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We were somewhat closely packed on board the little vessel, what with twelve human beings, three monkeys, the curassow, the macaw, two parrots and three parakeets one with a yellow top-knot, who, from his manners, showed that he considered himself the chief of the party, and deserving of the most attention; then there were ten turtles and a number of tortoises.
The shadow of the Kutb Minar was long when they drove past it, and it was dusk when the German shouted and Ranjoor Singh turned the horses in between two age-old trees and drew rein at a shattered temple door. Some monkeys loped away, chattering, and about a thousand parakeets flew off, shrilling for another roost. But there was no other sign of life.
The houses, which seemed only to serve as backgrounds to all this teeming life, were of all colors red, green, orange, and blue and between the queer, many-shaped roof-tops waved the feathery crowns of date trees, the glossy foliage of the fig, and the stately fronds of the palm but these were of scanter growth just here, though what there were, swarmed with kites, crows, parakeets, and even squirrels, while dogs "by the million," as Hope remarked, and cattle, and monkeys, and goats, were on every spot where babies and larger children had left an inch of room.
The light slides down the glass, and drops a pool of green. All day long the ten fingers of the lustre drop green upon the marble. The feathers of parakeets their harsh cries sharp blades of palm trees green, too; green needles glittering in the sun.
There was a click, and somehow the silence was clamorous. Calhoun rubbed his nose reflectively with his finger. Murgatroyd, bright-eyed, immediately rubbed his nose with a tiny dark digit. Like all tormals, he gloried in imitating human actions, as parrots and parakeets imitate human speech.
We had better success in fishing on board the ship than by hauling the seine on shore; for with hooks and lines a number of fine rock-cod were caught. I saw today several eagles, some beautiful blue-plumaged herons, and a great variety of parakeets. A few oyster-catchers and gulls were generally about the beach, and in the lake a few wild ducks. Monday 25.
"Oui! if you can!" she answered, with a mocking laugh. "Clopin, cher ami, your poor little parakeets are safe for the night unless monsieur grows desperate and eats them for himself." "Even that, if it were necessary to get the pearl, madame," said Cleek, with the utmost sang-froid. "Faugh!" looking at his watch, "a good twenty minutes wasted by the zealousness of those idiotic searchers of yours.
In the quadrangle were flamboyant trees, with their masses of brilliant red flowers and delicately cut, vivid-green foliage. Noisy oven-birds haunted these trees. In a high palm in the garden a family of green parakeets had taken up their abode and were preparing to build nests. They chattered incessantly both when they flew and when they sat or crawled among the branches.
It was one of those dirty dens where sailors, returning from long voyages, frequently go to dispose of the various trifles they have picked up in foreign countries, so that among the forlorn specimens of second-hand wearing apparel many quaint and curious objects were to be seen, such as shells, branches of rough coral, strings of beads, cups and dishes carved out of cocoa-nut, dried gourds, horns of animals, fans, stuffed parakeets, and old coins while a grotesque wooden idol peered hideously forth from between the stretched-out portions of a pair of old nankeen trousers, as though surveying the miscellaneous collection in idiotic amazement.
They obeyed like well-bred children, settling down on a cushioned seat together and taking their coffee as prettily as a pair of parakeets. They seemed almost children to me, although there was little difference in years between Vere and myself. But then, I stood on the brink where years stopped. With the next night, my triumphant enemy could be put off no longer. That I could not doubt.
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