Chapter IV

At last I decided¹ that the first portion was in the abbreviated² Latin of old documents, for after much puzzling I deciphered that the first words read “In Dei Nomine, Amen.” At foot was an endorsement³ in old English, which I deciphered, making a covenant⁴ between certain parties, and below were seven scrawly⁵ signatures in that strange old Elizabethan hand, namely of Geo. Greene, Gilbert Kanadale, John Ffreeman, Alex. Stephen Wyon, John Dollington, Clement⁶ Wollerton, and George A. Dafte, hys mark.

The bottom of the parchment had been cut until a short strip an inch wide hung from it, and upon this the round seal of yellow wax had been impressed, the device upon it being a shield with a leopard⁷ rampant⁸, together with a fleur-de-lys. That is how best I can describe it, not being versed⁹ in heraldic terms.

That the two documents were precious ones could not for a moment be doubted when I recollected¹⁰ how carefully they had been preserved: first in that leathern bag and secondly¹¹ in the treasure-chest. To me, however, they presented no appearance of value.

“What are they all about, doctor?” inquired the skipper, puffing¹² at his pipe.

“At present I can’t tell. They’re both in Latin,” I answered, “and we must wait until we get a proper translation. This”—and I held the second document in my hand—“was written in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and seems to be a covenant, or something of the sort.”

“I suppose we can get some lawyer chap to puzzle ’em out?” Seal said.

“Oh, I don’t anticipate any difficulty,” I answered. “Only if there is any secret attached to them we don’t want to give it away.”

“Ah! I never thought of that,” remarked the skipper. “It is, as you say, very probable that some secret is contained there, and for that reason they were so carefully preserved and hidden away. No, doctor, we’d better not employ a lawyer. He’d want to know too much.”

Then I turned my attention to the books. The first I opened was of fine white parchment, thick, heavily bound, and written in a bold hand with many flourishes. A glance through it showed that it was an inventory¹³ of some kind, but it was all in Italian and much beyond me. The only part I could translate was the commencement, which, as far as I was able to decipher, read as follows:?—

In the name of Almighty¹⁴ God and of His Holy Mother, Saint Mary, and of St. Peter, and of St. Paul, of St. John the Baptist, and of all the Celestial¹⁵ Court of Paradise, who have conceded to me the benefit that I should commence this book sound of body and of mind. Amen.

In this Book written by me, Bartholomew di Simon da Schorno, I have set down certain things that all men should know, as well as a certain Secret that one alone may discover to his advantage hereafter.

And then followed about 150 pages of manuscript and memoranda¹⁶.

Through an hour I diligently¹⁷ endeavoured to decipher correctly regarding the secret mentioned, but it was in old Italian, with long l’s and s’s, and therefore extremely difficult to understand.

The date of the conclusion of the book I discovered to be August 16, 1591, on a Friday; while here and there I discovered the name of Paule, evidently the same family as the Pomp?o Marie a Paule, the Pisan noble mentioned in the document with the leaden seal of Cosimo di Medici.

The author, Bartholomew da Schorno, whoever he was, had certainly produced a very respectable volume as regards size, and Job Seal and myself were extremely anxious to learn the secret which, in the introduction, was said to be contained therein.

The other books were not of great interest save perhaps to a bibliophile¹⁸. They, however, showed that their owner was a scholar. The first, a thin manuscript on paper, and written in a neat Gothic hand, which I afterwards discovered was of the early fifteenth century, bore the title, “Trithemius, Liber de Triplici Regione.” The others were a well-written book of monastic law on vellum, with red and blue capitals of about the same date, and a kind of old pocket-book, in which was a treatise¹⁹ entitled “Loci Communes Theologici per Dominicas et Festes Totius Anni.”

It was the secret of old Bartholomew da Schorno—an Italian, evidently—that we were eager to discover, for both Seal and I felt confident that it would reveal to us the name of the dead owner of the Seahorse and the history of that remarkable²⁰ resurrection.

In that heavy parchment book was a secret which old Bartholomew declared “one alone may discover to his advantage hereafter.”

What could it be?

Job Seal and I sat smoking our pipes and wondering what strange things were hidden within that yellow old volume that emitted so musty a smell.

Little, however, did we dream of the remarkable consequences that were to follow upon our startling discovery. It is, indeed, well sometimes that the Book of Fate is ever closed to us.

1 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

2 abbreviated   

adj. 简短的，省略的 动词abbreviate的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He abbreviated so much that it was hard to understand his article. 他的文章缩写词使用太多，令人费解。
• The United States of America is commonly abbreviated to U.S.A.. 美利坚合众国常被缩略为U.S.A.。

3 endorsement   

n.背书；赞成，认可，担保；签(注)，批注

参考例句：

• We are happy to give the product our full endorsement.我们很高兴给予该产品完全的认可。
• His presidential campaign won endorsement from several celebrities.他参加总统竞选得到一些社会名流的支持。

4 covenant   

n.盟约，契约；v.订盟约

参考例句：

• They refused to covenant with my father for the property.他们不愿与我父亲订立财产契约。
• The money was given to us by deed of covenant.这笔钱是根据契约书付给我们的。

5 scrawly   

潦草地写

参考例句：

• This letter must be from Frank;I recognized his scrawl. 这封信一定是弗兰克写来的，我认得他那潦草的笔迹。
• His signature was an incomprehensible scrawl. 他的签字是令人看不懂的涂鸦。

6 clement   

adj.仁慈的；温和的

参考例句：

• A clement judge reduced his sentence.一位仁慈的法官为他减了刑。
• The planet's history contains many less stable and clement eras than the holocene.地球的历史包含着许多不如全新世稳定与温和的地质时期。

7 leopard   

n.豹

参考例句：

• I saw a man in a leopard skin yesterday.我昨天看见一个穿着豹皮的男人。
• The leopard's skin is marked with black spots.豹皮上有黑色斑点。

8 rampant   

adj.(植物)蔓生的；狂暴的，无约束的

参考例句：

• Sickness was rampant in the area.该地区疾病蔓延。
• You cannot allow children to rampant through the museum.你不能任由小孩子在博物馆里乱跑。

9 versed   

adj. 精通，熟练

参考例句：

• He is well versed in history.他精通历史。
• He versed himself in European literature. 他精通欧洲文学。

10 recollected   

adj.冷静的；镇定的；被回忆起的；沉思默想的v.记起，想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• I recollected that she had red hair. 我记得她有一头红发。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• His efforts, the Duke recollected many years later, were distinctly half-hearted. 据公爵许多年之后的回忆，他当时明显只是敷衍了事。 来自辞典例句

11 secondly   

adv.第二，其次

参考例句：

• Secondly,use your own head and present your point of view.第二，动脑筋提出自己的见解。
• Secondly it is necessary to define the applied load.其次，需要确定所作用的载荷。

12 puffing   

v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧

参考例句：

• He was puffing hard when he jumped on to the bus. 他跳上公共汽车时喘息不已。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• My father sat puffing contentedly on his pipe. 父亲坐着心满意足地抽着烟斗。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 inventory   

n.详细目录，存货清单

参考例句：

• Some stores inventory their stock once a week.有些商店每周清点存货一次。
• We will need to call on our supplier to get more inventory.我们必须请供应商送来更多存货。

14 almighty   

adj.全能的，万能的；很大的，很强的

参考例句：

• Those rebels did not really challenge Gods almighty power.这些叛徒没有对上帝的全能力量表示怀疑。
• It's almighty cold outside.外面冷得要命。

15 celestial   

adj.天体的；天上的

参考例句：

• The rosy light yet beamed like a celestial dawn.玫瑰色的红光依然象天上的朝霞一样绚丽。
• Gravity governs the motions of celestial bodies.万有引力控制着天体的运动。

16 memoranda   

n. 备忘录, 便条 名词memorandum的复数形式

参考例句：

• There were memoranda, minutes of meetings, officialflies, notes of verbal di scussions. 有备忘录，会议记录，官方档案，口头讨论的手记。
• Now it was difficult to get him to address memoranda. 而现在，要他批阅备忘录都很困难。

17 diligently   

ad.industriously;carefully

参考例句：

• He applied himself diligently to learning French. 他孜孜不倦地学法语。
• He had studied diligently at college. 他在大学里勤奋学习。

18 bibliophile   

n.爱书者；藏书家

参考例句：

• Ted loves everything about books.He is a real bibliophile.泰德喜爱所有与书籍有关的事物。他真是一个爱书人。
• Zhou zuoren is not just a famous author and critics in contemporary history of china,but also an influential bibliophile.周作人不仅是中国现代著名的作家和评论家，也是一位有影响的藏书家。

19 treatise   

n.专著；(专题)论文

参考例句：

• The doctor wrote a treatise on alcoholism.那位医生写了一篇关于酗酒问题的论文。
• This is not a treatise on statistical theory.这不是一篇有关统计理论的论文。

20 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。