"Cooper, Susan - Dark is Rising 01 - Over Sea, Under Stone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cooper Susan)

'Yes. All old manuscripts are written in Latin. The monks used to write them down with a goose-feather for a pen, and put flowers and birds and things all squiggling round the capital letters.'

'There isn't anything squiggling here. It looks as if it's been written in rather a hurry. I can't even see any capital letters at all.'

'But why Latin? ' demanded Barney.

'I don't know, the monks just always used it, that's all, it was one of their things. I suppose it's a religious-sounding kind of language.'

'Well, Simon does Latin.'

'Yes, come on, Simon, translate it,' Jane said maliciously. At school she had not yet begun Latin, but he had been learning it for two years, and was rather superior about the fact.

'I don't think it's Latin at all,' Simon said rebelliously. He peered at the manuscript again. 'This writing's so odd, the letters all look the same. Like a lot of little straight lines all in a row. The light in here isn't very good either.'

'You're just making excuses.'

'No, I'm not. It's jolly difficult.'

'Well, if you can't even recognise Latin when you see it you can't be nearly as good as you make out.'

'Have another look,' said Barney hopefully.

'I think it's in two parts,' Simon said slowly. 'One little paragraph on top, and then a lot more all together after a gap. The second bit I can't make out at all, but the first paragraph does look as if it might be Latin. The first word looks like \icum\i, that means with, but I can't see what comes after it. Then later on there's \ipost multos annos\i, that's .after many years. But the writing's all so small and squashy I can't - wait a minute, there's some names in the last line. It says \iMar\i - no, \iMarco Arturoque\i.'

'Like Marco Polo,' Jane said doubtfully. 'What a funny name.'

'Not one name, it's two. \iQue\i means and, only they put it on the end instead of in the middle. And \io\i on the end is the ablative of -\ius\i, so this means by with or from Marcus and Arturus.'

'By with or from? What a- Barney! Whatever's the matter?'

Barney, red in the face and spluttering, had suddenly thumped his fist on the floor, caught his breath trying to say something, and collapsed into a thunderous fit of coughing. They patted him on the back and gave him a drink of lemonade.

'Marcus and Arturus,' he said hoarsely, gulping his breath back. 'Don't you see, it's Mark and Arthur! It's about King Arthur and his knights. Mark was one of them, and he was King of Cornwall. It must be about them.'

'Gosh,' Simon said. 'I think he's right.'

'It must be that. I bet old King Mark left some treasure behind somewhere and that's why there's a map.'

'Suppose we find it.'

'We'd be rich.'

'We'd be famous.'

'We shall have to tell Mother and Father,' Jane said.

The two boys stopped thumping each other ecstatically and looked at her.

'Whatever for?'