, we shall keep the semblance and memories of summertime. Without, will fall a night, mighty and solemn, and terrifying, but always majestic, always beautiful. And in our hearts we shall not grow faint, or despair.”
After the acknowledgments Gale said:
“That’s the sort of thing that Johnnie used to carry to the homes and hearthstones of Tangleside, and it’s wonderful the way they seemed to take to it. What do you think about it, Bill? Do you think a love of the beautiful will be our greatest comfort during a hundred-day night? Let’s hear from you.”
Mr. Sturritt rose nervously.
“I—I am quite sure,” he began, “that Miss Gale understands her bus—er—subject, I should say, but I would suggest, that, without proper nourishment—that is—food we would find it not easy to appreciate the less filling—er, I mean less material comforts of beauty.”
Here Mr. Sturritt glanced at a little paper in his hand and continued more steadily.