lad; I went to the King of the Birds to warn him of his danger;
and the King of the Birds, concerned for your safety, has sent me in
haste to ask his brother gods to go at once to him."

In a minute Felix was up and had called out Mali from the neighboring
hut. "Tell Missy Queenie," he cried, "to come with me to see the
man-a-oui-oui! The man-a-oui-oui has sent me for us to come. She must
make great haste. He wants us immediately."

With a word and a sign to Toko, Ula glided away stealthily, with the
cat-like tread of the native Polynesian woman, back to her hated husband.

Felix went out to the door and heliographed with his bright metal plate,
turned on the Frenchman's hill, "What is it?"

In a moment the answer flashed back, word by word, "Come quick, if you
want to hear. Methuselah is reciting!"

A few seconds later Muriel emerged from her hut, and the two Europeans,
closely followed, as always, by their inseparable Shadows, took the
winding side-path that led through the jungle by a devious way, avoiding
the front of Tu-Kila-Kila's temple, to the Frenchman's cottage.

They found M. Peyron very much excited, partly by Ula's news of
Tu-Kila-Kila's attitude, but more still by Methuselah's agitated
condition. "The whole night through, my dear friends," he cried, seizing
their hands, "that bird has been chattering, chattering, chattering. _Oh,
mon Dieu, quel oiseau!_ It seems as though the words heard yesterday from
mademoiselle had struck some lost chord in the creature's memory. But he
is also very feeble. I can see that well. His garrulity is the garrulity
of old age in its last flickering moments. He mumbles and mutters.
He chuckles to himself. If you don't hear his message now and at once,
it's my solemn conviction you will never hear it."

He led them out to the aviary, where Methuselah, in effect, was sitting
on his perch, most tremulous and woebegone. His feathers shuddered
visibly; he could no longer preen himself. "Listen to what he says," the
Frenchman exclaimed, in a very serious voice. "It is your last, last
chance. If the secret is ever to be unravelled at all, by Methuselah's
aid, now is, without doubt, the proper moment to unravel it."

Muriel put out her hand and stroked the bird gently. "Pretty Poll," she
said, soothingly, in a sympathetic voice. "Pretty Poll! Poor Poll! Was he
ill! Was he suffering?"

At the sound of those familiar words, unheard so long till yesterday, the
parrot took her fi