The Great Taboo

CHAPTER XXII.

TAN­TA­LIZ­ING, VERY.

They looked at one an­oth­er again with a wild sur­mise. The voice was as the voice of some long past age. Could the par­rot be speak­ing to them in the words of sev­en­teenth-​cen­tu­ry En­glish?

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 creed 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 sav­ages 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 be­guiled his leisure by im­part­ing to the un­con­scious ears of a bird the weird 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 tu­mult of sus­pense. “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 forth to the very last sen­tence. Gab­ble, gab­ble, gab­ble; chat­ter, chat­ter, chat­ter; pouf, pouf, pouf; boum, boum, boum; he runs ahead eter­nal­ly in one long dis­cor­dant 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 spoke on­ly some wild South Pa­cif­ic di­alect, I nev­er paid much at­ten­tion to Methuse­lah's va­garies.”

“Hush. 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 re­cur­rence af­ter so many years of those fa­mil­iar En­glish sounds, “Pret­ty Poll! Pret­ty Poll!” opened his mouth again in a loud chuck­le of de­light, and cried, with per­sis­tent shrill­ness, “God save the king! A fig for all ar­rant knaves and round­heads!”

A creepi­er feel­ing than ev­er came over the two En­glish lis­ten­ers at those as­tound­ing words. “Great heav­ens!” Fe­lix ex­claimed to the un­sus­pect­ing French­man, “he speaks in the style of the Stu­arts and the Com­mon­wealth!”

The French­man start­ed. “_Epoque 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 su­per­sti­tious awe. “Facts are facts,” he an­swered short­ly, shut­ting his mouth with a lit­tle snap. “Un­less this bird has been de­lib­er­ate­ly taught his­tor­ical de­tails in an ar­cha­ic dic­tion--and a ship­wrecked sailor is hard­ly like­ly to be an­ti­quar­ian enough to con­ceive such an idea--he is un­doubt­ed­ly 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 lengthy 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 mum­ble, he is much less per­sis­tent and less co­her­ent than for­mer­ly. To say the truth, I have dis­cour­aged him in his ef­forts, be­cause his per­ti­nac­ity an­noyed me. So now he sel­dom gets through all his les­son at one bout, 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 ri­val­ry. Then he will put his head on one side, lis­ten crit­ical­ly for a while, smile a su­pe­ri­or smile, and fi­nal­ly be­gin--jab­ber, jab­ber, jab­ber--try­ing to talk me down, as if I were a broth­er par­rot.”

“Oh, do sing now!” Muriel cried, with in­tense per­sua­sion 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 rusty, 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 tout le mon-​de Il faut avoir Per­ruque blon-​de Et col­let noir.”

He had hard­ly got as far as the end of the first stan­za, how­ev­er, when Methuse­lah, lis­ten­ing, with his ear cocked up most know­ing­ly, to the French­man's song, raised his head in op­po­si­tion, and, sit­ting bolt up­right on his perch, 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 re­mark­able still, with a dis­tinct and ex­treme­ly pe­cu­liar North Coun­try ac­cent. “In the nine­teenth year of the reign of his most gra­cious majesty, King Charles the Sec­ond,” he blurt­ed out, vi­cious­ly, with an an­gry look at the French­man, “I, Nathaniel Cross, of the bor­ough of Sun­der­land, in the coun­ty of Doorham, in Eng­land, an able-​bod­ied mariner, then sail­ing the South Seas in the good bark Mar­tyr 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 tri­umphant look, stared hard at his van­quished 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 agog with ex­cite­ment. “Go on, good bird! Go on, pret­ty Pol­ly.”

But Methuse­lah was ev­ident­ly put off the scent now by the un­sea­son­able in­ter­rup­tion. In­stead of con­tin­uing, he threw back his head a sec­ond time with a tri­umphant air and laughed aloud bois­ter­ous­ly. “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 ag­itat­ed mood, ex­plain­ing briefly to the French­man the full sig­nif­icance of the words Methuse­lah had just be­gun to ut­ter.

The French­man struck up his tune 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 cal­lous, un­crit­ical air, bring­ing his white eye­lids 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.”