Even M. Peyron, who at first had received the strange discovery with incredulity, woke up before long to the importance of this sudden and unexpected revelation. The Tu-Kila-Kila who had taught Methuselah that long poem or sermon, which native tradition regarded as containing the central secret of their creed2 or its mysteries, and which the cruel and cunning Tu-Kila-Kila of to-day believed to be of immense importance to his safety—that Tu-Kila-Kila of other days was, in all probability, no other than an English sailor. Cast on these shores, perhaps, as they themselves had been, by the mercy of the waves, he had managed to master the language and religion of the savages3 among whom he found himself thrown; he had risen to be the representative of the cannibal god; and, during long months or years of tedious exile, he had beguiled4 his leisure by imparting to the unconscious ears of a bird the weird5 secret of his success, for the benefit of any others of his own race who might be similarly treated by fortune in future. Strange and romantic as it all sounded, they could hardly doubt now that this was the real explanation of the bird’s command of English words. One problem alone remained to disturb their souls. Was the bird really in possession of any local secret and mystery at all, or was this the whole burden of the message he had brought down across the vast abyss of time—“God save the king, and to hell with all papists?”
Felix turned to M. Peyron in a perfect tumult7 of suspense8. “What he recites is long?” he said, interrogatively, with profound interest. “You have heard him say much more than this at times? The words he has just uttered are not those of the sermon or poem you mentioned?”
M. Peyron opened his hands expansively before him. “Oh, mon Dieu, no, monsieur,” he answered, with effusion. “You should hear him recite it. He’s never done. It is whole chapters—whole chapters; a perfect Henriade in parrot-talk. When once he begins, there’s no possibility of checking or stopping him. On, on he goes. Farewell to the rest; he insists on pouring it all forth9 to the very last sentence. Gabble, gabble, gabble; chatter10, chatter, chatter; pouf, pouf, pouf; boum, boum, boum; he runs ahead eternally in one long discordant11 sing-song monotone. The person who taught him must have taken entire months to teach him, a phrase at a time, paragraph by paragraph. It is wonderful a bird’s memory could hold so much. But till now, taking it for granted he spoke12 only some wild South Pacific dialect, I never paid much attention to Methuselah’s vagaries13.”
“Hush14. He’s going to speak,” Muriel cried, holding up, in alarm, one warning finger.
And the bird, his tongue-strings evidently loosened by the strange recurrence15 after so many years of those familiar English sounds, “Pretty Poll! Pretty Poll!” opened his mouth again in a loud chuckle16 of delight, and cried, with persistent17 shrillness18, “God save the king! A fig19 for all arrant20 knaves21 and roundheads!”
A creepier feeling than ever came over the two English listeners at those astounding22 words. “Great heavens!” Felix exclaimed to the unsuspecting Frenchman, “he speaks in the style of the Stuarts and the Commonwealth23!”
The Frenchman started. “époque Louis Quatorze!” he murmured, translating the date mentally into his own more familiar chronology. “Two centuries since! Oh, incredible! incredible! Methuselah is old, but not quite so much of a patriarch as that. Even Humboldt’s parrot could hardly have lived for two hundred years in the wilds of South America.”
Felix regarded the venerable creature with a look of almost superstitious24 awe25. “Facts are facts,” he answered shortly, shutting his mouth with a little snap. “Unless this bird has been deliberately26 taught historical details in an archaic27 diction—and a shipwrecked sailor is hardly likely to be antiquarian enough to conceive such an idea—he is undoubtedly28 a survival from the days of the Commonwealth or the Restoration. And you say he runs on with his tale for an hour at a time! Good heavens, what a thought! I wish we could manage to start him now. Does he begin it often?”
“Monsieur,” the Frenchman answered, “when I came here first, though Methuselah was already very old and feeble, he was not quite a dotard, and he used to recite it all every morning regularly. That was the hour, I suppose, at which the master, who first taught him this lengthy29 recitation, used originally to impress it upon him. In those days his sight and his memory were far more clear than now. But by degrees, since my arrival, he has grown dull and stupid. The natives tell me that fifty years ago, while he was already old, he was still bright and lively, and would recite the whole poem whenever anybody presented him with his greatest dainty, the claw of a moora-crab. Nowadays, however, when he can hardly eat, and hardly mumble30, he is much less persistent and less coherent than formerly31. To say the truth, I have discouraged him in his efforts, because his pertinacity32 annoyed me. So now he seldom gets through all his lesson at one bout33, as he used to do at the beginning. The best way to get him on is for me to sing him one of my French songs. That seems to excite him, or to rouse him to rivalry34. Then he will put his head on one side, listen critically for a while, smile a superior smile, and finally begin—jabber35, jabber, jabber—trying to talk me down, as if I were a brother parrot.”
“Oh, do sing now!” Muriel cried, with intense persuasion36 in her voice. “I do so want to hear it.” She meant, of course, the parrot’s story.
But the Frenchman bowed, and laid his hand on his heart. “Ah, mademoiselle,” he said, “your wish is almost a royal command. And yet, do you know, it is so long since I have sung, except to please myself—my music is so rusty37, old pieces you have heard—I have no accompaniment, no score—mais enfin, we are all so far from Paris!”
Muriel didn’t dare to undeceive him as to her meaning, lest he should refuse to sing in real earnest, and the chance of learning the parrot’s secret might slip by them irretrievably. “Oh, monsieur,” she cried, fitting herself to his humor at once, and speaking as ceremoniously as if she were assisting at a musical party in the Avenue Victor Hugo, “don’t decline, I beg of you, on those accounts. We are both most anxious to hear your song. Don’t disappoint us, pray. Please begin immediately.”
“Ah, mademoiselle,” the Frenchman said, “who could resist such an appeal? You are altogether too flattering.” And then, in the same cheery voice that Felix had heard on the first day he visited the King of Birds’ hut, M. Peyron began, in very decent style, to pour forth the merry sounds of his rollicking song:
“Quand on conspi-re,
Quand sans frayeur
On peut se di-re
Conspirateur
Pour tout38 le mon-de
Il faut avoir
Perruque blon-de
Et collet noir.”
He had hardly got as far as the end of the first stanza39, however, when Methuselah, listening, with his ear cocked up most knowingly, to the Frenchman’s song, raised his head in opposition40, and, sitting bolt upright on his perch41, began to scream forth a voluble stream of words in one unbroken flood, so fast that Muriel could hardly follow them. The bird spoke in a thick and very harsh voice, and, what was more remarkable42 still, with a distinct and extremely peculiar43 North Country accent. “In the nineteenth year of the reign44 of his most gracious majesty45, King Charles the Second,” he blurted46 out, viciously, with an angry look at the Frenchman, “I, Nathaniel Cross, of the borough47 of Sunderland, in the county of Doorham, in England, an able-bodied mariner48, then sailing the South Seas in the good bark Martyr49 Prince, of the Port of Great Grimsby, whereof one Thomas Wells, gent., under God, was master—”
“Oh, hush, hush!” Muriel cried, unable to catch the parrot’s precious words through the emulous echo of the Frenchman’s music. “Whereof one Thomas Wells, gent., under God, was master—go on, Polly.”
“Perruque blonde
Et collet noir,”
the Frenchman repeated, with a half-offended voice, finishing his stanza.
But just as he stopped, Methuselah stopped too, and, throwing back his head in the air with a triumphant50 look, stared hard at his vanquished51 and silenced opponent out of those blinking gray eyes of his. “I thought I’d be too much for you!” he seemed to say, wrathfully.
“Whereof one Thomas Wells, gent., under God, was master,” Muriel suggested again, all agog52 with excitement. “Go on, good bird! Go on, pretty Polly.”
But Methuselah was evidently put off the scent53 now by the unseasonable interruption. Instead of continuing, he threw back his head a second time with a triumphant air and laughed aloud boisterously54. “Pretty Polly,” he cried. “Pretty Polly wants a nut. Tu-Kila-Kila maroo! Pretty Poll! Pretty Polly!”
“Sing again, for Heaven’s sake!” Felix exclaimed, in a profoundly agitated55 mood, explaining briefly56 to the Frenchman the full significance of the words Methuselah had just begun to utter.
The Frenchman struck up his tune6 afresh to give the bird a start; but all to no avail. Methuselah was evidently in no humor for talking just then. He listened with a callous57, uncritical air, bringing his white eyelids58 down slowly and sleepily over his bleared gray eyes. Then he nodded his head slowly. “No use,” the Frenchman murmured, pursing his lips up gravely. “The bird won’t talk. It’s going off to sleep now. Methuselah gets visibly older every day, monsieur and mademoiselle. You are only just in time to catch his last accents.”
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收听单词发音
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1
surmise
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| v./n.猜想，推测 | |
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creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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3
savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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4
beguiled
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| v.欺骗( beguile的过去式和过去分词 )；使陶醉；使高兴；消磨（时间等） | |
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5
weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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6
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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7
tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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8
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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9
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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10
chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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11
discordant
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| adj.不调和的 | |
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12
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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13
vagaries
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| n.奇想( vagary的名词复数 )；异想天开；异常行为；难以预测的情况 | |
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14
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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15
recurrence
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| n.复发，反复，重现 | |
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16
chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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17
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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18
shrillness
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| 尖锐刺耳 | |
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19
fig
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| n.无花果(树) | |
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arrant
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| adj.极端的；最大的 | |
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21
knaves
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| n.恶棍，无赖( knave的名词复数 )；（纸牌中的）杰克 | |
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22
astounding
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| adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊，使大吃一惊astound的现在分词) | |
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23
commonwealth
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| n.共和国，联邦，共同体 | |
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24
superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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25
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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26
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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27
archaic
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| adj.(语言、词汇等)古代的，已不通用的 | |
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28
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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29
lengthy
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| adj.漫长的，冗长的 | |
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30
mumble
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| n./v.喃喃而语，咕哝 | |
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31
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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32
pertinacity
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| n.执拗，顽固 | |
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33
bout
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| n.侵袭，发作；一次(阵，回)；拳击等比赛 | |
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34
rivalry
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| n.竞争，竞赛，对抗 | |
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35
jabber
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| v.快而不清楚地说；n.吱吱喳喳 | |
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36
persuasion
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| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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37
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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38
tout
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| v.推销，招徕；兜售；吹捧，劝诱 | |
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39
stanza
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| n.（诗）节，段 | |
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40
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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41
perch
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| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
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42
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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43
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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44
reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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45
majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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46
blurted
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| v.突然说出，脱口而出( blurt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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47
borough
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| n.享有自治权的市镇；(英)自治市镇 | |
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48
mariner
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| n.水手号不载人航天探测器，海员，航海者 | |
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49
martyr
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| n.烈士，殉难者；vt.杀害，折磨，牺牲 | |
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50
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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51
vanquished
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| v.征服( vanquish的过去式和过去分词 )；战胜；克服；抑制 | |
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52
agog
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| adj.兴奋的，有强烈兴趣的； adv.渴望地 | |
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53
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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54
boisterously
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| adv.喧闹地，吵闹地 | |
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55
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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56
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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57
callous
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| adj.无情的，冷淡的，硬结的，起老茧的 | |
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58
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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