斷乎是邪物 Surely It Is Something Evil
行者道：「怪哉！怪哉！這早晚有三更時分，怎麼得有人在這頂上言語？斷乎是邪物也，且看看去。」行者道：「怪哉！怪哉！这早晚有三更时分，怎么得有人在这顶上言语？断乎是邪物也，且看看去。」
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim said, "Strange! Strange!
The exclamation is doubled and the printing puts a mark after each half, so the text splits them; they are set here on one line, because a bare cry belongs with what it is crying about. 哉 is the classical exclamation, and Pilgrim reaches for it when he is startled.
"It is getting on for the third watch. How should there be anyone talking up on this top?
三更 is the watch straddling midnight, and 更 takes gēng — the same shape as 二更 a few sentences back. 怎麼得 is a how-could-there-possibly shape, so its 得 is the light linking de, and not the dé of attaining that the character had two segments back in 只聽得.
"It is assuredly some evil thing. I shall go and take a look."
斷乎 is an emphatic assuredly. 看看 is a doubled verb — have a look — and keeps full tones at both syllables, unlike the doubled address terms, whose second syllable goes light.
Pilgrim reasons in three steps and the middle one is the interesting one. Something is strange; it is the middle of the night and this is the top of a sealed pagoda; therefore whatever is talking up there is not a person. That inference from the hour and the place is precisely what the court failed to make in three years.
Then he goes to look, which is the gesture the chapter keeps repeating. The monks could not look, the officials would not, the king did not. Tripitaka came to sweep in order to look. And Pilgrim, four characters after saying it must be something evil, goes up to check.